23 Months Old

Oh, our little bug... I can't believe it's the last monthly birthday set we'll take. As you can see, Ellison continues to be a little worm for her b-day photos. We're surprised over time at how much she's starting to become a ham for the camera. We always just thought it was her personality that made her stop whatever she was doing when camera came out. Lately, though, this girl has been trying to perform! She has a funny fake smile, and does all these silly things for the camera now. And 2 nights ago, when I got out the video camera, this girl performed every song in her repertoire!

Speaking of, Ellison has shocked the pants off us (OK, so that's likely a bad visual for all of you) the last couple weeks. She does about 4 complete lines in a row of a song now! It is the most precious thing! Her fave songs to sing are: "Happy Birthday to You", "Rock-A-Bye Baby", "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star", and "ABC's".

WARNING: STOP READING THE REST OF THIS POST IF PARENTAL BRAGGING MAKES YOU FEEL HOMICIDAL TOWARD ME. I'm simply documenting...
I've said it before (but I'm an obnoxious parent), but her speech has just continued taking off this last month. Everywhere we go, people comment on how well she speaks. They're dumbfounded at the nursery that she tells them when she needs her diaper changed. (Yes, I'm still resisting potty training). Even the pediatrician today said her speech is incredible (as Ellison kept reminding her to "check the ears").

Ellison still loves doing anything art-related. Our mouths were letting flies in a couple times this past week when we saw Ellison color very slowly & intently - she colored Barbie's hair and arm near-perfectly, staying in the lines. She likes to draw "happy faces" all by herself - complete with eyes, nose, & mouth. And after having me write and spell "Ellison Soto" out about 10 times a day per her request, she now can spell and write part of her name (the l, l, i).

Ellison is starting to enjoy numbers, letters, and shapes even more. She points some of them out in many places. A couple nights ago when she was performing for the video camera after the vocal ensemble, we asked her to count, and she started counting in Spanish. Abuela will be so pleased!

Daddy is the greatest again right now. He went on a business trip for the first time since Ellison was an infant, and it was not easy on her, as you may imagine. Now that we're back into a normal routine around here, I feel like scum of the earth again. I wake up to my baby's voice on the monitor repeating, "Daddy! Daddy! Daddy, hold you...". Thinking she'll get over it when she sees her smiling mother (that carried her for almost 10 months, endured bedrest for 6 weeks, and gave birth to her) saying "Good morning, sunshine!", I'm quickly brought back to reality by a frown and continued requests for Daddy. Every evening when he comes home from work, she hears his car pull in the garage and pleas with me to hold her up so she can "knock-knock". She looks through the window of the door to the garage, and keeps knocking on the window with her little mini-fist, grinning ear to ear, watching her daddy until he makes it in the door.

Now, this doesn't say much about my parenting skills according to the AAP, but Ellison loves TV. I can't even name her favorite characters now, because there are so many shows she likes. Foods haven't changed much. One bitty milestone is that she will finally drink juice! She has never liked it, but she actually likes a little now. She has the same typical favorite things to play & do, still stickers and now playing with "dollars" (her fake money). And every day or evening Jonathan or I have to "make a house" or "make a boat" for her to sit in, using a blanket stretched over our legs suspended across to the ottoman. One other thing that is SO silly, she likes her dad to pose an exact certain way when he rocks her. She makes him use his left hand (yes, it makes a difference, people) to hold his hair back and rest his head on the arm of the chair. If he doesn't get it right, she lets him know. So quirky!

OK, I've lost most of you by now; but for those of you still reading this far and wishing I would just land this sucker, here you have it. :)