My, my, my... Our little Elli has been running around telling everyone, "I'm sree (three)!" while holding up 3 of her tiny little fingers. Can't believe it! Oh, our little bug is getting so old! (What does that make me?!).
I'm slightly devastated that I actually forgot to take a pic of her with our token birthday sign. :-(
Trying to describe my sweet, sassy, comical, pensive, sometimes shy, sometimes yappy little princess at the age of 3 is difficult. There is so much I could write about her, yet I can't quite find the right words.
She is all about dancing, ballet, and princesses. She is every ounce girl. The other day after I picked her up from the church class, she was talking about how she needs some boy toys (after having a conversation with her beloved Ms. Debbie about wanting "that truck" which was a bulldozer). When I asked her if she would like me to get her some boy toys, she said, "Yes, pink ones". :-)
She has a particular liking to the Disney princesses - more Belle than any other - and Tinkerbell. She has the privilege of getting to talk to Tinkerbell on the phone. You see, Ellison refuses to talk on the phone most times, unless you get crafty. So Grandma puts forth a very high-pitched dainty little voice and talks to Ellison as Tinkerbell. I think she caught on, when one day she asked to speak with Peter Pan much to our surprise, so her Grandpapa got on the phone and tried to disguise his voice without much success. Ellison asked Papa what he was doing.
She has started over the last several months doing little nervous things with her hands. She either silkies her La-La between her fingers and thumb, or if she is La-La-less, she rubs her thumbs with her fingers, to where the one looks a little rough. Or she pinches and pulls out the skin above her upper lip. It makes me think how much she internalizes a lot of the things she processes. I once read about Scorpios, "Still waters run deep". That is very evident with Ellison. She gets so excited at the anticipation of knowing she's going to see a friend of ours. Then, the few seconds before we actually see them, she starts saying, "I'm going to be shy. I don't have to say 'hi' because I'm a little bit shy. I'm going to be shy for [insert name]." But after she takes a few minutes to warm up, she is constant activity and chatter, "[Insert name], watch me!"
She loves having her nails and toenails painted, or nail tattoos in place. She is still obsessed with dresses, and particular ones at that. It's a challenge to keep her in pants for an entire day. Well, really, it just never happens. If she is dressed in pants, she likes to have them off for naptime, and then just never wants them back on again. Daddy comes home to her many a day with panties on, or the same dresses over and over. She has even started wanting to wear her pj's all day - it has brought about lots of fussing. She also loves to play dress-up with princess or Tinkerbell outfits. Her shoe fettish is still in overdrive. She notices adult shoes, "Those are beautiful shoes, Mommy" or "I would like some shoes like that, Mom" (seen on a random girl at the park). This past week she has discovered that she likes to mix-and-match shoes. They have to be the same style, but since she has a couple of colors of one style, she likes to wear one of each. She likes to have her favorite (pink, sparkly) barrette in every single day, and lately she's into wearing her headbands, too.
She still has her beloved Teddy and La-La close by, though it thankfully isn't an issue as far as getting her to go without when we go places. She is still a stuffed animal lover, and easily notices when one of the 7 are missing from her crib at night. She quickly hollers for us to come in and will say, "I can't find my Lenny!" (gasp!). Seriously, how could you tell he was missing out of your herd in the dark?!
She loves to help cook and bake, and sometimes do chores.
She's SOOOOOO independent now!!! EVERYTHING is "I want to do it all by myself". She even takes herself to the potty all by herself and can do it all, all by herself. Most times we still help her out unless she's insistent, but while she's doing her thing on the potty, she now wants privacy. She tells us, "Could you go out? I'll tell you if I need help. Go out and you guys talk. Could you go out and talk?", and many times we have to close the door behind us. In a public restroom stall, I've had to start turning my back to her while she's trying to go. Her preschool teacher told me a couple of months ago that she wants to go potty all by herself.
We have still been unsuccessful in getting her to want to sleep in a big girl bed. We haven't pushed it, but when we bring it up she gets a frown and says, "But I want my crib." But we have plans... We'll see if they work soon...
One thing we have noticed about Ellison is that she's very laid back when it comes to playing with other children. To the point where we're actually trying to get her to speak up for herself a little more. I know, she's only 3, but right now she's a little doormat. We're working on it - I suppose she can't help that she doesn't have siblings or cousins around, so she just hasn't had to deal with it much. School is good for this.
Speaking of school, Ellison does great with school. She tells me little stories of the other kids sometimes, and other times she's completely mute. There have only been 2 times that she's said she doesn't want to go to school when I've pulled up to the school, but she has never fussed or cried. I'm in love with her little art projects, songs, and prayers that she's learned.
She's definitely into pretend play now. Loves playing "pizza place" using her cash register, "Ruby Robot" (where we have to talk in robot voices), "twins", kitchen, house, and "restaurant people". We played 'restaurant people' the other evening for dinner at her little table. When it was my turn to serve her, she asked, "Restaurant people, where is your bathroom?". When I started to tell her to come so I could take her potty, she quickly corrected me, "No! Tell me where it is." She made me explain in a my "restaurant people" voice, that "it's down the hall and to the left", for which she responded, "Thanks, restaurant people!". When she's finished pretending, she tells me, "Now you're back to Mommy." She like to play "fishing", too - she's the fish and I throw a pretend line to her, then she catches it with her mouth, and I start "reeling" her in. Such a little nut. ;-)
She likes to play games - especially Candyland. She throws her hands up exclaiming, "I wonned! I wonned!". And she adores doing puzzles - she does so good with them!
She loves her some lipstick (she has about 20), and by the time she's done with it her mouth looks like a candle.
Every single morning the very first thing she says is, "I'm hungry," irregardless of whether or not it's true, and she quickly decompensates if you don't get her some milk and some cereal. She's SO not a morning person. Even from naps, it's hard for her to wake up, and you have to ease her back into the awake-world, or else we all end up miserable. The only times she wakes up completely happy are when Mommy and Daddy are both home when she wakes.
She tries to speak a little Spanish, which cracks us up, because it's complete jibberish.
Her fave foods are anything that she constitutes as a "treat", and she still loves pasta, anything sweet (I get blamed for this), cheese, milk, blueberries, and "chicken meat" or "ham meat", which are specifically cold cuts. Thankfully, she eats good veggies and fruits, but when it comes to meat, so won't even TRY it unless it's her cold cuts, and they have to be rolled up. There are so many foods she used to eat that she simply refuses to try again now. I feel like we rotate through the same foods daily. It gets so old!
She's still taking a nap in the afternoon, and I'm dreading the days ahead when it goes away. She sleeps pretty well at night, though she goes through cycles if there's a change like Daddy being gone. Going to bed is a chore, and a very long drawn-out process. By the time she takes a bath, brushes teeth, dries her hair, gets jammies on, reads a book, prays, sings, rocks, calls for us 536 times, it feels exhausting. We need to start the process by 2pm to get her to sleep by 8pm. Another little bedtime quirk, is that she has to have tissues under her pink pillow (the one next to her) every night. She makes sure she has at least one every night after she requests that we bring her a drink and blow her nose (even if it's not running). Anything to stall, I tell ya!
Though Ellison likes some TV shows and a couple of movies in particular (she just discovered the new Tinkerbell movie and the Little Mermaid, and interestingly she was pretty attached to a real Russian ballerina documentary), she's not as into TV as she has been in the past, which is good. She'll watch it if it's on, but she likes a variety of shows now, and doesn't really ask for it. Even in the car, she used to ask for the DVD player the second we were leaving the garage, but most of our trips around town are DVD-less now.
For her 3 year check-up, Ellison weighed in at 28 lbs, and is 36 1/2 inches; both are in the 50th percentile. Everything is looking A-OK. I still cringe when I think of how her health status could have been at this point had the diabetes thing lasted. So much to celebrate and thank God for on her 3rd birthday...
Well, that's a lot of our little girl. I'm sure I'll be thinking of more Elli-isms to add later. But I better get to keeping up with posts, since that's a struggle lately!
[November 5, 2009]
