Elise Update

I can't believe Elise's 3rd birthday is coming up. We have less than a month until her birthday. It is crazy! In so many ways she seems big and grown up and in other ways she still seems like a baby. She is so hilarious and still rarely walks. When she's getting from one place to another it's usually either running, hopping, or galloping. She has so much energy and so much joy bottled up into her tiny, little body! I love watching her curly hair bounce as she hops, runs, or gallops along. I also love seeing her little legs dangling off the tall toilet. She is so determined to do everything herself and doesn't want me to help her get up, doing it herself! She is Miss Independence but still loves to snuggle. She likes to rock before naptime and bedtime and often holds my hand as she sits in my lap. When she's sitting on the couch with Carter to watch tv, she's always right up against him. If he moves, she moves along with him. She also prefers to sit in someone's lap to eat but has been doing better about sitting in her own chair at mealtime unless Gma or Oma are around, then all bets are off!

My dad mentioned last time they visited she was easier for him to understand. I've been able to understand pretty much everything she says for a while now but after he said that, I did notice I'm having to translate for her while out in public less and less. Sometimes she's really friendly and outgoing and other times she's shy and tries to hide behind me. She tends to do better when she approaches someone versus someone approaching her. She'll run up to random strangers to tell them, "I have a kitty!" I laugh so hard because they assume we have a new cat and I get to tell them that our "kitty" is actually around 12 years old. She also tells people she has a Carty which she still uses to mean brother and that he's at school when he isn't with us. She's picked up saying "Nananana booboo," I'm thinking maybe from watching PJ Masks. I don't think she quite understands what it means because she yells it out at times when it doesn't really make sense. I think she just likes the way it sounds. She also likes to say PJ Pesks and Toodle-oo (which she picked up from Boss Baby). I laugh every time she yells toodle-oo so I doubt that's going anywhere anytime soon.

She loves to play PJ Masks and when she's Owlette she runs around yelling, "Flap, flap, flap!" She loves playing with the Paw Patrol Headquarters she and Carter got for Christmas. I love listening to her play. She always makes the dogs bark and will do it differently than she does when she plays dogs. It sounds more like, "Aroo-roo-roo," with Paw Patrol. She really loves to swing and has started to figure out how to move her legs to make herself go. Sometimes she does her legs and other times she rocks her body. When she wants pushed she'll yell, "higher!" If I'm pushing her from the front and she wants me behind her, she'll tell me, "Push my booty!" She'll tell me, "Hold here and hold here," pointing to the two chains of the swing because she prefers for me to pull her back and then let go rather than just pushing her. Then she'll swing for a while until it starts to slow and she wants me to do it again. She never really wants me to push her, it's always pulling her back and letting go. For whatever reason she loves the way her Uncie J pushes her in the swing, he is allowed to actually push her repeatedly and if I'm around she'll tell me, "No, Uncie J!"

 

Elise loves to color and is doing a little better about getting caps on markers. She sometimes puts them back on and doesn't run off through the house with them anymore. Usually I can find the caps laying around where she was coloring. Whenever she finishes a picture she always wants to either crumple it up in a ball or roll it up to give it to someone. When she makes pictures for someone I try to convince her not to crumple them or roll them so they can stay flat and nice, but she has none of it. She really likes to draw circles and is starting to branch out to drawing more straight lines and has made designs that look like staircases. She still loves to cut and is incredibly good at it! We were playing school the other day and she was so proud she knows shape names. We're still working on color names. She has blue down for sure every time and gets so excited to find blue things. It cracks me up that of all the colors, that's the one she knows so well. Maybe because her eyes are blue and people are always commenting on them.

When it comes to naptime she sometimes tries to fight being taken to her room. When she doesn't want to go she will wiggle and thrash around, almost causing me to drop her. On Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays when Carter is at school I try to get her down for a nap as close to noon as possible. It's hard because she's really not ready for a nap until 1:00 typically. Usually she's down by 12:15 on those days, 12:30 at the latest. Then I have to wake her up to pick Carter up at school. Sometimes I'm able to pick her up and carry her to the car without her waking up. On those days she'll sleep all the way there to pick him up and then all the way back home. I've noticed that on days when I have to wake her up to pick Carter up she has a harder time falling asleep at night, most likely because she's overtired. On nights when she's gotten to sleep until she wakes up on her own, she goes right to bed and doesn't get up at all. At bedtime Ty carries the kids to bed in fun ways and Elise's favorite is when she sits in her craft table chair and he picks the chair up and carries her as she sits in it. She asks for that most nights. On nights when she's struggling to fall asleep, she'll come out of her room multiple times. When we lay her back down and tell her not to get up again, she'll ask, "What's gonna happen?" When I tell her I won't cover her back up and she'll have to cover herself up, she cries. When Ty tells her he'll spank her, she makes a scared face while making a silly noise. It's so funny.

Sister has been full-on potty trained for a while. Then she went through a string of a bunch of days where she pooped her pants. On Sunday I was so proud because she pooped on the toilet at Sunday School all by herself and then again at a birthday party. But then on Monday she pooped her pants at the zoo. When she poops on the toilet she very adamantly wants to wipe herself but if she does she ends up with terrible streaks in her underwear. I think the pooping issue may be related to wiping. She wants to do it herself but when she does she ends up with dirty undies and an itchy booty. But you'd think me cleaning her up after she poops her pants would be worse than me wiping her. Who knows what's going on in her mind!

Elise is so darn sweet to Carter and will share nearly everything with him. She went on a special daddy date with Ty one Saturday. He took her to Starbucks because he had a gift card and she wanted to get a cake pop for Carter. She is always thinking of him and just loves him so much! When she finds coins in the parking lot or on the sidewalk she gets so excited to give them to Carter for his piggy bank. Carter likes to teach her and she is so sweet and will sit with him listening and practicing. He gets so excited when he teaches her something new. She can count up to 4 and he loves having her count for him so he can tell her what a good job she is doing.

Something random we discovered recently is that Elise loves bell peppers. We've had them in food before and she has been hit or miss with them. Aldi had them on special so we got them and I cut them up for our lunches. She loves them and will just chomp away at them. One day she even ate peppers before touching her mac and cheese and mac and cheese is a treat I rarely give her at lunchtime! She's gotten really sweet with Harper and I love watching her pet and kiss her. She can ride her bike but prefers for me to do the steering with the tall handles. When she rides her bike to the park or the library, if I stop pushing, she'll look back at me and yell, "Hey!"

I sure love my sweet girl and am looking forward to celebrating her on her 3rd birthday. At times I can't believe she is already 3 and at other times it seems weird remembering our lives without her here! She is such a welcome and wonderful addition to our family! I am so glad I get to be her momma and I look forward to everything this next year has in store!