Latest Ellaisms

So I have not been doing a great job with the blogging challenge. However, I have been posting more this month than I have in a long time, so I would call that a success.

Today is Aubrey's 11 monthiversary. Yes, I made that word up. I like it and I'm going to keep using it! I should be posting about her and showing a picture of her in her 11 month decal ready to take on the world. However, my camera broke last week and I am going to have to take a picture on Friday when my new one comes. What I will tell you is that she took her first steps today! BIG GIRL! I wish I could slow down time, but it is also so wonderful to see her grow and change.

So, since I will be posting this weekend on Aubrey I will post today on Ella. It's been quite awhile since I shared Ellaisms. She still says funny things, but now it is a lot less about saying the wrong words and more about her creativity.

This girl knows how to work the system. She wanted to stay up late and watch a movie. When I told her no, she said, "Mommy, we could watch Harry Potter and snuggle on the bed and eat popcorn." If it were her dad she would have said "Daddy, we could watch Lord of the Rings and hang out and eat popcorn." It got a good laugh and she gets an "A" for effort, but didn't work as she planned. She had to go to bed without watching a movie.

Tonight was one of her funnier moments in a long time. I am in the Christmas Concert at my church and our director gave us each a CD to practice with. Daddy had to work late tonight so we took dinner to him and drove home to get in bed somewhere close (not really) to bedtime. I turned the CD on and started singing along. All of a sudden I hear howling coming from the back seat. I turned around and looked at Ella and she said "Puppy wants to sing along too!" We spent the next 20 minutes "singing" together. It was so sweet and so funny at the same time. I love her imagination!

She is such an interesting combination of Jimmie and me. She is very creative and imaginative, but at the same time very inquisitive and analytical. She will say "Tell me everything that you know about..." and quiz you about it when you are finished. The next moment though, she will be immersed into some other world and expect you to play along. If she is playing a repeat character I can usually jump right in and play along. Sometimes though, she starts pretending and I either don't recognize her characters or am too distracted to remember them. This causes chaos and frustration for both of us. I always have to be on my game with her. She is a firecracker! This fantasy can be very confusing for her very sweet, very literal friend Luke. He says "Ella, are you pretending?" and she looks at him straight faced and says "No, I'm really...(Ariel, Ron Weasley, Rapunzel)." I then have to turn to him and whisper "She is pretending". He then grins and plays along too. They are very good for each other! She makes him think outside the box and he grounds her. It's a win-win :)

She is loving preschool and has the two most amazing teachers! You can tell that they love their job and the kids. Preschool teachers do not get paid enough! Anyway, not surprisingly she just fit right into preschool. She goes to the preschool at our church and it is the perfect fit for her. It has just the right balance of exploration and creative play. She is meeting other kids her age and is learning to compromise and play with others. Her teachers had wonderful and kind things to say about her. Many of her strengths are mentioned above. They said she loves to do any activity as long as she can do it with her friends. That's my girl :) She does have some trouble playing when things don't go exactly as she expects them to or when she thinks that someone is wrong. That's Jimmie's girl :)

Both of our girls require an enormous amount of physical and emotional energy, but man, I wouldn't change them for anything. I love their fun and spunky personalities. Jimmie and I just keep saying that we are excited to see how these strong personalities are going to grow with them. I hope that we can continue to nurture Ella's creativity AND her inquisitive nature. I spent much of my life feeling very different from those around me. I want Ella to know that that's ok. I don't want her to change for the people around her. Hopefully we can help her become the best Ella she can be. It's sure going to be a fun ride!

I must leave you with this because I laughed out loud when I saw this on my camera. This picture has been floating around Pinterest. http://cynthiawc.posterous.com/what-i-feel-like-when-i-run-what-i-really-loo

I always laugh out loud when I see it, so imagine my delight when I found this on my camera: