changes

yesterday was so lovely outside. 40 degrees feels wonderful. elenora and i spent a good hour tromping around the snow-lined driveway and parking lot.

today it is snowing again, and cold.

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they posted e.'s job at work today, finally. hopefully they will fill her position quickly.

we're really starting to switch over to one nap a day. it's hard for me on the week days, because when she takes two naps i get to see her for three different segments of the day: when i get her up and dress her in the morning, when i come home from work and play with her before her nap, and after her nap until bedtime. i've loved having so much time with her. with the new schedule, i have to get out earlier to work in order to see her at all before her one nap...so that means less time with her in the mornings. then i only get about 15 minutes if i'm lucky after i get home from work and before her nap. only my late afternoon playtime is uninterrupted.

i miss her already!

this morning i got up and took my shower and got dressed and put my makeup on before getting her up. usually i get her up first thing and have to split my attentions between her and getting ready (j. helps, but he's hard to drag out of bed, and i usually end up helping him at least a little bit). while this morning worked great for getting me out the door 20-35 minutes earlier than usual, i did miss out on some of that time together. however, j. decided to give her a morning nap today, so when i got home i had a lot of fun playing with her. but now she's in her crib playing...which is typical on days when she takes a morning nap. she rarely sleeps anymore during her afternoon nap-time if she takes even a short nap in the morning...which is why we're switching to one nap. (when we give her just the one nap, she sleeps for about 2-3 hours straight.)

but i miss that middle of the day playtime.

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on the weekends the one nap is perfect...allowing us to sleep in until 8 am and then giving us time for an outing before noon. saturday brunch is becoming a tradition.

elenora almost kind of said a sentence yesterday. after i got her up from her nap, she dropped her "magic baton" on the ground and i said "say, 'i dropped it'" and she started saying "dropped." and then later, after her tubby, she dropped her toy horse and i said "say, 'i dropped it'" and i swear she said what very nearly sounded like "i dropped it!" and she was so pleased about it, too.
on saturday i got a canvas storage container to hold some toys in the living room. i've placed all the stuffed animals in it. but it's becoming a favorite toy of her's. she likes to dump out all of the animals and then climb into the box and have me hand them to her. she arranges her friends around her in the box (or throws them out of it, alternately). she gets so excited about getting in the "box! box! box!"

she's learned her colors down to black, brown and grey. she really loves naming colors on everything...her food, her books, her toys, her clothes...

just the last two days she is more interested in trying to climb up on the chair in our living room. it makes me nervous, but i'm also glad she's doing that now, since it's one of the things the books say they should be doing.

we're reading books with a lot of words lately. she seems to be really interested in books like "Little Bear" and "Blueberries for Sal" and "Frog and Toad Are Friends." These books all have more words than pictures, so it doesn't seem typical. there are a lot of books that i read her that say they are for "children ages 4-8."

(this whole blog is turning into an epic brag session, and i do apologize to all the readers who just want to roll your eyes... i'm sure everyone's kid does everything elenora does. i just get amazed by it all myself, since just over a year ago she was this little helpless infant who i was just hoping would turn out okay.)