what does this spell?

this afternoon i took ella ice skating for the first time! we'd picked up some double skates for her at the h.'s last saturday and this morning she said she wanted to go ice skating after her nap. it was a pretty nice day, and the sunshine is staying out later, so i figured it was as good a time as any. there's a large field/parking lot that is flooded over and icy at the fairgrounds. i'd seen kids skating there over the past weeks, so i was hoping it wasn't so warm out that it was a puddle. ella and i arrived and i carried her out to a small patch of grass where i put our skates on us, then i held her hands and helped her skate around. it was such fun. the ice was smoother than i thought it would be, and elenora just loved it. it was quite a workout to keep my balance as well as hers while stooping over a bit to hold her hands. when she got tired i sat her on my coat in the middle of the ice and i took off in circles around her. she loved seeing me race around. i even skated over her and she laughed. by the end of our time there she was taking steps while holding my hands; but keeping her balance pretty good for a few steps at a time.

something that ella's been doing a lot of lately is imagination play. she just this week started pretending to be someone other than herself, and pretending that we were other than ourselves, and making up scenarios about going to someone's house. she likes to pretend that she's frances from the frances series of books. she packs some bags and says "i'm frances" or "i'm going to frances' house."

on sunday morning she packed her bags and said she was running away and then scooted under the dining room table, just like frances in "a sister for frances." and i heard her say "then frances sang a little song to herself" and she started singing.

for brunch on sunday we went to the pancake house. as we waited for breakfast ella colored in a coloring book that they'd brought us. mostly she likes to sort the crayons by color and pick out her favorites. but j. took a crayon and wrote the word S-T-O-P and said "ella, what does this spell?" and ella took one look and said "Stop."

we just could barely believe it.

elenora has also been jumping for real. she actually gets a bit of air under her feet. it's exciting to see so many things happening all at once.

ella wanted to paint her own toe nails last night. here's the result (to which ella exclaimed "aren't they beautiful!")

one of our favorite books lately is "the pied piper's magic," which is a twist on the pied piper story, but it has a very pleasant piper who helps people instead of seeking revenge on them. and it has spelling in it, so elenora likes that too.

i'm almost done with Moby Dick. just 50 pages left. the white whale itself has yet to make an appearance in the book. but i've really enjoyed it. i went to a used bookstore last saturday and got 6 books for myself. so i really have lots of choices. i don't think i will have to buy myself another book for awhile, since i already had about 4 books on the shelf that haven't been read.

ella said today that going to the aquarium and going ice skating were her 2 favorite things.

"want to do them again sometime?" she said. definitely.