mimi's visit

my mom came to visit us for 5 days. we had a lot of activities planned, but with ella getting the croup the second day of the trip and myself coming down with laryngitis, a few things were set aside. it was a fun visit anyhow.

the first morning, we took my mom to the pancake house for breakfast before heading up to ME to see e. and her baby robyn.

it was so fun to spend time with robyn and to feel like i still know how to interact with a little baby. she's such a cutie, and fell asleep in my arms.

friday morning we took my mom to appleton farms for a little hike.

after ella's nap on friday, we went to crane beach.

s. and aurora came too.

we were supposed to take a weekend trip to VT, but were just too sick to go. by the end of the trip, both my mom and momby had caught laryngitis. and now j. has it.

hopefully by the next time there's a big visit like this we will have a bigger living situation with a guest room.

just lumping along

so we're all sick. ella got croup and i got laryngitis. then my mom and momby got it, too. now j. is sick.

of course, while i have no voice, now is when ella is suddenly into reading the winnie-the-pooh chapter books which include pages without pictures--just text. i can't believe she sits and listens to those stories, but she just loves them. especially the story about the heffalumps. the other day as we strollered to the park, elenora suddenly said "i saw a heffalump this morning." (which is what christopher robin says.) and i said "what was it doing?" and she answered "just lumping along."

naps have been semi-nonexistent during this illness. she has gone 2 days in a row without naps and then she'll take a nap on the third day and then go back to no naps the next day. and since she's not sleeping so good at night due to coughing and congestion, she is so overtired at night that she wakes up an hour after she falls asleep and just howls with her eyes closed. the poor darling girl! it's so sad.

but for the most part she's had a really good attitude during the day and her energy has been up. we've been going to the park a lot because of a surge in warmer weather, and she loves climbing up the ladders and the climbing walls and sliding down the fastest and the tallest slides.

i'm reading 100 years of solitude, now. i just finished love in the time of cholera, which really spoke to me as only a good work of literature can.

i keep thinking...

yesterday in the car we passed by a young girl who was taking her pony out for a walk on the sidewalk as if it was a puppy. as we passed by i said "that's a pony! it's little." i meant that it was little compared to a horse... but ella thought about it for a moment and then said with a chuckle in her voice "i keep thinking that it is very big! i do!" it made me laugh so hard, because i knew as i said it that ponies are only relatively little, and that to her it probably seems big, but i didn't know if she would catch me on it.

then she asked me to put on some of her music, and the first song that came on was "ride-oh, ride-oh, ride-oh, upon a horse astride-oh." and she said "i think this song is making me laugh!" and she laughed and laughed and laughed. then she told me that gloria was telling her jokes and she was laughing even more.

we stopped by the park on the way home. she said that gloria and ella and mrs. ella and thelma were all with us. i asked her how many girls there were now and she thought about it for a moment and said "five."

she sat upon a spin-y seat and was turning and turning, and then she said that gloria and ella were on the other spin-y seat. but then a little boy came over and climbed on the other spin-y seat and i could see her getting ready to protest and then she quickly "grabbed" ella and gloria off of the other spin-y seat and said they were now going to swing on the red swing. then when she wasn't looking a child came by and pushed the red swing and so i pointed to the empty red swing as it went back and forth and i said "see? the girls are swinging!" and she got such a happy look on her face.

today before her nap, we took a walk around the block in the sunshine. she said that she was holding gloria's and thelma's hands and that ella and her new mother and her old mother were also with us. i asked who i was and she said "mrs. bryn" and i said "okay, as long as your new mother and your old mother do all the dishes for me..." and she said that her "new father and old father are home cleaning the house" and i laughed and said that that works out great for me.

oh, if only.

spring (at least for the moment)

this past weekend was gorgeous with weather in the 50s. so i took elenora to appleton farm for a little hike. it wasn't as muddy as i had thought it might be. mostly because we haven't really had a lot of rain or snow lately.

i told her i used to pretend these pine needles were brooms and showed her how to brush them on the ground. she liked that.

here's my little gatherer-of-small-things. we found what might be beech nuts or something that were fun to gather and even more fun to throw into a stream we came alongside of because the shells floated like little boats.

i was able to show her what burrs are and how they stick to things in order to spread seeds.

here we are, coming up to the stream. it was so clear and beautiful.

when i was looking for something else for ella to throw into the stream, i saw what i thought was a dead turtle. i asked elenora if she would like to see a dead turtle, and she said "yes" without hesitation, so i timidly pushed its shell with a stick and it started to move. i picked it up and held it for ella to see, and she thought it was adorable. she even held it gently in her hands.

when we tossed various things into the stream, i asked ella to predict whether they would float or sink (the beech nuts, a stick, a pine cone, and a rock) and she guessed right on all of them.

imagination makes it happen

elenora's imagination has just blossomed these past few weeks. we are up to at least 3-4 imaginary friends now. she still insists that she is frances ("i'm a badger.") and now there's ella, gloria, and mrs. ella. all of who are doing various things at various times. there is also her "new mother" and her "old mother," and her "new father" and her "old father." j. and i get commentary on who is doing what at different times of the day. if ella and i are out for a walk, she will tell me where gloria and ella and mrs. ella are. sometimes i have to carry one or both of them on our walks. sometimes they are back home with her "old father." yesterday j. and i took elenora to a park in manchester by the sea and she informed us that her old father was at work and her new mother was at home playing a memory game with gloria.

she's also using her toys in very imaginative ways. we've had elaborate pretend play using things like her toy dishes and toy food. and she is very sweet with her stuffed animals and dolls.

here is a photo of a pretend meal she made with toast with honey and butter and tea.

(i love that she thinks to get the coasters to put under the glasses!)

notice that she says "and i think i need a little cake on my toast."

here she is with her dolly hannah in her high chair. she was feeding hannah a whole dinner.

afternoon painting with aurora

s. and aurora came over to play and the girls ended up painting for much of the time.

aurora started painting her hand.

so ella copied her.

then aurora moved on to the back of her hand... and eventually her whole arm and her chin!

s. read the girls "a birthday for frances".

opposites

elenora has figured out what opposites are. didn't take her very long. we were in the bathroom and i was waiting for her to potty, so i decided to give a brief explanation about what opposites were and then i listed a few examples. then i said "the opposite of up is..." and she said "down." i couldn't believe she'd gotten it just like that! so i said "the opposite of good is..." and she said "naughty." and i said "the opposite of in is..." and she said "out."

now it's a fun little game for us to play.

she's been more "two" lately. which has been interesting to deal with. nothing that a 2-minute time out hasn't nipped in the bud. but it's definitely a lot more of ella asserting her own will and saying things like "no!" and "not right now!"