a story, by ella

1 UPON a time there was a vampire. And he wanted some children. He had a lot of crafts, so he wanted to make a Grab Children Thing. So, he worked hard on it. It worked when he tried it!

The child's name was Franny.

The vampire was not happy with the child because the child was skin-colored like most children. But the vampire was green.

So, the vampire decided to paint the child green to look like himself--and it worked really well. He was happy!

But Franny did not like the vampire and she wanted to escape.

She tried to make a thing but it didn't work because it broke and she was stuck at the vampire's house. She was all alone.

Mrs. Vampire was very nice but she was dead. Franny was very disappointed in that. Nobody wanted to help her because they were looking for her but they didn't know she was at the vampire's house.

But, she saw a little eye-peeking hole and she yelled as loud as she could through it--but nobody heard her.

But, in vampire world, dogs couldn't hear. The eye-peeking hole was really made out of glass but Franny didn't know that it was made out of glass.

So, she asked the vampire if she could go findher parents and the vampire said No! You can't. Franny felt sad.

But, a little puppy wandered into Franny's room. She told the puppy to give her parents a message. So, the puppy put the message in his mouth and ran to Franny's parents' house. The puppy, "Can I come in?" The parents said "No" because they thought the puppy might want to come in to poop and pee in the house. The puppy's name was Julie.

Finally they realized the puppy had a message for them but after being in Julie's mouth the writing was all icky and they couldn't read the message. But the parents asked Julie to take them wherever Franny was. So they followed Julie to the vampire's house. All the vampire's things were green and Franny was painted green too so they couldn't find her. Even here eyes were painted green.

Even after it rained, the paint was stay-able.

Just as the parents were about to leave, they heard a little voice coming from the green walls. They looked again. Franny ran out of her dressing room and then her parents saw her. They said "Franny, what happened to you?" The vampire was so angry. "Give me back my Franny!" The parents said "No!" The vampire said "You have to find a volcano to clean her off."

So the parents looked for a volcano. But Franny was afraid of the hot lava. The parents wanted to do what the vampire told them to do. But the vampire tricked them. Franny didn't want to stay green for the rest of her life and her parents wanted their skin-colored child back so they put her in a bathtub full of tomato juice and all the green paint came off. But, Franny was still not happy with her parents because the vampire had cast a spell on her that Franny would only love the vampire. That was the problem with Franny. But the vampire's spell was so strong.

Only letting Franny go in a volcano would break the spell. But the volcano was in another world. And all the children that had been captured by the vampire were in that world. Frany got in the volcano but it was so hot that now she was hot red. The vampire had tricked them again. By the time they were returning to the real world, it had disappeared. The parents said "Enough! We're trying to find Franny."

The vampire had really just made a robot out of Franny and the real Franny was still back at the vampire's house in the real world.

So the parents saw a ship in the distance. The ship said it would take the parents back to the real world.

But by then Franny was all tied up in a very good knot. Every time the parents tried to touch Franny it felt like hot lava. They didn't know how to get her untied. Only the vampire knew how to get her untied. It's a good thing the parents knew where she was.

The vampire was so tired from all his adventures so he fell asleep. While he was sleeping, the parents found a key that unlocked the door to Franny's room and suddenly the real Franny came out and as she walked away from the vampire's house, her skin changed back to its skin-color and she was safe!

The End

as i become the mother of a 5-year-old...

yesterday, as we picked out elenora's outfit for her birthday party, she said "i think that this one looks like what a 5-year-old would wear... it looks very grown up."

grown up, indeed. 

tonight is the first birthday-eve where ella is not in our house.  we decided it was best for everyone if ella went over to her mamaw's this afternoon and spend the night there.  as i hugged her good night before she got in the car to leave, i said "make sure mamaw sings 'happy birthday to you' in the morning, and 'how old are you now'" and i got all choked up and barely made it back into the house before bursting into tears.  the thought of ella waking up somewhere else on her birthday made me so sad.  it's been tradition for me to walk into her room and sing happy birthday and how old are you now and to record it on camera.  the thought of not being there just really broke me up.

but it was also really important for j. and me to have some down time.  we have been so drained lately and didn't have a lot in the tank today.  he and i ended up going to the beach and taking a really long walk that was much needed. 

4 was a hard age in many ways.  and i don't think it was helped by all of the stresses we've been handed this year with j.'s job changes.  and yet, ella is the love of my life and the joy of our lives.  she makes me laugh and makes me think.  she has the best expressions and is very loving and sweet.  she has grown so much and has learned so much in the past year; i can only imagine what we have to look forward to this coming year.

i love this little family we have, fiercely.

Elenora's 5th Birthday Party

full day school

today when i picked ella up at school she ran towards me with dust and dirt billowing off of her clothing and she threw herself in my arms and looked up at me and said "today was the best day of full-day school ever!"

this was her second day.

we've stepped into a new phase of life.  today was my first day working an 8 hour day since before elenora was born.  it's amazing to not have to think about who is watching her and when i need to rush home so that j. or mom b. can get to work.  it's really freeing, and i'm so excited for all of the things ella gets to do this year.  for instance, next week she gets to do farm chores with the animals.  and today she went ponding.

last week when i dropped her at school for her first day i was a little bit worried about how she would do.  her best friend at school is only there in the afternoons, so i had really been emphasizing to her all of the other children who would be there.  but as soon as we arrived she said "oh, there's my friend!" and ran off to play in the sandbox.  she hardly even looked up when i left. 

and i had taken the day off of work, so i suddenly found myself with 7 hours of whatever i wanted to do! 

can i say that again???  whatever i wanted to do.

i went to the gym and then wandered across the street to chrisotpher's table to order ella's birthday cupcakes (blue frosting with rainbows) and to get a coffee.  then i meandered through the town sipping my coffee and glancing in various stores for party ideas.  then i went grocery shopping.  then i went home and cleaned and did the dishes and vacuumed, and when all that was done i sat and read a book.

it was the ideal day. it made me think "oh this is what it feels like to have no responsibilities!"

(kind of made me excited about kindergarten next year.)

(and, yes, that is this mother's ideal day.)

so this week is the first week where ella is at school full day and i'm at work full day.  last night i found myself packing a lunch and 2 snacks for elenora and also a breakfast and lunch for myself, so i packed a lunch for j. just for good measure.  i have to be so organized.

this saturday is elenora's birthday party, and i really hope it doesn't rain because we have the coolest party planned.  we're meeting all our friends and local family and taking a short hike around Appleton Farm with a treasure map and then ending up at the picnic area where we'll have the cupcakes and rainbow trail mix and rainbow fruit salad.  i got miniature my-little-ponies for all of the kids to find at the end of the treasure hunt and temporary hair color so that elenora can finally have blue and pink hair.  i also got a rainbow of nail polishes, so i think the kids will have a super time.

please don't let it rain!

funny things ella has said in the past 6 months

i can't believe i haven't been writing for so many months.  but i've been using my iphone to jot down all the random things that elenora says that strike me as particularly amusing.

months ago, i was going through all of ella's clothing and piling up the clothes she'd grown out of (she is 42 inches now!) and some of the clothing happened to be underwear.  pink and purple underwear.  with hearts and flowers on them.  i was wondering out loud about what to do with the clothing and ella generously and enthusiastically said "i know! we can give them to Nathan!"

one time i was driving elenora someplace and she said matter-of-factly "Daddy's car is not as fast as yours."  i laughed so hard because, you know, it's really the driver.

one day, again matter-of-factly, elenora said "mommy, there are things for you at PBS.org."

some poignant things elenora has said include her statement one morning: "how do we know who is who when they get older? because they don't look like they do when they are younger."

and also she said, just the other night, "the alphabet is in the words when you talk. the words that you say are made of letters."

at the beginning of the summer, elenora discovered a little green caterpillar at her mamaw's house and the 2 of them put this caterpillar (named Katrina) into a jar with some leaves and water and kept it overnight.  when i arrived at ballet to pick ella up, i found her overnight bag balancing the jar inside of it.  we took Katrina home and elenora was so sweet to it all day until she suddenly lost it in the grass outside of our house.  she started crying and crying saying "Katrina is my best friend!" so a neighbor saw a butterfly and suggested that Katrina had transformed into a butterfly.  elenora wailed in despair "no! first she has to slowly perform a chrysalis!"

last week as we were driving to Ocean City, NJ, for a vacation, we drove through Rutgers campus as crowds of fans were arriving for a football game.  throngs of people were crossing the street in their red shirts, and ella said "there sure are a lot of lifeguards around here."

some words that elenora adorably mispronounces include: "prentzels," "Anne of Cream Gables," "marsket basket," and "inventure" instead of adventure.

the other night as i was cooking dinner, elenora came up from her tub all clean and PJed and she pattered into the living room and turned on the TV and i heard her exclaim "oh good! it's already on HDMI1."

once, when j. was having a hard time zipping up a tricky zipper, he decided to throw his frustration into a "dear jesus, please help me to get this zipper up" prayer.  ella responded with "maybe jesus just wants you to do it yourself."

ella has informed me that stars look like the sun only the sun has a face and stars don't... which, if you think of all the children's book illustrations, you'll realize is true.

we were playing at the castle a few weeks ago and t. created a series of clues for the girls to run around and find. at one point they were having a hard time locating a clue and t. yelled up to rose "You can't see it?" and rose yelled back "yeah".  ella then called down "it's the kind of 'yeah' that means 'no'!"

ocean in march

this has been the mildest winter. no snow and all 40s and 50s. so off to the beach!

Happy St. Patty's Day Elenora!

it's become tradition for me to host traditional st. patrick's day corned beef and cabbage dinner.  this year i got an amazing corned beef from a local farm and baked some irish soda bread and invited the whole clan over.  

after dinner we all headed outside to play baseball.

the meaning of Elenora's name

Elenora as a girl's name is a variant of Eleanor (Greek) and Helen (Greek), and the meaning of Elenora is "sun ray, shining light".

book list

i've started a list of books that elenora has read to me with little help.

1. The Giving Tree
2. Hop on Pop
3. Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What do you see?

any other easy/beginner book recommendations are welcome.

last night we began reading Anne of Green Gables.  i told elenora that it's about a girl with red hair and freckles who is a little bit mischievious and who gets into a lot of trouble and she just got this glint in her eye.

have i said that ella is a jokester?

j. asked her what her favorite foods are the other night, and she said "corn on the cob, with butter, broccoli, with butter, and artichoke, with butter." 

she also loves sweets--and especially chocolate.

we've been on some incredible hikes lately at appleton farm where she has walked miles and miles without complaint of being tired.  it's so nice to have such a big girl.

she brushes her teeth and gives herself a tub.

she plays, recognizably, at least half of both "twinkle twinkle little star" and "mary had a little lamb" on her violin.

last sunday we strollered her to the high school track and all ran around it as a family.  that's maybe one of my favorite things to do because it's active, outdoors, and all-together.  you should see elenora run!  she also likes practicing the long jump.  she goes about a foot and a half.

the difficult things we are dealing with include a bit too much whining and an almost constant demand that somebody pay attention to her and/or do what she says.  i think it's a 4-year-old phase.  we're working on it.  she's much better about not doing these things if she just gets some good quality time with someone.  and she's pretty good about doing her own thing if i'm doing something i need to do--like cook or clean or take care of gracie.  but i never get a few moments to myself to just sit and relax during the day.  of course, i work half of the day and then she's in bed by 6:30, so i don't feel badly about devoting the middle hours to her.  it would be nice to know i could just sit and take a little "self-time" if i needed it, though, without hearing "mommy!"

the day will come when she doesn't need me anymore at all, so i'll just enjoy it while she still wants me around.

my little girl

ella now gives herself her tubby at night.  which is a big help since that's when i'm usually getting in from a play date and need to start on dinner.

but part of me feels a bit sad at the thought of her growing up into this new phase of taking care of herself.  i know it's good...

but

The giving tree

Today Elenora read half of "the giving tree" to me almost all by herself!

vermont trip 2012

elenora and i traveled up to vt to spend some time with a. and family before the twins arrive. the 2 girls were off and running as soon as we got there.  amazing how they can go 8 months without seeing each other and then pick right up as the best of friends.  my coworker said that they are "soul mates passed from generation to generation."  i couldn't have put it into words any better than that.

two little monkeys jumping on the bed...

we tried to let the girls sleep in the same room in naomi's big bed (ella's first sleepover with a friend), but after 40 minutes of shenanigans i was That Mom and separated them.  guess who was up by 5:04 am?  oh, yes, that would be my early bird.

i really got to know little Faith this trip, which was wonderful.

the girls switched dresses for the baby shower, which was their idea, and then they both had pig-tails and matching barrettes and pink sweaters.  

these kids have quite the personalities!

twins?!?  where???!  here is a. at 32 weeks pregnant with identical baby boys!

at the shower i said "ella, would you like to try some punch?" and she said "what is punch?" and i said, "just you wait!" and dished her up a small cup.  she carefully took a sip and then she made the most hilarious face, which i wished i'd caught on camera.  kind of puckered up her mouth and looked shocked and said "woah! that's tart!"  she liked my reaction so much that she tried to replicate it for me:

while a. was opening her gifts, naomi was up helping her mommy, so ella was up helping naomi.  at one point i looked and this is what i saw behind the table:

a. has 2 dogs (and 7 chickens, and almost 6 kids), and these 2 dogs are the sweetest we have met.  elenora just fell in love with little mae.

we couldn't make the trip without going to sugar and spice for a delicious breakfast complete with pumpkin pancakes and maple syrup.  we met up with c. and r. and got to spend time with little Kristin, who is adorable.

on our way home we stopped at the cabot cheese tasting site to sample the goods.  

today as elenora and i were driving home from school, she must have been reflecting on her visit. she told me that she and naomi and noah and luke were "quite a commotion."