Constant Change

It still amazes me, even after of more than a year of experiencing it, how much your child can change in a matter of days (even hours!). Last week, Elise had one tooth. This week she has three! Last week she was completely bald on the top of her head. This week she actually has some strands of hair starting to grow! She is slowly but surely starting to look less like a baby and more like a toddler every day.

It's not just the physical aspects either. Everyday, Elise is learning and doing new things that totally blow my mind. She is still not saying very much -mama, dada, hi, hello, bye and nana(for banana) - but the range of things that she understands is incredible. When I say, let's read a book, she goes and gets one and brings it to me. If I say let's read the fish book, she goes and gets the book with a fish on it. When I say where's mommy's nose, she grabs my nose. When I say give mommy a kiss, she kisses me (this is by far the cutest thing of all time and she will give a slobbery open mouth kiss - she can't quite pucker yet - to just about anything when directed to do so). So basically, she is really good at following directions (when it is something she wants to do. She understands "no" but doesn't like to listen to that direction)

She is starting to get other concepts as well. Last week, her Opa laid down on her Dora couch and started fake snoring, pretending to be asleep. Seeing this, Ellie went and got her Elephant that she sleeps everyday for naps and bedtime, and took it over to him for him to have while he was sleeping! When we tell her we're going to go outside, she goes and gets her shoes and tries to put them on (unsuccessfully) or hands them to one of us. If we just put her shoes on without saying we're going anywhere, she runs over to the door after her shoes are on, knowing that's what's happening next.

She is not good at going down stairs yet. She wants to walk down stairs holding a railing or a hand, but she is still a little too small for that. She flat out refuses to crawl down backwards, something we've been trying to teach her for five months. But when she gets to an edge (a step or sandbox edge or something) if we say "stop" she will stop and wait for one of us to help her down. This is a huge improvement over her previous "have no fear" tumbling.

She has also become our little helper. She loves picking up the magnolia flower buds from the yard and throwing them in the trashcan (little does she know she will hate this chore, that will inevitably be hers, in a few years). She has also gotten very good at throwing clothes into the dryer when I hand them to her one at a time. This is not surprising though because she absolutely loves throwing things. She has a shockingly good arm on her as well!

Every single day she does new things that make us realize that she is aware of what's going on and that while she still can't say much, she has her own way of communicating with us. It makes everyday exciting for us, as her parents, because we wake up every morning wondering what new thing she'll do today.