A Tale of Two Visits

Riley and Ellie playing Easter Bunny
The past two weekends were pretty busy for the Molloy family, and Ellie had ample opportunity to "work" on her social skills while being both host and guest. First up, our friend Heidi came to visit over President's Day weekend with her two and a half year old daughter Riley (who, for whatever reason Ellie called Brock). The first morning they were here, Elise was not so much a gracious host as she was a territorial tyrant. Everything Riley wanted to play with was suddenly Ellie's favorite toy (even the things she never plays with) and she possessively snatched things from a bewildered Riley who was sweet as could be. You'd think spending three days a week in daycare would make her a better sharer, but I think it must be different when it's your house and your things.

Ellie and Riley, dancing
Luckily that afternoon I found a bag of hand me down toys given to me by a friend a few weeks ago that I hadn't opened yet. When I put these toys out, it seemed to do the trick because Ellie had never seen them before so wasn't feeling possessive of them yet. By Sunday, the two of them were fast friends. They had tons of fun dancing, hiding and playing ring around the rosey for the rest of the weekend. Ellie is still not completely great with playing with other children (she is still on the tail end of the parallel play phase) but Riley was a good sport when Ellie had moments of "I want to play by myself" and all and all (perhaps other than the first morning) it was an awesome visit.
Ellie and Vienna
The next weekend, we headed down to the Eastern Shore of Maryland to visit our friends William and Jennifer, and their three and a half year old daughter Vienna for the weekend. After a lengthy napless car ride, Ellie was still not interested in napping once we got there. There was way too much to see and do! She loved playing with all of Vienna's toys (and Vienna was much better about sharing than Ellie had been the weekend before) and she loved running around in all the different rooms in their house, exploring their spacious backyard and dumping box and after box of toys of the floor. She was having a blast. That was until it hit about 5:00 with still no nap. She (very gently) banged her head on the floor and - BAM - meltdown time.
Ellie and Vienna fake napping
Sure Ellie has had some major meltdowns in her day, but nothing, and I mean nothing, has ever compared to this one. It was by far the King of all meltdowns. She screamed, she cried, she whined...and 30 minutes later she passed out cold on my shoulder. Unfortunately 5:30 is a very awkward time for a toddler that usually goes to bed at 7 to fall asleep. She hadn't had any dinner, and I definitely had visions of her waking up at 3 in the morning ready to roll. A 3am wake up is never fun, but it particularly un-fun when you are visiting someone else's house and waking up an entire other family. That would not be cool. So, I decided to let her sleep for a half an hour, then woke her up to have some dinner. How was I to know that that would be the worst possible thing to do? When I woke her up, she didn't stop crying. All through eating dinner, all through getting ready for bed and laying down in the pack n play. Cry, cry, cry, until she finally fell asleep. Yikes! Poor William and Jennifer must have thought that we have raised a monster.

The next morning, Ellie got up at a normal time and while she did act a little crazy at first, settled into her normal self and she and Vienna had a nice morning playing together outside: she went on a giant trampoline (the stress of which probably took 3-4 years off of my life, but she had a blast) drove around in an electric toy car (you don't see stuff like that in the city!) and went down the slide a thousand times. Despite Major Meltdown 2008, it was a nice visit and Vienna was a great compainion for our little one.

In Loving Memory

Melville Leaf Wolfe
November 25, 1915 - February 27, 2008

Elise is a very loved little girl. Not only does she have two parents that shower her with constant affection, but she also has 4 grandparents that love her to pieces and spoil her rotten. And on top of that, for the first year and a half of her life, she has had the pleasure of knowing and being loved by five great-grandparents. Not many people can say that.

Elise and her Great-Grandfather, "Pop" Wolfe, may not have been in each others lives for very long, but they certainly made a big impression on each other. I will never forget the way Pop watched Elise as she ran around with her boundless energy, and the smile that she brought to his lips. "Pop" was one of the first names Ellie ever said, and was the first person, other than her parents, that she pointed to in a photograph and identified. She picks up her toy phone and "calls" Pop and Nanny more than she calls anyone else.

My grandfather was such a gentle and caring man. Elise was so fortunate to have known him, but she didn't really know the man I knew: the grandfather that has been an important part of my life for more than 30 years. She didn't really know the man that, when he was talking to you, made you feel like you were the only person in the room. She didn't know the man that chuckled at the end of every story he told, making it irresistible for you to chuckle along. Sadly, she is probably too young to even have any memories of him at all. But she will be a lucky girl if she has half as many wonderful memories of her grandfathers as I do of mine.

Ellie-Speak

Elise’s vocabulary is expanding by leaps and bounds every day. It is so fun when she busts out with some new word (like thumb or tower or purple) that makes you scratch your head and say “When did she learn that?”(and why can she say those things and not “yes”, which seems far more simple?) Most of what she says is very clear – there is no mistaking what she’s saying (up, down, bus, no, Elmo, eat, Ernie, Mommy, and dozens and dozens of others…all crystal clear). But when she says some other “words”, you may not realize what she’s trying to say without an interpreter (her mother or father). So in case you randomly run into Elise on the street without her parents, here are some translations of Ellie-Speak:

Yes: Was “aye” but evolved into “dye” and most recently “tye” and now “O’Tay”
Meatball: Mee-maw
Cheerios: Oh’s
Milk – muk
Water – wawa
Ellie: Eh-yee
Uncle Wolfe – oofe
Watch – atch
Noodles – nu-nulls
Oscar: Ah-sheesh
Grover: Bo-ber
The Count – Ah, Ah, Ah
Garage - arage
Cow - Tow
Riley - Brock (or Barack)
Three - free
Uncle Kevin - Ernie (No clue on that one)
Vienna - Enna

Count

We are in the process of teaching Ellie to count. Which is interesting considering that she can't/won't even repeat all of the numbers yet, but whatever. You can't succeed if you don't try! Don't worry - we haven't become those overzealous parents with a stop watch and flash cards drilling our weary child on her times tables. Far from it! But we are very casually working on teaching her to count. And lucky for us, she loves to do things repeatedly. She loves it when we sing the Count to Ten song and she also loves The Count on Sesame Street (who she calls "Ah, Ah, Ah"), so she has lots of exposure and she seems to like the idea of counting if nothing else. She says some numbers and she has connected that some words are numbers. For instance if you pull her back in the swing and say "one, two...", she'll say "three!" in anticipation of something fun happening. And whenever someone counts a series of numbers, Ellie usually responds with "Ah, Ah, Ah!" like The Count does, so she knows what we're doing is counting. Or she relates numbers to The Count, but either way it's all related. (yes, I realize that our child is obsessed with Sesame Street, but hopefully she's actually getting some knowledge out of it!).

She also has a favorite number. If you ask her how many there is of something like, how many buses passed, she will consistently answer "Five". Whether it was one or five or twenty the answer is always five. To everything. Always five.

How old are you? "Five"
What time is it? "Five"
How many meatballs do you want? "Five"

The girl loves her five. It feels like she's gone leaps and bounds since turning one, so it's crazy when you stop to think about all the basic things that she still needs to learn - colors, shapes, numbers, letters...the list goes on and on. Luckily, Marty and I think the process of teaching is fun, and Ellie (so far) seems very receptive to learning so it's only a matter of time. And of course, there's no rush - there aren't any flashcards and stopwatches in her future. At least not until she's 2. (I kid, I kid)

Finally

On Thursday morning, Elise slept in until nearly 7 (a new trend that we love, especially on the weekends!). She said she was hungry (“eat” is usually the first word she says every morning, with “Elmo” coming in at a close second) so I told her I would take her down to get breakfast while Marty packed her bag. This strategy of splitting up is great in theory, but Elise likes it when we all do things together. Whenever one of us takes her somewhere or does something in a different room than the other parent, she always incessantly asks for the missing parent. She likes all three of us to be together at all times. Which is sort of cute, I suppose, but completely impractical.

Anyway, I started taking Elise down the stairs and she stopped on every step for a good 10 seconds to turn around and remind Daddy that he, too, should be coming down the stairs. Needless to say it took about 3 minutes and 15 “Daddy!” hollers to make it to the living room, and by then, the colorful blocks that were sitting in the corner of the living room thwarted her goal of food and she suddenly had an intense need to play (she gets easily distracted).

A few minutes later Marty started coming down the stairs and she looked up at him as he approached and stood up. “Daddy!” she said with excitement, and when he reached the bottom of the stairs, she shakes her head and says “Finally!”