Ellie

Ellie has decided that it's time to identify colors . . . something that for a long time she thought was a bogus waste time. Questions like "Ellie, what color is Elmo?" was met with a dramatic eye roll and a sigh. Like, "Why are you asking me such stupid questions and wasting all of our time?!" Then, suddenly, about a week ago, everything became it's color. The pink pen is no longer called a pen, it's called "Mink!" (Or, pink, if Ellie used 'p' sounds when she said the word 'pink'.) Favorite toys are now just referred to as 'Lellow' or 'Mink' or 'Pupple' or 'Gween'. It's funny, 'cause I totally remember this stage of Annie's, where all nouns were just referred to by their color for a couple weeks. And it's fun to see Ellie do the same thing.

Ellie's talking more and more. I think we're achieving actual sentences. Or at least condensed knock knock jokes.
She rattles this one off quickly, like it's one big word, "MamaknockknockwhoderMOO!" [followed by hysterical laughter].
This is Ellie's version of Annie's favorite joke right now:
Knock knock.
Who's there?
Interrupting cow.
Interrupting c . . .
MOOOOOO! (Said to interrupt the other person, obviously.) :-)

She's very into ages and numbers. Anytime she hears the word 'two' she jumps up and shouts "Lala! Lala! Lala!" (Lala and Lalee being her two versions of her own name.) "Yep," we assure her, "we know, you're two." This can be anywhere she hears it . . . like at Church they're all, "Turn to hymn two-thirty-four," and Ellie's all, "Lala! Lala! Lala two! Lala two!" This morning she told me that she was two, Annie was four, then held up her hands, cocked her head to the side and asked, "Doh doh?" "Uncle Cody is nineteen," I answered (rounding up by a month or two). To which she happily danced around for the next twenty minutes singing, "Lalee two, An-nie four, Doh-doh (Uncle Cody) nine-teen!"

Ellie seems increasingly excited about the baby coming, and likes to point out my large stomach to people and tell them the baby, or 'Eye-ik', is there. It'll be interesting to see how much the reality of a new brother meshes with whatever she's thinking is gonna happen in her little two year old head. Annie transitioned amazingly to having a baby come home. She was so excited and sweet and nurturing and just completely ready to be the 'big sister' (It's hard for me to even imagine at this point that Annie was actually over a month younger when Ellie came home then Ellie is right now.) Ellie is a very, very different two year old than Annie was, and I'm a little more nervous this go around. :-) Ellie is just much more 'the baby'. Annie was so independent and wanted to be in charge and grown up and 'big' at this point. Ellie wants to be the baby, and doesn't play independently as well or as long as Annie did at this point. I think she'll feel more threatened by a new baby than Annie ever did. If you'd asked me years ago, I would've assumed it'd be a bigger transition from only child to having a sibling for Annie than it is for Ellie to just add another sibling to the mix, but I'm not so sure about that now. :-) We'll have to wait and see . . .