Miss Elise

Elise is now 14 months old. That makes me the Mama of two toddlers! Yowza! She's growing and learning and cracking us all up so regularly these days that it's really tough to keep up.

Pillow fort!



Some highlights (other than being ridiculously adorable):

- She's full on walking now, although she still likes a finger to hold on to. She can stand up on her own (without using an object to pull herself up) and can maneuver the small step between the dining room and kitchen, which is a well known toddler trip up.
- She knows the signs for 'bath', 'all done', 'thank you', 'food', 'more', 'fish', and has a few signs that she's made up herself. The other day she made the sign for fish and then the sign for food and beamed when I gave her the goldfish cracker she desired. So smart!
- She says 'mama', 'papa/dada', 'sister' (sistauw), 'sadie', 'no', 'sit', 'hello' (hewo), 'uh oh', 'sorry' (sawee), 'turtle' (dirtul), and can repeat phenetically just about anything you say to her.
- She makes the animal sounds for dog, cat, cow, owl, and her favorite, duck. Today in the car she kept quacking to a piece they were doing on Huck Finn. Get it? Huck? Duck? Too cute.
- She is a dance machine, just like her big sister, and throws out some seriously killer moves that make us all laugh, but deep down we're just wishing we were as cool as she is.
- She understands simple commands, like "put X in the bucket", or "bring Mama the X". Smarty pants.
- She loves books, which makes me super happy. Her favorites right now are In the Night Kitchen, Olivia, Big Sister Little Sister, 10 Little Rubber Ducks, Skippyjon Jones, and anything her sister is reading.

We had to rearrange the furniture so that she could have full access to the windows in the living room - she is definitely an outdoorsy little thing.



I'm already seeing little bits of Elise's sassy toddler personality. She wants what she wants and doesn't back down easily, much to Nora's chagrin. And when she's pissed she screeches and swats or sometimes melts to the ground in a dramatic sob that passes as quickly as it came and she's back to her happy busy self.


Climbing...always climbing.


She makes me smile so many times every day I can't even begin to count. The heart swelling that comes from watching that little 4-toothed smile frankenstein-walk over to me for a hug is unbelievable.


And, in Sisterland: Nora seems to have taken the commonly heard "she's so cute I could eat her up"'s and "i just want to pinch those cheeks"'s to heart and often says "She's so cute, I just want to squeeze her!", which is adorable except for the fact that she actually does squeeze her, causing one of the aforementioned dramatic floor meltings. Ah, sisters. But mostly, there is much love and lots of laughs.



And sometimes, when Nora is especially good and shares her iPod, Elise politely thanks her by passing out and leaving her big sis to play in peace. :)



I'm impressed you read all the way to the bottom! As a reward, a video: