The Ella & Lily Report

I thought for this week I would give a more indepth update on the girls. It's a lovely Friday again. Ella is off at Jenn's and Lily (get this!) is taking her morning nap in the crib! And for the second day in a row! I decided yesterday to finally clean out all the stuff we've just been piling up in the crib. I hung her Baby Neptune on the side. Then I put her in there fully awake to see what her reaction was. She loved the Baby Neptune and she seemed happy in there. So, when it was naptime, I gave her her bottle in there and she fell asleep and slept there for two hours! The new challenge now, is to keep Ella out of the room while Lily is sleeping. It worked pretty well yesterday. I just kept her entertained in the living room. The only issue is that now, it's a little tougher to get Ella to nap when I want, I may have to push her naptime back to accommodate Lily's new napping home. But it's so nice to not have her sleeping in the swing for once! And off in another room so I don't have to worry about waking her up while I go about my day.

Lily is also rolling over from back to tummy very consistently and even went back on to her back the other day. I know its very little time before she figures out how to roll to where she wants to go. She even started scrunching her butt up in the air this morning when she was on her belly, like she wanted to try and crawl! She just can't wait to keep up with Ella. She is also enjoying the Farm (our exersaucer has a farm theme). She is grabbing at all the toys I lay in front of her and she is almost grabbing at the toys on the Farm.

She goes to her four-month doctor appointment on Tues. Feb. 7th so I'll be sure to post an update about her height & weight progress.

Now, Miss Ella. Hard to believe she'll be 2 1/2 this Sunday. Although sometimes it seems like she's 2 going on 5! I cleaned out the wardrobe in our living room, which used to be home to my desk. In recent months, it had become a refuge for toys and random things I didn't know what else to do with. So now it is Ella's toy closet in the living room. She gets to play with one toy at a time and has to pick up the first toy before she gets to play with the next. She is very good at obeying this rule and even starts picking up the first toy before I have to ask her!!

She is actually trying to stick the stickers in her books in the proper places in the book, as opposed to sticking them all in one big blob on one page. I see this as an improvement! She is also trying to color the objects on the page in her coloring books instead of just scribbling on the whole page.

She loves the television show "Little Einsteins" on the Disney channel. I have to say as a parent, this is one of the greatest shows you can let your toddler watch (if you let your kid watch tv--Sidebar: I know this is a very touchy subject among parents out there. Someone in my mom's group posted a question about tv and babies and it received 45 different posts about it. Generally, our comments receive around 5 posts!). Anyway, back to the show. Each episode they feature a piece of artwork and a piece of classical music. Four little kids go off on a mission where they encounter said art and music. Ella loves this! She dances and sings with the show. And, believe it or not, yesterday after watching the show, she went to my bookshelf and got one of my art history books down and started thumbing through the pictures! I kid you not! And that is not something she does on a normal basis. Anyway, I'm done with my shameless promotion of child television watching.

Ella is starting to talk more too. She opened up the fridge the other day and pointed to and said "apple". I nearly fell over on the floor from shock! Instead, I quickly composed myself and praised her. Haven't heard it again, yet. She also started saying "down" very clearly. And will count 1-2-3. Which is almost always succeeded by "Go!".

She is a tall girl, already wearing 4T shirts (she has a really long waist) and 3T pants. Although really she is right inbetween a 2T and a 3T right now. Wouldn't it be great if they made kids clothes in 1/2 sizes? I guess they just figure you buy the bigger size and they'll grow into it eventually. I digress...

Hmmm.....I think that's all I have for now. Hope everyone enjoys their Super Bowl weekend!