The One With the Things I Love About Ellie (2 years, Part III)

It's been too long since I've written one of these. Being a mom to a two-year-old is tough stuff. I find it difficult to strike the right balance in teaching her. I want her to know I love her more than anything. I don't want to nag her about everything. But I do want her to grow up to be strong, confident, kind and caring. I feel like I'm growing up as a parent just as much as she's growing up as a kid.

And boy is she growing up. She has so much to say and do and think these days. It's so much fun to be a part of. She's my little ray of sunshine. And I love her so very much.

1. I love that she has a little family of hairbrushes she carries everywhere. There's a mommy hairbrush, a daddy hairbrush and Ellie and Wia hairbrushes. She gets very sad when they have to go in their drawer for the night. And it's really difficult to carry around four hairbrushes and do regular things, so she's always a little frustrated that her arms don't cooperate very well. I'm thinking we may have to get her a hairbrush carrying apparatus of some sort. Meanwhile, I have no way of doing my hair.

2. I love that she is always singing. Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. No More Monkeys Jumping on the Bed (when the doctor says "No more monkeys jumping on the bed" she makes her voice deep and serious and shakes her finger that the bad little monkeys). Baby Boo-ga (Beluga).(Those are just the best of the week. There are plenty more.)

3. I love that she makes constant demands that I draw things for her. Currently, she wants me to draw her and all her friends laying on towels under a palm tree. Or at a dance party.

4. I love that she is already a bargaining shopper. The other day Daddy was getting her dressed and she said, "I want wear Elmo shoes." Daddy said, "We don't have any Elmo shoes." She replied with, "Go get it. Only ninety-nine ten dollars!" A girl after my own heart.

5. I love that she goes around commanding inanimate objects to apologize to each other. A few weeks ago she was pushing her stroller around the house and ran it into a chair. In a very persistent voice she commanded the stroller, "Say "I'm sorry, chair!" When the stroller obviously didn't reply, she crouched down and got in it's "face" and said again, "Say "I'm sorry, chair!" and then she knelt down on the ground and kissed the chair leg to help it feel better.  Soon after she was walking through the kitchen and her sippy cup slipped out of her hands and landed on the floor. She picked it up and said, "Say I'm sorry, floor!"

6. I love that she always says, "I need like some water." or "I need like special treat." We're trying to teach her the different between need, like and want. And we're still waiting for a breakthrough.

7. I love watching her grow and learn. It still catches me off-guard that she actually listens to me and remembers things that I tell her.On Sesame Street the other day some characters were trying to teach Cookie Monster to eat vegetables and she corrected the TV, saying, "No! Cookie Monster eats cookies!"

8. I love that she refers to 101 Dalmations as the "Asian doggies." "I watch Asian doggies, mama!" And I love Addison for introducing her to the Asian doggies.

9. I love that she says, "muffer kin" which is her way of saying "another again", because those two words are obviously best used in tandem. "Watch Elmo muffer kin?" "I need like muffer kin special treat."

10. I love how much she loves to read. This girl is still a book fiend. I heard her reading Curious George Visits the Aquarium to herself the other day. And whenever we get books from our book exchange that we participated in, she just can't do anything else until we've read all the new books several times.

11. I love that she is always jumping around. She just doesn't stay still for one second.

12. And I love that I just put her down for a nap wearing only a diaper (as a precautionary measure) and her Elmo slippers. Or "wippers" as she calls them.

And I love being her mama. It's a fun ride. And she is a constant source of joy and love.