Odds & Ends

Adventures at Babysitting

While being with Elisa is a joy (who doesn’t love a little girl who loves hats and smiles all the time!), it can also be very fun to hear what others’ experience with Elisa!  This week I’ve heard a few different stories about Elisa that give a good snapshot of her weekly experiences away from her parents.  [Unfortunately, since we weren't there, we don't have pictures of that and you have to put up with these pictures of Elisa in a hat she got from her cousins and her green monkey pajamas!]

Elisa is cared for by Emily, wife of one of the physics professors, every school day.  Emily is a former elementary school teacher who is a sweet, gentle and steady caregiver.  One or two afternoons a week she gets to leave after lunch and starts her nap on the way home.  While she is there, she spends her time with a few other kids – a little girl, Adelaide, about 8-9 months old a few mornings a week; a little girl, Sophia about 3 who she sees every day; and the little girl’s older brother, Eli, who comes after preschool.  Beyond this, they go to the local church playgroup two mornings a week and to the church nursery during Emily’s weekly bible study.

One of the other faculty members has a daughter named Elise Joy who is a month older than Elisa (we didn’t know about the other’s names until months after they were born!)  She goes by Ellie and sees Elisa at playgroup and bible study.  Apparently, every time she sees Elisa she says her name and runs to her.  She has gone to the nursery during church services and asked to see Elisa only to find Elisa wasn’t there.  The faculty member told me today that he hears about Elisa all the time!  It is nice to know Elisa is well-liked by some of her peers!

Sophia and Eli are definitely teaching Elisa about a variety of things.  Sophia models for Elisa all the ins and outs of being a girl.  Occasionally Elisa’s diapers get used to diaper dolls.  Sophia mothers Elisa, bringing her sippy cup and other things she needs.  Elisa has learned from this by bringing little Adelaide her sippy cup and trying to feed her.  This week Kristin looked out the window and saw Emily walking all the kids (she lives just off campus, probably a couple hundred yards from the science building) and quickly realized that Elisa was wearing a pink coat rather than her maroon coat.  After a first thought that maybe her coat was inside out since the lining is pink, Kristin realized that Sophia was wearing Elisa’s coat and hat and Elisa was wearing Sophia’s.  So Elisa is being trained to trade clothes at an early age!

Last week, I came to find Elisa with a towel knotted around her shoulders as a cape.  Having seen Eli with this same setup earlier, it was clear where the influence came from.  Eli likes pretending that he is an “evil pharoah that fights for righteousness” - I love the consistency of children!  This week Eli read a book about colors to Elisa.  He first asked for Elisa to sit on his lap, but quickly switched his request to have her sit beside him when she was placed on his lap.  Then he read to her “R-E-D, red…”  Apparently Elisa is absorbing early ideas of alphabet because she points to the letters on Emily’s sweatpants and pretends to read them!

Between playgroups at church and daily walks onto the Houghton campus to play on the quad or visit students in the campus center (which keeps Elisa very amused!) many people know Elisa.  Besides the faculty member at lunch, Kristin had someone else stop her this noon to tell her how adorable and sweet Elisa was and how much she enjoyed seeing her around campus.  Since Elisa is known by more people at Houghton than she is after 4 years, Kristin is accepting that she is identified first as “Elisa’s mom!”

Stickers, Dishes & Noises

Elisa recently discovered stickers.  We had a sheet of happy face stickers from who-knows-what that had been on the fridge and over the last week she had wanted to take them down and grab a few stickers.  Once she ended up with a few on her face – without too much help from Daddy.   Tuesday she seemed more intent on the stickers than before and started putting them all over her pants.  Mommy came and sat down on the kitchen floor, too and Elisa began transferring all the stickers from her pants to Mommy’s.  She got every sticker off the sheet (with a little help from Mommy on one) and then Mommy showed her the joy of peeling off the backing and she had fun tearing it to pieces.  It certainly seemed to be an activity she enjoyed! (See the last picture!)

On Wednesday, Elisa was very helpful in cleaning up the table.  She carried all the dishes to the dishwasher where Daddy put them in.  The only problem is that she wanted to be too thorough and picked up Daddy’s still-full glass of milk from the table and spilled some!  Paper towels came to the rescue and after most of the milk was wiped up, Elisa took over and kept wiping the chair.  She tends to be a little more thorough in cleaning than her parents, so not only the seat of the chair, but the spokes got wiped.  (We’ve seen this before – once she took the dish towel from her playhouse and started cleaning around the window ledges and the door.  This is clearly not an inherited trait!)  After the chair was deemed done, she dived under the table with a cry to clean kitty.  Ink very wisely left the area quickly.

Elisa has picked up a number of animal sounds in the last week or so.  It was rather surprising last Friday to realize how many she knew since she had never done any of them for us!  She knows that a cow says moo, a kitty says miaow (usually VERY high pitched), a dog says woof, an owl says hoo, and a lion says roar.  She has also learned this week that a monkey says he-he-he.  Of course, these sounds aren’t always consistent – sometimes the high pitched sound takes over for all the different animals and doesn’t even sound like miaow any more!

Helping around the house

It’s obvious that the semester is back in session since we haven’t written for a month and haven’t taken many pictures either!  Elisa continues to develop new abilities and preferences and lately has enjoyed many around the house chores!

Elisa is gaining new words (not very clear yet!), but her major mode of communication at this point is to come to us, sign please while making an insistent whimpering sound until we take her hand and follow her to whatever she wants.  Raisins are a current favorite and she will take us to that cupboard (she knows which cupboard most things are in!) and ask for “Rayuns” – it isn’t really two syllables, but an extended vowel sound.  She spontaneously signs please when she wants something and when asked to say thank you, she often blows a kiss since she confuses the sign for thank you with this.  When asked to say goodbye, she sometimes responds with a wave, other times with blowing a kiss and often plays dumb.

Elisa adores the dustbuster and frequently goes to pick it up and pretend to vaccuum.  She asks us to turn it on and then pushes it around – although she hasn’t figured out lifting it to get an angle.  She regularly watches what Daddy is making in the kitchen from her highchair and asks to get up and look into things while dinner is cooking.  Yesterday, she wanted to stir the noodles and had to be distracted by her own bowl and spoon elsewhere.  She has tried to help with snow shoveling as well. Recently, she got hold of the reusable shopping bags and carried ALL of them around her playhouse.  

Elisa is also learning to mother.  Over Christmas, she force fed her cousin Ellie with a sippy cup.  Apparently, she is also helping the younger baby (~8 months) who is babysat with her – putting away the sippy cup where she thinks it goes and fetching it when asked.

While she hasn’t learned to put back toys without prompting, other things have a definite place.  She will let us know when we haven’t hung up our coats yet, bringing us to coat and insisting we do something about it.  This morning, she took books and DVDs that she found out of place (she actually put the Veggietales DVDs out of place) and put them onto the appropriate shelf, sliding them right into place.  She also has started carrying dirty dishes to the sink and putting dishes (and not just silverware) into the dishwasher.

Elisa is developing her own sense of style.  She is mostly particular about shoes and socks.  For a while, she would choose which pair of shoes.  Recently, it is a question of socks – and white socks have become boring enough to throw fits about (argh).  Sometimes we end up with layered socks and although the bright colored socks we’ve invested in help ($6.50 for 10 pair), we may still need to find more creative socks!  Only once has she complained -in fact, threw her biggest tantrum yet - about shirt or pants.  After calming her, we modeled the correct way to ask for a change. 

She also plays dress up.  Largely, this has to do with hats since this is what is actually laying around for her to play with.  She likes putting on her various hats in various ways.  Occasionally she just wants to wander the house in her snow pants.  I think she accessorizes with stuffed animals and dolls – this week she has brought a different doll or stuffed animal 4 of 5 days in the car.  A week ago, she rediscovered the pacifier she never really used and seems to treat that as a way to change her look, too.  And whatever the look (either clothing or expression), she monitors it in the mirror regularly!  One thing closely related to dressing up is her deep joy all month at getting her parents under a blanket with her and seeing them in this “secret hideout.”  We get a lot of giggles that way. 

At the beginning of the semester, Elisa moved to one long nap after lunch.  Mommy tries to get away from school at least one day a week right after lunch to pick Elisa up.  Elisa falls asleep on the way home, surfaces slightly as she is carried through the cold and has her shoes and coat removed, and then goes back to sleep – usually for a total of 2.5-3 hours.  Her bedtime is back to 7:30 and she usually wakes up between 6:30 and7:30 (it usually gets later as the school week goes on – her naps at daycare aren’t as long because she can’t bear to miss what the other couple kids are doing!)  At this point, Elisa is usually pretty happy about being put into her bed for nap or bedtime.  She will often carry her blanket to the crib of her own accord, and once in will lift her arms so we can tuck her blanket around her.  She may yell for a few seconds, but then will either fall straight asleep or talk to herself happily for a while.

While Elisa has always enjoyed water (especially in her face and on her head), she recently has found new ways to enjoy water.  Always fascinated by water bottles, she has recently learned to drink from them and even from cups if given very small amounts (and yes, there is plenty spilled – she is still learning about the inevitability of gravity if she turns the cup upside down.)  She has also started to enjoy pouring water in the shower/bath so Mommy decided to pour a little water over her head.  Of course, she has experienced rain and loves the shower that is a part of every bath, but this was a true thrill as the water came over her in concentrated force – she kind of shivered in excitement and laughed all at the same time.   (We always knew she was a bit of a thrill seeker).  She kept asking for more water over her head and tried pouring water over her own head.  She is not yet able to lift the large container we are using over her head with water in it, so she kept pouring the water down her front rather than over her head.  She knew she wasn’t getting the container high enough, so she leaned sideways in the bath and tried again.

We have one other not-so-happy milestone: 2 weeks ago, Elisa was the first of us to get the stomach flu.  She was a real trooper, not showing any real fussiness before food came back up and when we picked her up to control where the returns landed she made her only complaint.  Otherwise, she was just cuddly, trusting and even happy between bouts.  We gave her a bath to clean up and she got another round and we gave her a bin to use in the bathtub – and she knew exactly what to do with it, even returning to it when she lost more.  She went to bed and other than one more mouthful that necessitated a change, she slept the rest of the night and was sluggish the next day, but otherwise recovered. 

We are very blessed by the positive attitude our little girl has as she encounters new situations in life.  She is a blessing to us – full of deep joy at the little things in life and a constant surprise.