22 months

Belatedly I'm feeling the need to note that Ellie turned 22 months a few days ago. Now when people ask me how old she is, I find myself saying "almost 2"... which is beyond crazy. She's growing so fast!
Some Ellie highlights at the moment include:

• Identifying things she sees around the house as "mommy's" or "daddy's." This includes chairs, plates, shoes, cups and much more. She scolded me the other day at breakfast for drinking out of a coffee mug that Brian usually uses.


• Starting to put phrases together, we think. Brian insists that this morning she strung together "Mommy, bus, go see daddy." She also asks for her shoes when she wants to go outside, asks for her milk, asks for cheese (her latest food love) and asks for pieces of ice. Yup, she's a bit of a weirdo sometimes.


• Swimming like a fish, still. The season started this past weekend at the pool/water park just down the block from our house. Ellie and I went this afternoon and the whole family was over there on Sunday. It's awesome to see how much more fun she can have this summer as opposed to a year ago this time when she wasn't even walking yet. Ellie is totally fearless in and around water. I mostly like that about her, but we've got to teach her to respect it to. She's constantly wanting to head into too-deep parts of the pool or she'll jump in the air and go under without thinking about what comes next. Swimming lessons will be in this girl's very near future!


• Wanting to sit on the potty... all the time... even if her pants and diaper are still on. She's picked up the "interest" for potty training in her new classroom, but so far has never produced anything when sitting on the potty at home. (I'm assuming it's the same at school.) Unlike at school, however, she doesn't get an M&M reward just for giving it the old college-try. So she'll sit there forever, ask for more toilet paper and usually I have to drag her out of the bathroom after a certain point. I don't think she'll be mastering this trick soon.

There's tons more that she's up to and into these days, but I can't collect it all into anything coherent right now. Chasing after this increasingly active, demanding and energetic toddler tends to wear me out... and the 100 degree heat today didn't help. But tomorrow's a new day and a new adventure :)