When I was a kid I had quite the imagination, as most kids do. I remember that I spent a lot of time pretending I was someone else - most often, an orphan. Psychiatrists out there would probably love me as their lab rat, figuring out just
why I had this romantic misconception of the life of an orphan, but whatever...an orphan I was. As we'd drive home from wherever we'd been I'd pretend that I was driving up to my BRAND NEW home for the very first time. I had my VERY own room and brand new parents and WOW. Life would be grand! When I got dressed in the morning I might be Pollyanna (my all-time favorite orphan :) putting on my BRAND NEW dress which I never had the luxury of owning before. Or I was Heidi in the mountains, with no one but my grumpy old Grandpa to love me. All the way to school I'd walk in knee deep snowbanks, pretending I had to brave my way through the mountains just to get to a country school where I would have goat's milk and cheese and bread for lunch. (I don't think Heidi actually went to a country school, but that's irrelevant). So there's a little snapshot into the warped mind of Jacki. All this to say, Ellie's starting to remind me a little of myself (uh oh.) But I find it really amusing.
For instance.
Ellie will be practicing on the potty when she'll say, "Eyee's Eddie. Hi Mommy."
And at first I'm not really listening so I absentmindedly say, "Hi, Ellie."
She'll repeat herself. "Eyee's Eddie. Hi Mommy." And then I'll understand that Ellie is now EDDIE (a character from the Little People) and then it's my job to say, "Hi Eddie. Are you all done going potty, Eddie?"
Twenty seconds later (literally) Ellie will say, "Eyee's a pwincess. Hi mommy." To which I must respond, "Hi beautiful princess!"
Twenty seconds later (literally) Ellie will say, "Eyee's Tuck. Hi Mommy" After which she'll fall down and I have to say, "Careful, Tuck'...and on it goes.
The other day Ellie spent an entire trip to Superstore and back holding an imaginary kangaroo in the palm of her hand.
Life with an imagination....not boring for a second!
Ellie doing her best 'silly face', which always ends up looking rather serious.
Joshua has adopted this garage-sale-find giraffe as his new favorite toy. It seems to be a source of inspiration to him...he's working real hard to learn how to roll over, usually in the effort to get a good grip on the giraffe to give it a good chomp on the head.
Note Ellie using the opportunity of me being distracted by Josh's almost-roll to call some foreign country.
Got it!
Ellie teaching Josh how to call long-distance.
Josh is quite happy to be sitting as much as possible these days..though I think it will still be a couple months before he can do it on his own. He often tries to do sit ups while he's laying flat on his back. Before we know it he'll have abs of steel, like his Auntie Leila.
And in other news...I am officially calling Ellie POTTY TRAINED! I still need to remind her to go, but now instead of pooping in her panties (unless we're quicker than her and run her to the potty)...she tells us, "Ellie poopy in panties" with a big smile like it's a joke. And we say, "Gotta go to the potty?" And she RUNS there yelling all the way and we have success!! She has very few pee accidents. So now she only really needs diapers for nap and bedtime and the occasional long outing! I'm so thankful that this turned out to be a lot easier than I expected...we were eager to start saving money on diapers. Thanks Lord!
