I started casually looking around for something, but nothing seemed right. In November, I posted about some “potentially exciting developments,” which was a job I’d been interviewing for that fell through shortly after I posted that, which is why I never mentioned it again. I had two or three other opportunities cross my path during December and early January, all of which fell through, too. It was extremely frustrating. With all of these, we’d gotten to the point of discussing when I could start when suddenly something happened that made it not work out.

Meanwhile, things were really stressful at work for Brett. Details aside, due to some changes in his role at work, we started talking about what in the heck we’re supposed to actually do with our lives, long-term. This conversation began at the end of November, and quickly came around to him wanting — again — to apply to grad school. We talked about how if he were to get his MFA (Master of Fine Arts) degree, he would be able to apply for teaching jobs, since it’s the terminal degree in his field. He’s talked about wanting to teach for years, as long as I’ve known him, really, and due to these changes at work, all of this came to a head and it suddenly seemed like applying to grad school might make sense.

I’ve resisted for a long time the idea of him going to grad school. Honestly, the way that Maine went, I was in no way eager to have him be in school again. Maine was extremely difficult on me, especially, and it was hard on our relationship and our finances in ways that still affect us, four years after leaving.

So after thinking and praying about it, I laid down some guidelines for him. He could investigate grad school, on these conditions:

1. We canNOT go deeper into debt for him to do this. His school loans from undergrad alone will take us a lifetime to repay, not to mention the consumer debt we incurred during that time, which we are still working on; we cannot do anymore. And that immediately ruled out private schools, which cost almost double his annual salary for only one year of schooling, and most programs are two or three years. Yikes.
2. He has to maintain his hours at work so as to keep our health benefits, and so I won’t have to go back to work full-time. Due to my heart stuff, I *have* to have group health coverage, and we need to be able to pay our bills (and I already worked and supported him through one degree) so he has to keep working.
3. I need a support network in place for day-t0-day life, and we need to lay out clear expectations of what our lives and our limited time together and our responsibilities surrounding our home and Elanor will look like if/when he attends school.

So, with that in mind, and with private schools excluded due to cost, we started investigating public schools, and realized that the application deadlines were about two weeks away at UC Berkeley and San Francisco State University.

He quickly scrambled and filled out an application for each, and sent them off within hours of the deadlines.

And then we waited.

Meanwhile, I was still trying to find work. Finances were growing ever-tighter (with Brett’s changing role at work also came a salary change…great…just what we needed. I thought things couldn’t get any tighter, but then — hey! they did!), and my anxiety was through the roof. In desperation, in mid-January I posted an ad on Craigslist that I was willing to do childcare.

I had a couple of bites that didn’t work out, and then, just as I was getting ready to, I don’t know, sell some stuff at a pawn shop or donate plasma, I heard back from a family looking for care for their infant girl.

Within two weeks, the deal was struck, and I’m now looking after her four days a week. Obviously, I won’t blog much about her here, but there you have it.

We’re entering our third week now, and everyone is slowly adjusting to the new normal. It’s been rough on Elanor (and of course she was sick the first week, which did NOT help matters) but we’re managing. More about that in a later post.

In that same span of time, Brett’s heard back from both schools — and he was accepted to both UC Berkeley and SFSU! I’m so proud of him. SO proud!! Berkeley is a very, very big deal…he was one of seven students accepted to the MFA program out of over 200 applicants. Wow! Just…wow. I’m so excited for him.

He’s actually at an orientation there today, so I’m excited to hear more tonight when he gets home. But it looks, so far, like the practical elements of my conditions will work out: he’ll still be able to work, the cost of schooling will be manageable, there are lots of benefits available for students with families (grants, fellowships, reduced-cost preschool, health insurance, etc) at a school as large as Berkeley, and he will have the opportunity to even teach an undergrad course (for pay!) in his second year.

With Brett finally taking steps to act upon his long-term goals and dreams, it’s spurred me to do the same, and I’m going to start pursuing becoming an IBCLC-certified lactation consultant! I realized, a while back, that I would be really good at it, and that I’m passionate about breastfeeding and helping women breastfeed successfully. I’ve been involved in our local La Leche League group here in San Francisco since shortly after we moved here, and I love it. It’s going to take me a few years to do this (the process is very rigorous, especially for someone with no nursing degree) but I’m hoping that I can sit for the exam in a few years. By the time Elanor is a bit older (say, elementary school-age), I’d love to be practicing.

So there you have it. Lots of changes. I’m working, Brett’s going back to school, and we finally feel like we have a viable, longer-term plan for our lives. We feel a little strange that we’re nearly 30 and only just now figuring all of this out, but better late than never, right?

I could keep yammering on, but I’ll stop. That’s the big stuff. Hopefully I’ll get back to blogging about the little stuff soon!

Today, you are two years old!

I typed that and immediately got a little teary. I can’t believe it’s been two whole years since you were born and became a part of our family. What a wild and wonderful two years it’s been!

There are not words to describe the depth of my love for you. Papa and I agree that having you in our lives is a fantastic, incredible gift. I won’t lie, the past two years have been difficult for us in a lot of ways, but your presence throughout has been the one consistent source of joy and brightness for us.

Two years old seems to agree with you; these days, you are a happy, funny, exuberant, spirited little girl.

You seem to always be in motion: running, jumping, climbing, hugging, laughing, dancing. Just watching you is draining! You go go go until you simply crash from exhaustion. We’re working on finding ways to help you learn to calm down, which is challenging but something you definitely need.

We are so very thrilled that you’ve finally started talking to us! We know that you’ve understood practically every word we’ve said for months now, and just within the past three weeks or so, your language has completely exploded. You say a new word every day, sometimes more than one a day. It is so fun to hear your voice and to finally hear what’s going on in your little head!

Some of your favorite (and most useful!) new words and phrases include: help, I do it, come in, go, stop, switch, movie, watch, play, car, rain, wind, hot, sit, water, hold it…and on, and on, and on.

I’m sad that you seem to be slowly losing your signs, although you still sign I love you and please on occasion, and you are slowly losing your adorable mispronunciations of certain words. There are some mispronunciations remaining, though, since you put an –e sound at the end of words with –er. So water becomes “wah-wee,” butter is “butt-eee,” car is “car-eee,” and so on. I love it.

We’ve started playing with friends more often, which you can’t seem to get enough of. You have definitely inherited my extroverted characteristics. You love being with other people, and while you’re overwhelmed at first when there’s a crowd, you quickly warm up and become the center of attention and the life of the party. We had a party here in November, and there were 25 people here, and you just danced and played and had a blast. I barely saw you the whole night!

You have a keen understanding of how things work. If you see Papa or me do something, even a relatively complex multi-step process, you can usually replicate it. My favorite thing you do is that you drag a chair from the dining room table over to the shelf where the record player is, page through the records until you find one you like, pull it out, climb on the chair, take the record out of its sleeve, open the lid to the record player, put the record on, press play, and stand on the chair and dance. Watching you do this is hilarious and really fun.

Like your Papa, you love art and will contentedly color for quite a long time. The easel we got you for Christmas has already seen many hours of use. It’s really fun to see you and Papa put your heads together and create fantastic images.

You don’t seem to have a lot of favorite things. Most of your toys get equal play; your kitchen, your babies, your instruments, and your tea set are all things you play with on a regular basis. You don’t have a lovey or a special doll or blanket, either. (That role seems to be mine.) There are times I wish you did have one, and while you do show preference for one or two of your babies over others, you aren’t attached to them like many kids are.

Any Pixar movie will hold your attention, and you adore Curious George, Elmo, and Arthur. It’s strange for me to realize you’re at the point where you recognize characters and will respond to the way things are branded in the store.

Food is an area I’ve watched with bated breath over the past few months. Your tastes as a baby were so wide-ranging that I was nervous the pickiness of toddlerhood would be especially bad. I’m proud to say that unlike most toddlers, your palate remains as broad as it’s ever been. You enjoy moderately spicy food, ethnic food, and rather epicurean food. Avocado, cheese, hummus, pasta, anything with pesto, olives, yogurt, and tomatoes are some of your favorite things. Oh, and how could I forget? Butter! You still love it and I have to make a real effort to keep it out of your reach, or it tends to disappear!

You also love coffee, even black. You’ll drink an Americano, black coffee, or a cappuccino and beg for more sips. Funny enough, you don’t like juice. I guess you’re just an uncommon toddler.

On that note, you are still nursing at two years old, something I’m somewhat surprised but very happy to report. You love having milkies, or nums, as you call them, and our times nursing together are among the sweetest I can think of.

Another thing that surprises me (because I never thought I’d allow it this long…how naive I was, ha!) is that you still sleep with Papa and me. It’s getting harder these days, as you are a big toddler and take after your Papa’s habit of wild tossing and turning, but even though there are moments we wish we had more room, the benefits and closeness we derive from sleeping all together far outweigh the difficult times.

Elanor, I cannot tell you enough how much I love you. Having you in my life is such a blessing and a treasure.

Love,

Mama

Anyway, since it’s Thanksgiving as I’ve done in years past, I’m going to talk about a few things I’m thankful for. The past few weeks have been a little hard on me, just life catching up to me, I guess. So I suppose I need this exercise in counting my blessings.

Obviously, the first thing on my list is Elanor and Brett. I think that’s a given. Elanor is an amazing kid, and although being her mom is extremely challenging at times, she’s the most fantastic little person I know. And Brett…through hard times and good ones, he’s a great guy, a great dad to Elanor, and a great husband. He works so hard and I know he does it because he loves Elanor and me.

I’m thankful that we’ve seemed to have a calm, uneventful year since May. No near death experiences, no car accidents, no layoffs…I really hope this trend continues.

I’m glad we live here in San Francisco, in our cozy, wonderful home, finally able to relax and enjoy life after a few really hard years.

I’m also especially thankful for the friends we’ve made since we moved here. Emily W and Emily K, Laura, Sarah, the La Leche League ladies, our neighbors downstairs, the greater moped and FourBarrel communities — we really have a community here, only after 6 months. Our dinner party today is a great cross-section of those groups: my stepbrother Jason (who lives in Reno and came down for the weekend), Dan, Emily, and Jack, two of Brett’s co-workers, our downstairs neighbors, and our friends Claire and Isaac whom we know from SPU.

I’m thankful, too, for what I’m learning about grace of all kinds: God’s grace, experiencing grace from other people, having grace for those around me. It’s a big, lifelong lesson, obviously, but it seems that this year has been particularly focused on this theme.

We have so much to be thankful for. It’s good to type it all out and see it in list form; I should do this more often.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

Today, since we are victims of a cold at our house (even our houseguest Nate has caught it…I feel awful about that), I’m asking for your favorite natural cold remedies, especially ones to help kids who are too young to take OTC medication.

Here’s what we’ve been doing: Brett and I have been using slippery elm lozenges alternated with elderberry/zinc lozenges, drinking tons of tea with honey in it as well as other liquids (like elderberry juice), and eating lots of garlic. I’ve also done the apple cider vinegar mixed with honey drink, which seemed to help.

He and I are holding up okay (in fact I feel better today than I have all week) but poor Elanor is just not doing so great. She’s really congested, and now she’s coughing a ton. I just got her down for a nap and in the 30 minutes she’s been down she’s woken up twice because she’s coughed so hard she started to gag.

For her, I’m trying to push fluids, too (juice, tea with honey, water, nursing), give her warm baths in a very steamy bathroom, and try to prop her torso up while she sleeps. But other than that, I’m kind of at a loss. I’ve been trying to get her to just eat honey off a spoon but she won’t…I may try to have Brett do it later. Maybe if he tries she’ll do it.

I’ve heard that Eucalyptus Radiata oil, put into a bath, can help. I may run out and get some tonight. I’m also toying with getting (or borrowing, if I can find someone with one locally) a vaporizer.

Does anyone have a tried-and-true remedy that’s safe to use on little ones? I’d really appreciate it if you’ve got any ideas for how I can help her. I hate seeing her feel icky.

We’ve visited a few churches, and found them to be okay, but not exactly what we’re looking for: Bible-based preaching, good worship music, people we can identify with, and views on children and child rearing that line up with ours. It’s a tall order; I know.

We’re not sure when we should just settle down and go somewhere that we don’t feel is the right fit, just so we’re going to church, period. But a large part of why we want to be in a church is to get to know other people in the church, and if we’re just going somewhere to go through the motions until we find the perfect fit, we probably won’t get to know people very well.

Plus, Brett still works on Sundays, and Elanor’s at an age where she still won’t go in the nursery but isn’t big enough to sit still in church yet, so it’s just kind of hard all around. And I’m not going to lie, I’m a little gun-shy about going to church at all with Elanor these days, because of what happened when we got kicked out of church back in July.

I just keep telling myself that this is a season, and that it will pass, and that we will find a church here eventually. I hope that is true; I’m beginning to really miss that time of worship every week. So, I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again: if you know of a church you’d recommend in San Francisco, let me know!

• Writing: A post manifesto piece about our child rearing ideas. It’s gotten really, really long. It may wind up being a series of posts, actually, but, then, that would be great if I do NaBloPoMo again. So keep your eyes peeled for that. No promises on when I’ll have it done, but I’m hoping in the next few weeks. It’s morphing into something way bigger than what I intended it to be, so I’m just going to let it lead for a while and see where it takes me.
• Reading: Some more of the books from my childhood that my mom brought me when she visited. Two of my favorites were in the box she brought: “Nickel-Plated Beauty” and “Hail Columbia” by Patricia Beatty. They take place in the Astoria area around the turn of the century and they are funny, heartfelt books. I love them just as much now as I did when I was younger.
• Cooking: Not much. I have been a very lazy cook lately. I did make two apple pies last week, which was fun, but other than that, I’ve been mighty negligent on the cooking front. It’s getting close to being soup weather here, though, which should help. I always feel more inspired to cook when it’s cold outside.
• Looking for: Some more work I can do from home. I am not super eager to do this, as I don’t want a repeat of how stressful it was for me in Seattle when I was working from home, but our budget needs to be expanded so I am looking and praying God will provide the right thing at the right time.
• Thankful for: Our home here and the friends we’re making. I still just love our apartment, and I’m really enjoying getting to know on a deeper level some of the people I’ve met. (I’m looking at you, Emily, Emily, Laura, and Sarah.)
• Loving: Elanor’s increasing verbal ability. It’s astonishing to me! She says something new every day, and I love it. She’s getting to be such a kid! And yet, at the same time, she’s still such a baby. What a fun and exhausting challenging stage this is!
• Anticipating: That Brett and I are going to be an aunt and uncle again! Brett’s sister Amy and her husband Seth are expecting in March. We’re thrilled, and we can’t wait to meet the little he/she!
• Learning: More and more about myself every day, as I work through the things I’m writing about in the piece about our child rearing philosophy, as I realize that I have long had issues with anxiety, as I continue to learn about how Brett and I function as a couple, and as I learn to trust in God’s provision.

Anyway, that’s us these days. Nothing terribly exciting, really. The weeks have their ups and their downs, but for the most part, life is good: full of good food, new friends, good coffee, a comfortable home in an awesome city, and a great husband and kid. I can’t really ask for anything more than that.

Now, though. Wow. Every day is a challenge, it seems, a huge one, and I struggle some days to just keep my head above water in terms of making sure we are fed and clothed (although for Elanor these days, that often means wearing only pants, as shirts seem to have become a uniquely painful form of torture overnight) and that we are both relatively physically unscathed by the end of the day.

Other days are better, but I still find myself not blogging on those days because I’m just worn out from chasing a very spirited 30-pound toddler who likes to climb everything.

I don’t want to complain too much about it here, partly because I know that I have a tendency to go overboard with the whining if I let myself, and partly because I know the choices we’ve made in terms of how we’re parenting Elanor are a little different than many of my friends, and I don’t want to start that discussion in this forum, at least not yet. So I’ve been quiet for a while.

And then once I’m in a quiet cycle, it’s like anything else: not posting becomes habit, and it’s harder and harder to break that habit. And then Brett notices that I haven’t posted in a while and he starts bugging me about posting, and that makes me even less inclined to post…and it’s basically a vicious cycle that means it’s weeks between posts.

But okay! Enough justifications about why I didn’t blog for several weeks.

I HAVE NEWS! Exciting news! (NO, I AM NOT PREGNANT.)

To me, it’s more exciting than that, at least for the time being.

WE GOT A CAR!

Woo-hoo! My mom has been jokingly talking for years about how she may just get up one day and go buy a new car to replace her ’98 Acura, and when she did, she’d give that car to us. And then, a few weeks ago, out of the blue, at 9:30 on a Saturday night, I got a text from my sister: “You are now the owner of a ’98 Acura!”

Turns out my mom really did just get up and decide she was going to go look at cars, and she bought one. She had a visit here planned at the end of September, so she just drove the car down instead of flying. So for about 10 days now, I’ve had a car again.

I’m really excited about it. When we made the decision at the beginning of the year that we were going to try to get a car, it was very, very hard for me to reverse that thinking as things at Brett’s old job went south and it became apparent that adding any monthly expenses to our budget was a bad idea. I struggled a lot with having to get myself back into the no-car mindset. And then we moved here, and it was easier for a while, but it started to get hard again, especially as Elanor became impossible, er, difficult, to take on the bus or to confine to a stroller.

I won’t lie; despite how excited I am, I’ve felt a little guilty about actually using the car. We were on our way to a playgroup this week and I saw a mom waiting for the bus with a toddler in her arms, and I felt like if she could take the bus with her kid, I should be, too. I can’t become too reliant on the car; I need to keep riding my bike and I need to stay active. I feel good right now, healthy, fit, etc, and I don’t want to lose that.

Other than the car, we’ve had a very busy (but fun!) month filled with lots of friends and family in town. I’ll leave you with some pics from those visits, and a promise that I’ll try to blog more frequently in the next few weeks.

First up, our friends Josh and Crystal came to visit. We went on a bike ride through Golden Gate Park and out to the beach with them, which was one of the best parts of their visit.

Then, our friend Bree came to visit. She and Elanor had a fun time playing together.

We also took a trip to Sacramento for a moped rally. My friend Emily and I spent most of the weekend watching babies sleep, or trying to get them to sleep, or nursing babies. I think our total time spent at the actual rally totals around an hour. Haha. Times have changed.

Then, when we arrived home from Sacramento, my dad and stepmom were waiting for us. We had a fun visit with them, too!

Finally, we had my mom’s visit, which was wonderful, too. I haven’t gotten those pictures off the camera yet, but when I do I’ll post some here…soon!

My love of books has been with me for as long as I can remember. Some of my earliest memories have to do with reading, at first picture books, and later chapter books.

When my sister was born, my parents gave me a Sesame Street book called The Case of the Missing Duckie. I loved that book. The images in it still stick in my head even today…the part where Cookie Monster is frosting a cake (messily!) was my favorite page and I used to look at it for what seemed like hours.

When I was probably 5 or 6, I remember being extremely angry with my sister for something she’d done. So what did I do? I went to our room and shut myself in and just read and read until I felt better. (I specifically remember reading The Cat in the Hat that day.)

The first chapter book I ever read was Ramona the Brave, when I was in Mrs. Lowry’s first grade class. Oh, I loved that book. I loved Ramona’s spunk, and I loved that it was set in the town where I lived. I always wanted to go to Klickitat Street, but I never did. Maybe next time I’m in Portland I’ll do that — or maybe I’ll wait a few more years, until Elanor has read the Ramona books, too, and take her along.

My parents used to read to us: the Super Fudge books by Judy Blume, The Hobbit, Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle. (We still joke about the I-thought-you-saids.) My dad’s parents lived in Oklahoma, and we’d drive out there every couple of years. This was way, way pre-built-in-DVD-player days, so my parents would switch off driving and reading to us to help pass the time.

I loved the Emily books by L.M. Montgomery. The Mandie mystery books. (My friend Sarah Evans and I had a pact that we would keep reading the Mandie books until Mandie finally married Joe. This pact seemed VERY SERIOUS AND IMPORTANT to our, like, eight-year-old selves.) (I have no idea if Mandie finally married Joe.) (I should Google that.)

As I got older, I read everything I could get my hands on. I know my mom was often challenged by my desire to read things above my maturity level – Tiger Eyes by Judy Blume comes to mind. So I started reading Christian fiction. Some of it was really good, and some of it was really bad. I loved Janette Oke’s books during late elementary school. My friend Elise Bradley and I would act out the book Roses for Mama with our dolls, and the Canadian West series touched me deeply. I loved her books so much when I was little that I wrote to Janette Oke when I was in elementary school, and she wrote me back! My mom has the letter somewhere; I should get it from her.

I read a Christan young adult series called the Jennifer books. I was captivated by one of the books, wherein Jennifer’s family moves from one state to another. The author’s description of the newness of a new place, the way it feels to get used to sleeping in a new room, to how to find the grocery store, to becoming accustomed to seeing your things a new house — all of that has stuck with me and I’ve thought of it often during our many moves throughout the years.

I made one of my dear friends (actually, the one through whom I found out about Happy Week!) in the church library. Annie and I would meet up in the library, where Mrs. … Oh, no, I can’t remember her name! What was it?! Now I’m going to have to call my mom and ask her. Annie, you know who I’m thinking of. Do you remember? Mrs…augh! It’s on the tip of my tongue. As soon as I hit publish it’s gonna come to mind. Anyway, the church library lady would introduce us to new books, and she took Annie and me under her wing. We’d meet there between services in Junior High and into High School and compare books, talk, and giggle together.

While I was in college, I didn’t have much time to read for pleasure, although that was when I discovered my love for Lord of the Rings. My mom had tried to get me to read it for years but I had never wanted to before. Then, one day in college, my roommate Claire was reading it and she left The Fellowship of the Ring sitting around. I picked it up and I was hooked; I couldn’t put it down. Since then, I’ve read it probably at least eight times in full, and have read portions of it at least three times beyond that.

My time working full-time in Seattle before we had Elanor was full of books. I don’t even remember what I read; I just know that with my 45-minute-long bus commute, I would average three books a week. I read everything I could get my hands on at the library. I read some non-fiction during this era, specifically about food: The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan, Anthony Bourdain’s books, Ruth Reichl’s books, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver.

Since I quit my job almost a year ago to stay home with Elanor, I don’t get to read a whole lot. Maybe one or two books a month. I miss reading, desperately. I miss getting lost in a really great story. I miss spending hours in bed, reading in my pajamas until 2 p.m. on the weekend because I just have to finish one more chapter.

I know; I know. It’s a stage of life. I’ll be able to read again someday. But sometimes I just ache to curl up with a good book, one that doesn’t talk about toddler sleep habits or nursing or…yeah.

That brings me to my point. Before we moved, my mom brought me three boxes from her garage, boxes full of books. My books. Oh, looking through those boxes was like rediscovering my old friends! Better yet, I’ve been able to carve out some time to sit and re-read some of my favorites lately: The Case of the Missing Duckie, my scribbled-in copies of The Cat in the Hat and The Cat in the Hat Comes Back, the Emily books, the Cherry Ames books, and some random, one-off books that captivated me when I was a girl. They still do captivate me, and I’m so glad I still like them. So many things from childhood are not as wonderful as we remember them to be, but these books have not lost their thrill for me.

I’m so happy to have these treasures here so that I can re-visit my childhood and, someday soon, share them with Elanor. I hope there will be a day not too many years from now when we both just want to curl up on the couch with a good book. Books in general make me happy, but seeing these books and having them in my home to re-read and to someday share with Elanor makes me really happy.

Elanor: Opens mouth and points inside while grinning, obviously very satisfied with her answer.

Ooookay. I have no idea where she got the idea that you toot from your mouth…but I think it’s pretty darn hilarious.

I’ve been writing this letter for about a week now, and even since I started writing it, she’s changed and said more words and done more amazing things. Truly, every day is different at this stage! Oh, and I’m such a slacker that I have almost no photos from the past month. I just haven’t been taking many pics since we moved, other than on my cell phone, and those aren’t really on my computer. I have a few that I haven’t edited yet and I’ll try to post some soon, as well as some video.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Dear Elanor,

Today, you are one and a half years old!

I apologize for not writing you a letter for your fifteenth, sixteenth, or seventeen month birthdays. I won’t lie; the last few months have been hard all around. We’ve been through a lot, and between Papa losing his job and then moving our family to San Francisco, it’s been rather busy.

But more than that, I’ve found the past three months or so to be the most challenging yet in terms of being your mama. It’s only been in the past couple of weeks that I’ve felt secure and confident as a parent again.

If I look at who you were back in April, and compare that baby to you now, you have come so far. I know that part of what was so hard for me was that you were struggling while you were changing and growing so much. Combine that with all the turmoil surrounding our family, and it’s no wonder I found being a mama harder than I ever had before. I’m so glad, though, that things have evened out and I’m feeling content again, more often than not. I did not like feeling frustrated most the time!

You are now completely confident physically. You walk, run, climb, and navigate pretty much any obstacle with ease. You love sliding down the slides at the park, and you love to climb on everything at home. One of your favorite places to sit while you watch a movie is up on the back of the couch. You’ll climb up there and lay down and just hang out.

As such, I don’t wear you much anymore. You’re too big and cumbersome, and you just want to be down and going. It’s a little sad to see your days of riding on me come to an end, but it’s also a relief: you were getting really, really heavy!

Your understanding of the world around you amazes us. You have figured out how to turn on the TV, change the input so that it will show the DVD player, and then turn on the DVD player so you can watch a movie. It is exciting to me to see how your relationship with technology will develop, since it’s such an integral part of our lives.

Something else that amazes me about your understanding of the world is that you remember houses where cats and dogs are often in the window. We walk a lot of the same streets on a regular basis, and as we approach houses or businesses where you’ve seen a cat or dog in the window before, you’ll do your sign for cat or dog and click your mouth like you are calling to them. It astonishes me how you can do this after only having seen it there once before.

Sleep continues to be, um, interesting. For a while before we moved, you’d take all your naps in your crib and would sleep there for several hours at night once I’d nursed you to sleep. Since we’ve moved, though, you haven’t wanted anything to do with your crib. And that’s okay with us. I think. Most days, anyway. There are definitely mornings when Papa and I wake up and look at each other and bemoan our lack of sleep due to your restlessness, but those tend to be less frequent than the mornings we wake up and smile at each other over your sleepy, adorable head.

I’m starting to see you need to nap longer during the day again, too. For a while you were only sleeping for 45 minutes, which was rough on both of us. Now, you’ll sleep for a little longer if I go back in and settle you. I’m glad. You are a happier girl when you get enough rest.

It seems like you’re getting your two-year molars, a little early. That would certainly follow your pattern of teething thus far. Although I don’t feel anything back there yet, your hands are always in your mouth and I’ve noticed an increase in drooling, too. I’m anxious to get these out of the way since they’ll be your last teeth for quite some time!

Finally, we’re hearing you say more words. We’ve been waiting for so long now, and I feel like we’re still waiting, but at least we can tell that it’s coming. You now say Mama, no-no, ni-night, and uh-oh with regularity. You also regularly sign cheese, finished, cat, please, and a few others. I’ve seen you sign tree, sun, sky, clouds, and more, although you don’t use them very often. I’ve also heard you say door, shoes, out, Papa, and milkies, although you won’t repeat them at all.

You babble ALL the time. It’s clear you are desperately trying to communicate with us but you just can’t make your mouth say the words. Your inflection is often perfect but what you’re saying seems to be garbled. I can only imagine how frustrating that must get for you!

One fun thing you’ve just started doing is “reading.” You’ll take a book and look at the pages and just babble away happily while you read it to one of us. It’s one of the more adorable things I’ve seen you do.

You adore food, almost everything. You aren’t a huge fan of meat, although we’ve given it to you a few times despite my vegetarian-ness, and you don’t really like asparagus. I can’t think of anything else you’ve refused outright. You love yogurt, avocadoes in any form, pasta, butter (we caught you trying to eat it by itself the other day), ice cream, cheese, and hummus. I could keep going here but those are definitely the top things on your list.

Other kids interest you now. Your little friend Rogan is your pal; despite the fact he’s a few months younger than you, the two of you play together really well, pushing each other around in your respective carts and stealing each others’ snacks and sippy cups. You love to hug him and even give him kisses. Hee. Your first little boyfriend, I guess.

Water remains a huge attraction for you: in the bath, a pool, the ocean, in the sink, a bowl, a cup. No matter where it is, you’ll play with it. We’ve got to get you in some swimming lessons. I think you’d love it!

Elanor, you are so hilarious and funny and special and fun. I’m very glad to be your mama!

I love you!
Mama