Big and Little

I tried to upload a video last night, but I couldn’t seem to get it to work. I’ll try again this weekend. I’ll just say that our genius daughter is bilingual! That’s all I’m gonna say…you’ll just have to wait for the video.

I have to start out with a huge THANK YOU for all your prayers for Ella’s sleep. She napped Wednesday and the proceeded to sleep all night! It was wonderful! She skipped her nap again Thursday, but only woke up once that night, which I can totally deal with. Thanks so much for the prayers! We appreciate them more than you will ever know!

In other Ella news, she is learning about opposites. She knows high and low, and she just recently learned big and little. This is one of those things that I was so proud she learned, yet I never knew how much it would backfire. When we were at Mt. Vernon this weekend Ella asked for a cookie. I always bring one of those little snack bags of cookies with me, so I pulled it out and gave her a couple. She promptly handed them back to me and said, “No mommy. Big cookie.” Apparently these were little cookies (which they are, but they taste the same) and they just wouldn’t suffice. Luckily it was close to lunch, so we headed to the food court to see what they had. Thank heavens for Mrs. Fields! We got Ella a big cookie and she loved every bite of it.

She has also recently started requesting specific colors for her plate, bowl, spoon, etc. She’s known her colors for a long time, but it just hit her that she can get a specific color. The other night she wanted water, so I grabbed her yellow cup and handed it to her. No, Ella wanted the pink cup. I never really know how to respond. I want her to be independent and have the ability to make good decisions and know what she wants…I think this will be beneficial to her throughout her life. But I don’t want her too be picky either. I want her to know that sometimes you just have to roll with the punches.

Probably the biggest piece of Murray news is that we are going to attempt…let me repeat…ATTEMPT to put Ella on a schedule. Anyone who knows me knows that I’m not a schedule kind of girl. It’s just not me. My attitude with Ella has always been that she’ll sleep when she’s tired and she’ll eat when she’s hungry. She has no set nap time, no set bed time, no set breakfast, lunch or dinner…nothing is set. On one hand it has given us a great amount of flexibility because we just go where we want to go when we want to go and hope for the best. Sometimes she’ll nap while we’re out…other times she won’t. But lately, as you all are aware, she hasn’t been napping much at all. So I did some research and discovered that 2 year olds tend to do better under some sort of schedule. They know what to expect and typically respond better. So after consulting with several other parents I came up with a schedule. We’re going to start it next week. Hopefully it will go over well. Keep your fingers crossed!

And lastly I’ll let you know that we had to “let go” of our new nurse that was helping with Ella’s bandages. She didn’t show up one time, then was at least 20 minutes late every other time she came over, then on Tuesday she was over an hour late. When she finally arrived on Tuesday I was obviously mad and wanted to just tell her right then that it was over, but I still needed help...I was between a rock and a hard place. So she came in and helped, but Ella could sense the tension and cried the entire bath and bandage change. She never does that! Ella responded well to her all in all, but I have to have someone that I can depend on and if I'm stressed the entire bandage change then that isn't helping Ella. I need to know that if I ask her to be there at 7 pm that she will be there. And it’s ok if she’s running late, but she never called to say that she was going to be late. There were several other little things that just didn’t set right with Joe and I, and ultimately neither of us had a peace about her helping out, so we have decided to try another avenue. At this point we’re going to just keep Metti late for a couple of days a week. She’s willing to help and we’ll pay her for her time. It’s easier on the whole family if we do it this way. Ella knows and loves Metti, and I know and trust her, so we all win.

That it for this Friday afternoon. I hope you all have a wonderful weekend!