Put Your Hands Together

Looking adorable as she considers climbing the chair...

Earlier today....
Currently, Ellie is fighting her afternoon nap. Apparently, she's had enough sleep for today. But, before we ran into this snag, the day was going swimmingly. She had two very productive sits on the potty this morning. No doubt helped by the copious amounts of prunes I've been serving her. She napped for an hour this morning, which she hasn't done in a few days. She ate pretty well at breakfast and lunch and she didn't feed the dog too much. The beagle and I had a serious discussion yesterday and determined that he can in fact sit and wait to clean the floor. He just needs to believe that I am serious about it.

Later....
So, the reason she took an especially long morning nap was because she was planning on skipping the post lunch nap. Can't wait till she can tell me these things ahead of time so I don't bother wasting time and energy fighting the inevitable ;). So, aside from a little time playing with Froggy and Elephant in the dark, she went about 7 hours without sleep this afternoon. Going to bed this evening was a struggle too. She didn't really want to nurse and then tried sticking my finger in her mouth (which usually ends with her trying to bite my index nail in two). And then, she became virtually inconsolable. So, I dug out the hated Orajel (apparently she's not a licorice fan either) and applied liberally since she rarely complains of tooth pain and I couldn't very well feel around her gums while trying my best not to lose the end of my pointer finger. It would make typing difficult to say the least. The Orajel made things much worse for a while and then it kicked in. My guess must have been correct, because she then finished nursing and went to sleep relatively quickly.

But, in other news, she woke up this morning and decided to clap. All day, she celebrated her various successes on the potty and some when she was done eating. I've also craftily adapted our eating style to make feeding the dog more difficult. She generally only has one or two pieces of food on the tray at any one time, so it's a lot easier to block attempted donations and with less excess, she tends to be a little stingier. Before, she figured she had 3 pieces of fruit, so she might as well flip one over the side to watch the dog hustle. There still ends up being quite a bit of food on the floor, but it's mostly smaller crumbs from my periodic tray sweeps. And, Zeus is allowed to make a couple of passes throughout the meal.

As you can see in the video, meal times are a slow affair. She has been discovering the upper reaches of her voice, imitating primates, and she feels the need to inspect all her prunes by unraveling them and looking for a golden ticket. We may have started that rumor. She's not allowed to watch Charlie and the Chocolate Factory until she's at least 2, so she won't know....

Tomorrow will be an interesting day. P will have Ellie for the afternoon. He always handles it like it's no big deal, but I tend to fuss a little about bottle/pumping logistics and worry about naps. But, since she's not napping for me, I guess it can't really get much worse for him. Plus, I'll really only be gone about 5 hours. Now that she's eating solids, that's really only one bottle and two little meals. Now, if I just repeat that a few times, maybe I'll stop worrying.