Bon Voyage!

A big shout out to Matt and Tobyn who are on their way to Ethiopia to pick up Ellie's new playmate (and future prom date?), the handsome Cal! Here's wishing the Ribs a smooth trip and a happy week with Cal in Addis! We can't wait to meet him!

Countdown to Preschool

So much good stuff has happened since the last post - I guess that's a handy side effect of posting once in a blue moon. The kid starts preschool tomorrow, and it's just starting to hit me that I'm not sure I'm prepared for this. I was just getting used to being her constant entertainer/observer. I told a couple of people that we'd entered the phase where nothing in her world exists or can be enjoyed without my witnessing it. I am compensating by making name labels for everything she might be taking into the building with her. Sublimating anxiety with a label maker - classic Heather!

Recent Achievements

Medical: We went to the pediatrician for a well baby check-up and the doc mistook her for a pincushion and gave her 5 shots. Apparently we only have Ethiopian documentation of one of three rounds of vaccinations so we'll be back again at the end of the month for another 4-5 shots. Although hysterical during the process, she rallied quickly and had stopped crying by the time we got to the front desk to check out. Needless to say the toy doctor's kit was a big hit that evening, and all of her stuffed animals and babies have been thoroughly examined and received clean bills of health, and lots of shots.

Language: So much progress has been made so quickly I can't just list new words - she's started learning them in phrases instead of single words. Favorite new sayings - "Ellie do/did it", "I don't know" (said with a Paula Deen-esque accent, along with "ay-and" (and) and "hay-am" (ham) which makes me wonder how bad my accent is), "Good Idea!", "Good stretching", "Oh my goodness!", "Bubbie lunch tomorrow", "sninky (stinky) trash". Also, every time she sees a train she shouts "A train, a train, a train, a train!" which I attribute to repeated readings of Green Eggs and Ham.

Food: New faves include Spaghetti-O's (don't get your hand too close to the bowl while she's eating or you'll pull back a stump), red grapes, applesauce, salsa, and goat cheese (I'm prepping her for membership in The Finer Things Club.)

Fun: That anxiety about playgrounds she had before - yeah, that's a thing of the past. We went to the fantastic park near our house she owned the bouncy bridge and swing. There are still some mountains to climb - apparently she and mom went to two parks when she spent the day at their house last weekend - the first one Ellie nixed before she was even out of the carseat with a finger shake and a verdict of "too big" about the slides.

Music: This week she's especially enjoyed the music of The Supremes, The Beatles, Kings of Leon, Vampire Weekend, Little Joy and The Cure. As I type this she's eating applesauce and rocking out to Elton John's "Philadelphia Freedom" (and learning the lesson that sometimes rocking out is messy.) I wonder how long I can keep her from finding out about The Wiggles?

Attitude: Are three year olds supposed to be this well-behaved and non-defiant? I don't think they are, so I'm wondering if she's just repressing all of her authority-questioning to unleash in her teen years? Since the first couple weeks there have been no major tantrums or meltdowns that I thought were expected at this age. I may jinx myself by writing this, but that might not be bad - like when your mom used to make you play with the kid who had chicken pox so you'd go ahead and get sick and get it over with. By the way, the chicken pox is now something they vaccinate against, which makes me again appreciate the hardiness of my generation.

More pics later once I find my AWOL camera cord:

Our Week So Far

And we're back...

We're still here! The computer has been back to the geniuses at the Apple store several times over the last two weeks. Good news - the new hard drive is installed, (almost) all the old stuff is transferred over, and the cracked keyboard panel has been replaced. Bad news? The backup hard drive is now fried, the iphoto library file corrupted and the new keyboard is stiff and hard to type on. Whatever.

Ok - here's what you came for.

New Words: no (sigh), flowers, chicken, coffee, zebra, elephant, little, big, circles, backpack ("pack pack"), tomorrow, flowers, thank you, please, ok, bird, glasses, bubbles, "Mommy coffee?", "Baby Animals!", "I lub you" (melt).

New Favorite Things: Backpack (purse has taken a back seat for the moment), Little Golden Book of Baby Animals, sweeping with her broom (I swear I'm not turning her into a house servant - she's inherently neat and is practicing for Montessori starting in a few weeks.)

What we've been up to since the last post:

Rocking Sunglasses

Issuing Poolside Ultimatums

Laundry - Better Than TV

Drafting Thoughtful Compositions on Current Events (Or Drawing Circles)

Opening our First Piece of Mail - Thanks Samuel, Jacob and Hannah!

Creating Some Art

Gardening With Bubbie

Being Completely Awesome

Detente

Peace talks between the former adversaries are going well, as seen here in the photo of a tea party the two celebrated this week.

Highlights

I'm still working on my post about our trip, but thought I'd provide some highlights of our first week home:

Vocabulary
English words used independently: ok, Mommy, car, juice, milk, toast, soup, lunch, baby, purse, book. Will repeat lots of things when prompted, or when listening from the backseat to me commenting on other drivers.

Food
Likes: eggs (a LOT), quesadillas, grilled chicken and pineapple, corn on the cob, chicken noodle soup, bananas, clementines, any kind of toasted bread, hummus, grilled cheese, broccoli, Taco Bell (don't you judge me)

Dislikes: yogurt, apples, peanut butter, strawberries, red grapes (although green grapes are acceptable).

Sleep
She HATES to go to sleep, even when she's falling asleep on the couch or at the dinner table, but once she's in bed she conks out for hours. Sleeps all through the night and hangs out in her bed in the mornings until I come get her. Waking her up from naps is a battle - it's about 10 minutes before she's fully conscious. I put my ipod in her room and can confirm that my "Classical Mix for Sleeping" is indeed musical Ambien.

Books
Sticking to a stable of classics for nap and bedtime reading - Brown Bear, Brown Bear (which she pronounces "Ber-own Bear-a"), Green Eggs and Ham (Suzanne, this book was an inspired choice - she still stops mid-fit to listen!), The Color Kittens and Goodnight Moon. Since she sometimes requests multiple readings of the same book in one sitting, I can recite almost every word of the above list by heart. Any picture in any book that includes a duck, goose, or chicken must be noted with a hand gesture and sound effects indicating a quacking beak before the page can be turned. This is not negotiable.

Play
Likes cars, blocks (for building and for using as a pretend cell phone and camera), train set, play dough, baby dolls, tea parties and picnics. She enjoys imaginative play - she likes to "cook" for picnics and has elaborate conversations on her cell phone (block) - in Amharic, so I don't know what they are about, but a number of them are with her grandparents, so perhaps they know? She has a pink purse that she carries around the house and likes to take in the car - today it contains sunglasses, a baby doll, another baby doll's hat, the cell phone block, a change purse with $1.39, a Starbucks receipt, Burt's Bees lip balm, a Staples copy card, plates from the tea set, a handkerchief and the cardboard tube from a roll of toilet paper. Clearly she's prepared for anything.

I Need a Genius

I've finally uploaded all of the pictures from my two cameras, my phone and Suzanne's pics from the trip and was all ready to do a post on the trip and experience in Ethiopia, when my computer decided to not let me access any photos. I have an appointment with a genius at the Apple store tomorrow (that's not sarcasm, it's the tech guy's title) and hopefully will have more to post soon!