Eliana & her stroller

Eliana & her stroller
Originally uploaded by eliana0409

This is actually from last week, out at the Tot Lot in Prospect Park. You're so proud of your stroller! It might be good if you were a little less attached, but I suppose that comes in time.

You had a fever from Sunday afternoon to Monday afternoon so we have been doing much more holding you than photographing you. Looks like you're getting in 4 teeth, which explains the fever. Anyway, it's Tuesday and your fever broke yesterday and you seem to be in a better mood now.

Tonight you did something that amazed me. Sometimes when I need you to wait for something, I'll say, "Eliana, it's going to be just a minute." And lately you've been repeating back, "Minute."

Tonight, you were in the bath and your bath was winding down...we put away all the toys, drained all of the water, and it was time to get out, but you didn't want to get out.

So you looked at me and said, "minute..." I couldn't believe it, I haven't heard you say "minute" on your own (only repeating it back), much less use it in that way. Wow!

I hear you say so many new words these days. Yesterday you looked at our camera and said, "camera!" On the walk with Emily, Alison & Mark, you were saying something we couldn't understand, then we realized you were saying, "C'mon!" back to us. Recently you've also been saying, "Whose x?" e.g. "Whose shoes?"

Playground patrol

Yesterday we went into Manhattan & met up with Mark, Emily & little Alison for a playdate. Alison is almost a year old and loves to crawl so she has those same knee calluses that you had for months. As you can see, you were thrilled to get out and walk! Right around this time, Alison wanted to crawl home, but had to be carried. You told her to just be patient, it won't be long before she's burning up the pavement too!



We even got a pretty good picture of our family, taken by Mark. It is not so easy to take your picture these days, since you don't stop moving long. Many times by the time I snap the camera, you've already moved out of the frame.



What's challenging these days is figuring out how to handle the complex interpersonal dynamics of the playground. As we ran around the Madison Square Park playground, a slightly younger girl eyed your rice cracker, grabbed it out of your hands, and put it in her mouth while her mother looked on with interest. :-) What we've been thinking about is how to teach you to be more assertive. Possibly because you do a babysitter share with an older, bigger girl, you generally are willing to let other kids take stuff away.
Second, what seems challenging is figuring out how to intervene in a way that keeps everyone's dignity. On Friday, we brought your toy stroller to the playground. All of the toddlers wanted to push it around, but you're pretty attached to your stroller at this point also. So a little thirteen- month-old grabbed and didn't want to give it back...meanwhile you were getting very upset (even though you had been happily playing on the slide a moment before.) How can we teach you (and ourselves) not to worry too much about our stuff, but to build relationships in a ways that's respectful? Very challenging, we're learning as much as you are.

Weekend Fun

Another weekend, another few playgrounds. On Saturday morning we walked over to Slope Park in Greenwood Heights to pick up our CSA vegetables...you got in some run-around time with Abba while mom weighed tomatoes, onions, and beets. You're wearing a green tie-halter top--it's a good look for you!

On Sunday we were trying to go to Governor's Island, but we had some errands to run and the day got away from us. So we walked around Brooklyn Heights instead..you didn't seem to mind. The above photo was taken at the Brooklyn Heights playground, right next to the Promenade. You were so interested in the slides, stairs and bridges that you didn't even notice the beautiful view of Manhattan behind the playground.

Before we arrived at the playground (which wasn't too far from our subway stop towards home), we stopped in at a cafe for a drink. We knew we had left our neighborhood when we found out that they didn't have high chairs! We figured we'd let you walk around the cafe a bit...you spent the next 10 minutes wandering around and making friends with everyone there. Then, you got tired of that, and started shrieking...sort of disturbed the peace of the cafe. So Abba took you outside while mom scarfed down her salad.

Your walking skills are getting better and better. But walking with you...it's not exactly our normal walk down the street. Strangely enough, we have to teach you NOT to pick up trash...so that in a few years we can teach you TO pick up trash. The problem is that while we take pride in our NYC streets, we would hardly go grabbing small bits of trash from the sidewalk. You, on the other hand, feel the need to pick up the little scraps you see, just like you do when we're at home. I know, you want to hand them to us and help out. But we're teaching you not to do it, at least for now..in a few years you can remind us that you've been wanting to pick up trash all of this time.

Guess if we're writing it all down, we have to acknowledge that you had your first tantrum this weekend. You woke up, mom took you out of the crib and nothing was quite right..you were frustrated but couldn't explain why. So you writhed around for a while, with mom & dad looking on very concerned and feeling bad that there wasn't anything we could do to help. Finally you said, "lamby!" and we got lamby...you calmed down and didn't seem worse for the wear.

The Big Chair

Since you were born, we've been taking pictures of you in the nursing glider that we got especially for your arrival. The top photo is from May 2007, the second one from July 2007, the photo in overalls is from January 2008, then June 2008 and the bottom photo is from this week. You've grown and changed so much! It might look as if you were sitting up in the second photo, but in fact we just propped you up there. Nowadays you're sitting up nicely, walking...and have a lot more hair!

Hap! Hap!

You know a lot of words these days...we stopped counting when we could think of 70 words that you know, and that was a month or two ago. Now, it's probably more than 100; we've lost track. You come out with new ones all the time, which is exciting. Sometime when I have more time I'll put in our list off some of the words you know.

Also recently you started putting two words together to form little phrases. The first one, which I heard a while back, was "Abba bath." (You call your daddy "Abba," Hebrew for dad.) But you really took off with this last week: we were walking over to Lucy's house and you said, "Lulu's house." Now you like talking like this all day long: "Eli's shoes", "Mommy's plate," "Shiloh's bed," etc.

But the exact topic of my post: one of your new words is "help!" which you pronounce "hap!" When you need help with something, you call us, "hap! hap!" One of the things you sometimes need help with is opening the seatbelt of your toy stroller. You called me tonight, "Hap! Hap!" to help you get it open. You were so serious about it and so determined to get the seatbelt open! I asked you if I could take your picture before I opened the seatbelt, and you said no. So I helped you first, then took the picture. I think in another few minutes you wanted help again, to get it shut. That's the way it goes...lots of stuff to do around here.

Happy to help.

Eli's Stroller

I'm going to try to resurrect this blog. It's hard to for me to blog consistently. But when we were on vacation recently in California, I had all these questions for my parents about what they did when I was a toddler, and what I did when I was a toddler..they didn't remember! Well, it was more than 30 years ago, can't quite blame them. But if I can blog, just a little each day, I could create a record for you about what happened now. I think you might like reading it some day.

You are doing so much now. Yesterday you were 16 months old. You started walking about a month before that, around June 29. Now, you're getting more and more stable on your feet. Two days ago, I got you a doll stroller...as you can see, you love it!

Here's the story of the stroller: we went to the toy store on Friday to get you a stroller. At the toy store, we ran into a neighbor and told her that we were shopping for a stroller...turns out she had 4 on her deck that her two daughters couldn't use. She said you could have one if you liked. You were thrilled..you definitely drove it off the lot and didn't want to let it out of your sight. Now you walk around the house with it, strolling around your baby doll, lamby, or your favorite toy of the moment. You call it your "ah-lah" which is how you hear the word "stroller."