Fall Fun

Way to much to post here! And it's been a while...and my bedtime is in four minutes but I guess I'm not going to make it because the apples are cooking and I have to check them every once in a while, anyway.

Apples? We got out of town and went apple picking today. It was great! We told Eliana that we were going to pick apples, and that apples come from trees, and she didn't quite know what we were talking about. She knew what apples are, but what about the trees? Then we took her out to the orchards:



Okay, it took a few minutes for her to get the "lay of the land" and figure out what was going on. But it didn't take long for her to find her natural connection with the apple:





These apples were amazing, some were almost her size.

What was nice about these orchards (Terhune Orchards if you want to visit yourself) was that the trees weren't much taller than 7 feet, so even Eliana could pick a lot of apples without a ladder or a picking tool. Okay, perhaps she needed some help from Abba, and he was happy to lift her up for the tall ones.

So, let's see. Eliana spent the first part of the "picking" experience doing mostly sampling.



As far as we know, she was happy with every apple she encountered. As a matter of fact, when we hit the Granny Smiths, she started to get so into it, she didn't want to stop. We explained that we probably had enough apples...how many pounds of apples can a family of three eat, bake, or otherwise consume or store? Eliana was unstoppable...literally! She kept grabbing the apples from the ground, and putting them in the collection bag, yelling, "Another one! Another one!"

This went on for a while, much to the entertainment of Mommy and Abba and some other pickers as well. Finally, we had to carry her off the orchard...she was still yelling "another one!" as we weighed our 30 pounds of apples and put them into the car.

For the second part of the outing, we got to have the farm experience. We ate lunch by the duckpond..we were starving after all that hard work picking apples, so pretty much ordered everything on the Barnyard Cafe menu. Then we took a walk around.
Eliana was fascinated by the chickens:



and the horses:



It was a fun day. Eliana had a little bit of trouble going to sleep tonight, she was recounting her day to herself (as she always does) and had so much to say, it took a while to get to sleep!

As far as how she is changing..her language skills continue to blossom. She is using a lot of verbs now: "Shiloh barking." "Mommy is sleeping." "Abba's coming soon." and many others. She has also been using these little phrases, like "that one" and "this one" that make her language sound so grown up.

She also had her first telephone conversation yesterday..up to now when she get on the phone she mostly had listened and kissed the phone. But yesterday she spoke to Nene, who was asking her some questions, and she said "yeah." "yeah."..really conversational interchange. Then at one point she said, "Nene soon," acknowledging she'd see Nene soon, and at the end she said, "Bye bye!" We look forward to many more conversations.

Word on the Street

Hi, no pictures to post today but I did want to post an update. We went running and Eliana did all sorts of cute things but neither of us had our cameras. This past weekend Eliana tried on her Halloween costume (and we took some pictures), but we aren't ready to reveal her Halloween look yet!

Eliana's language skills continue to expand. She had a cold on Friday, and kept telling us how her "nose running" and how she wanted a tissue. She has a great ear, so when we meet people and tell her their names, she'll say them back. Today she met (or re-met) Jaycee (another baby in a jogging stroller), Lynne (Mommy's running partner, who was having a stoop sale) and our neighbor Melissa. Each time, she said their names either right away or after a few minutes.

The most novel thing that happened today was that Eliana had a conversation with a stranger! We were standing in front of the Italian food store tonight waiting for Abba, and Mommy started up a conversation with a man holding his brown dog in front of the store. So the man asked Eliana, "do you have a dog?" She thought about it for a minute, and said, "Yes." Then the man asked, "What's your dog's name?" and Eliana said, "Shiloh." Of course we have conversations with her all the time, but it was new for her to be able to "converse" with someone on the street.

Eliana's vocabulary is gaining depth: she knows "shoes" and also "boots." She knows "eating" (from her book about the kitchen) but also "mixing" and "cracking." She knows "quiet" and "loud." She even said, "coffee" last week. I guess we talk about it a lot around here!

I don't think I've mentioned her "mine" phase yet. Eliana is in a "mine" stage, probably spurred on by the large amount of time that she spends with her older (22 mos) friend Lucy. At our house, she will grab a toy or book, and say, "mine!" This happens many times a day. We are calm about it, I say, "let me know when you're ready to share it," and then ask her in a few minutes if she wants to read the book or do the activity together. (It's not as if I was scheming about how to get a chance to use her shape sorter :-) ) Sometimes if she's in a playful mood, I'll hug her and say, "mine, mine!" This usually makes her laugh.

Another she does now is say "Mommy's turn," or "Eli's turn." So when she gets frustrated or need help, she'll say that it's my turn! I am always willing to take my turn.

Eliana is very concerned about Shiloh's hair on the floor. Since Shiloh is a short-haired dog, she sheds a lot of hair. So Eliana sees the hair, gets concerned, and goes to get the broom and start sweeping! (I mentioned in a previous post that she was working hard...) The broom is about 3x her size (although the thought of getting her a Montessori toddler-sized broom has crossed my mind) and it's difficult for her to control it, so it's "Mommy's turn" after not too long. In any event, our floors are cleaner than ever.

Rosh Hashanah

Again a lot of stuff happening over here and not so much time to blog it. It's been over a week since I last wrote.

Let's see..first, we got a jogging stroller!



It is a Bob Revolution, which is known for being a good jogging stroller, with shock absorbers, big wheels and everything! After taking it out for an hour, I wondered why we didn't get one a long time ago. It's a smoother ride than our umbrella stroller, plus the whole family can go out running--Mommy and Abba put on their running shoes, and Eliana hangs on to a cup of cheerios and gets to enjoy the ride.

We took Eliana to the Tot Rosh Hashanah service at Beth Elohim, our local Brooklyn synagogue. There were over 200 people there with their toddlers--it was unbelievable. We ran into a bunch of friends and neighbors, which was a lot of fun.

Eliana walked the last leg of the trip home:






She's getting a lot sturdier on her feet, although she did fall over a few times...she was pretty excited about walking on the sidewalk!

Then we went out to Long Island to have lunch at the Feinsteins with our extended family. We arrived a few minutes early, so had some time to take a walk in a nearby meadow:






What a cutie! Anyway we did eventually go inside. Eliana started off a little shy, but warmed up after not too long and starting exploring every corner of the house...there was a lot to explore, and I think she got almost every room:





In addition to the artwork (which Eliana couldn't appreciate but did try to touch and/or put in her mouth), there was a terrific playroom. Eliana found the play kitchen, opened all of the cabinets, and was ready to make us lunch. And then she found the stroller, also pictured above.



Guess they know something about toys in this family!

Eliana didn't last too long at the meal. We brought a few books, which kept her at the table a few minutes longer:



But the best part was "horsing around" with our family. Eliana grabbed cousin Carol's purse, put it over her arm, and said, "Bye bye!"...charming everyone. Then she took it off her purse and proceeded to examine the contents:





I told Carol that I was worried that Eliana might inadvertently call Japan on her cell phone, but she didn't seem too concerned.





We had fun and enjoyed laughing with our little girlie. I spent so much time chasing after her that never got to finish two different conversations, but we did laugh. Hopefully I'll continue the conversations the Yom Kippur break fast next week.

Eliana's language skills continue to stretch. She knows so many words, we're continually surprised and impressed. She is now talking about in opposites: up and down, quiet and loud, and some others. We hear her counting "one, two, three" and saying the beginning of the alphabet song. She is also putting words into phrases and sentences: "Why Shiloh barking?" "Shoes off."

As we were leaving the Feinsteins, I said to her, say "thank you," to our cousin Josh Levine for playing the accordion. She said "thank you" as she does often. Then I said "Thank you for the music," and she repeated "Thank you for music." She has a great ear and also seems to understand A LOT of what we're saying now.

Oh, and she's started to tell us to "sit down, Mommy!" "sit down, Abba!" many times a day. It might sound bossy coming from an older child, but when she says it, it's so cute that we just smile...and sit down. :-)