ellie with caleb
Yet another month has gone by, and yet another month without much blog activity. Each day, I recount for Wes something funny or intelligent that Ellie did that day. Perhaps I need to blog with the same frequency so as to take the burden off of me when I finally sit down to do it.
A few of the highlights are that for several weeks, it seemed as though Ellie might be dropping her nap, as she would laugh, sing, and play in her crib for a very long time, but never go to sleep. I tried several interventions, but to no avail. Finally, after about two weeks, she started napping again. I have concluded that somehow Daylight Saving time affected her and it took her a few weeks to adapt. I noted in the fall that she also had some minor sleep issues for about two weeks after the clocks turned back.
Ellie and Wes went to Atlanta for a weekend and left me at home. It was the first time I had been alone in our house since Ellie was born. It was such a treat to have time that I could dictate without consideration of anyone else. Likewise, Ellie loved time with her grandparents, cousins, and aunt and uncle.
Ellie amazes me with her kindness. I’m not sure her intent is to necessarily be sweet or helpful, but she loves to make us hamburgers with her pretend food, ensure that we always have our real glasses filled with drinks, and she loves to unload the car when the groceries are in the trunk. She also had a visit with a friend’s 4-month-old, Caleb (pictured above), and she was equally as sweet and attentive to his needs.
This month, Ellie has continued to develop in her language skills. She has begun to use complete sentences. I am impressed that she can accurately ask questions using “What?” “Who?” and “Where?” For example, “What are you making?” “Who is that?” “Where are we going?” Over the last week or so, she has developed some stuttering. It seemed to literally creep up in one day. I was a bit nervous, largely because of the rapid onset, and called a friend who is a speech pathologist. She assured me that it is a normal, even expected, aspect of speech development. We concluded that since Ellie naturally decided to start thinking about sentence construction, including what nouns and verbs to use and in what order to place them, the added concentration has interrupted her flow of speech a bit. Now that I am assured it is not a problem, it is one more way that I am completely fascinated by how she develops and changes.
The Barry Patch 