September 2013

Ellie has really been playing with her "friends" lately. Mostly stuffed animals, especially Winnie the Pooh characters, but also baby dolls and whatever else is stuffed and soft (notice the bunny, Web?). They are all sleeping. She got them all tucked into the blanket in various places.

Or, she lines them up while she "sleeps"!

Levi and Caleb made a circus. They had moved some of the things before I got the camera out. There were several contests, among which was a honey eating contest, a dog race, a tree sleeping contest (I wanted a picture of that one!), and a map reading contest.

School! Caleb is busy painting a map of our neighborhood.

Sometimes they practice math facts or spelling words on the computer. Ellie is really helpful when Levi is trying to answer his math facts quickly.

Do you think Levi will wake up with a black eye? (Not to worry, I moved Caleb's knee after I took the picture :).)

Ellie went on an eating strike in September. For about 5 days she only ate yogurt and a little bit of milk. Perhaps it had somewhat to do with wanting her independence? She will put foods in her mouth, especially flavorful ones like Cheetos or Doritos and licks the flavoring off. She also likes to eat ranch dressing (big surprise, knowing her brothers!). She started holding her own bottle (sometimes), taking more of her own drinks out of her straw cup, and feeding herself more of the time (yogurt, at least). Thankfully, I was able to get her back to eating more things and drinking a little bit more, so that she's no longer hollow feeling like she was there for a few days (it takes her about 10 minutes to lose weight, and months to gain it, it seems).

For some reason, she will "drink" the milk off a spoon after I've eaten cold cereal. This day she was lucky that the only cereal opened was a chocolatey kind, she had several sips of the chocolate (powdered) milk before she dumped it all over herself.

Ellie has also given up on naps. I still put her to bed at nap time, and she plays happily, but she only falls asleep once a week, if that. Unless she's downstairs and everyone leaves her and she spins herself to sleep.......

Sometimes school is a little tricky to fit around things like canning. I canned all the peaches and pears mostly in two days' time. One of those days was Labor Day, but the other day meant school happened on the kitchen floor while I peeled pears! But they're good sports about it.

Also, at the end of September, Ellie had a qualification assessment to see if she qualified for developmental preschool (since she's almost three!). Although her eating is at the level of an 8 month old (well, maybe a tiny bit higher after her independence streak when she started feeding herself some), her overall "self-care" score isn't very bad, since she scored above her age in other parts of that category. She had one other category that was low, but nothing was low enough to qualify her. She is behind other kids her age, but not significantly enough to need help, so we're thankful for that! She is talking more and more all the time, and playing more, so those are all good signs that she will continue to develop, even if it's not exactly on track for her age.