She Who Must Be Obeyed

Oh Elly.  What are we going to do with this one?  So loud.  Happily whacks away at older brothers if they bug her.  Pulls the most incredible grumpy faces.

I have no idea what to do with her hair these days.  Those adorable pigtails are great, but its the front.  The wispy hair in her eyes is driving us both bananas.  I've resorted to the Pebbles look

And she just won't stop.  Morning, noon and night, this kid just goes.  And she thinks she's the same age as her brothers.  Thinks she can do the same thing as them.  Forget the highchair, she wants to eat in a chair just like the rest of us.  So what if she can't see her food.  Its all going in her hair and her lap anyway, what does it matter?  I'm kind of proud of her go get 'em attitude, but its also tiring to chase her constantly.  And if I don't chase her?  If I just let her go?  Well, I do that too, but that's usually when I discover her up the playstructure ladder or investigating the toilet bowl water (the boys never did that!  Why is she doing that?!).  She is our fearless leader, no doubt about it.

And at night, well...she doesn't stop then either.  And she doesn't get any quieter.   It used to be that she would cry for us to come-and-get-me-right-this-instant-or-the-wrath-of-Elly-shall-be-known-unto-you at about midnight, sometimes even 2am, and I would stumble out of bed and bring her back to our room.  But since coming home from the cottage, we've gotten rid of her crib (she was Houdini-ing her way out of it) and placed her on a twin bed on the floor.  She goes to bed nicely most nights, but she's teething her eye teeth (those little sharp ones on the sides) and they hurt and make her restless, so she's started waking up earlier and earlier and crying louder and louder. Two nights in a row Mark didn't get upstairs fast enough and she came storming out of her room crying for us, angry little feet pounding the floor, blonde hair all askew.  It was kind of funny actually, the door slamming against the wall, the angry face.  So much drama for such a little person!  But then she wouldn't go back to sleep until we brought her into our bed, so the funny kind of ended there.

Last night I managed to get her back to sleep at 10pm and we went to bed without her smugly snuggled between us for a change.  I woke up sometime around 2:30am to a door slamming against a wall and angry little feet stomping in the dark.  A blonde halo of fuzz went past the foot of the bed and then she was pulling herself up into bed next to me, crawling over me and finally flopping down between us.  She slept soundly for a change and so did we.  But the fact that she's now quite happy to stomp her way to us in the middle of the night is...interesting.  I mean, on the one hand, are we ever going to have our bed to ourselves again?  Are we going to have this child lying horizontally across our pillows until she goes to university?  And on the other hand...she can get there herself!  I don't have to drag my sorry self into her room and get her anymore!

I'm choosing to be a glass half full kind of person and see this as a victory. 

Here she is in all her loud, gorgeous, smiley glory.

Immersing Ourselves In The School Year

Have you seen this ad? Its one of my all time favorites.  Just because it conveys how I feel come the end of August.

So all that to say the boys did go back to school -  on Friday of all days.  It was a staggered start and I guess they were the last of the kids to go back.  I hadn't looked at the school's letter all summer, telling us which classroom they were in, who their teachers were, etc and I finally got it out on Sunday evening and thank goodness because otherwise I would have showed up with them like a lemon on Tuesday morning!  I felt a little let down at them not going back right away, but also partly relieved.  I got one last hurrah with the two of them before the reality of the school year set in and they headed back to class.

Except that they didn't "go back", they "began" because we changed schools this year.  I know, crazy.  One year of JK at the school around the corner from us and now I've whisked them out of there and put them in the french immersion school a five minute drive away.  I'm already very glad I did though.  Its a great school from what I can see.  The boys go in smiling and come out smiling.  On his first day, Will came out of class saying it was "double fun!" and Owen was high fiving me and Elliot right, left and centre.  They both proudly showed off their new french vocabulary - "oui", "bonjour" and "ici".  I love that the first word the teachers taught them was "yes".  Smart.  Very smart.   But they seem excited by the idea of learning a new language.  Understanding what mummy and daddy mutter to each other when we don't want them to understand might also play into it.  Mark and I are going to have to start speaking in Spanish or German I think.  Or Pig Latin.  "Ix nay on the ice-creamay." 

I think the fact that its only mornings at this school also helps.  Last year we were at a school that was one of the first in Ontario to do all day kindergarten and I loved that they were busy playing all day and that I got some quiet(ish) time with Elly.  I was initially dreading going from full day JK to half day SK since I couldn't see how we were going to fill the afternoons, but this past month at home with them has really helped us find the adventures in the everyday.  And for the kids, it seems like the change to half days was a bit of a relief.  Owen in particular seemed less anxious about starting school knowing I'd be coming to get him at lunchtime.  I'm hopeful we continue on a positive path and that I'm not blogging next month about pulling my hair out or that the boys have learned the afternoon tv roster by heart. 

As for Mademoiselle Elliot, she was a little sad when we drop the guys off on Friday and spent the morning wondering about "Woah-Woah?  Oh-Oh?", but today she took it in her stride and commanded the playstructure and sandbox at home with great glee.

Maybe it really is the most wonderful time of the year.

 One last hug before heading to SK! How on earth did they grow up so fast?

Happy 18 Month Birthday Elly!

My baby girl is not so baby anymore! She turned 18 months old yesterday.  I seem to recall that I was impatient for the boys to reach this age, that it felt like newborn to toddlerhood took a long time.  But with numero tres, its flying by. She popped out, I blinked and now she's on her way to college.  Okay, well maybe not quite, but some days it feels that way.

So 18 months...yeah, I'm not going to lie, she's a handful this one.  A gorgeous, adorable, cuddly handful.  She's just so loud.  And she knows what she wants.  Don't get in her way or it will get even louder.  Elly's no pushover, that's for sure.  She can dish it out.  Owen and Will very occasionally think they want to rumble with her, get swatted in the face and beat a hasty retreat.  We're currently working on "hands are for hugging, not for hitting".  Wish us luck.

But there's also a lot of laughter in the house, thanks to this little joker.  If Elliot sees that she's got an audience she will milk it for all she's worth.   And the cuddles, oh my!  I love the way Elly grabs a book from her bookshelf at bedtime, yells at me until I sit down with her and then snuggles in for a read.  So lovely to rest my chin on the top of her little blonde mop.  Such sweet little kisses that go "mwah!"

We love our Ellybelly more and more everyday and I think everyone in the house would agree with me - even battered big brothers - when I say that she is our darling girl.  Our loud darling girl.