growing up

well october turned into a lot of growing up for miss ella. in my previous post, i mentioned that ella was starting preschool at little hands academy. let me just say that i absolutely love that school and i love the people who work there. she has wonderful teachers and i know that she is being cared for very well.

with that said, monday went very well. we dropped her off and snuck out while she was playing. the teachers told me that she whined a little for mommy when the other kids' parents dropped them off, but other than that she was great. then for naptime, they gave ella her paci and she went right to sleep and slept for two hours! i'm impressed. so i went to pick her up and she was so happy to see me. she has NEVER been that happy to see me! so all in all, it was a great first day of school. which brings me to today....oh my gosh, it was horrible! as soon as we got there, she would not let me put her down because she knew if she took her eyes off of me, i was going to sneak out. so we sat down and played with toys for a few minutes, but she was not going to let me out of there. so, i handed her over to the teacher as she was screaming hysterically for me. I had to walk out of the room with her watching me and screaming "No Mommy, no! I wanna go bye-bye with you. Mommy NOOOOOOO!" Traumatizing...for the both of us. I walked out of there practically sobbing and cried all the way to work, which let to a horrific headache that lasted the rest of the day. I called at 10am and they said she was doing great. Since I work with my mom, I shared my sad story with her and she was sad too. So at 5, we both went to Little Hands to see her. She was so happy to see me. She had tears in her eyes as she ran up to me saying "It's Mommy, It's my mommy, Hi mommy!" I love her so much. It broke my heart today, but I know that she's going to adjust and she'll make friends and learn how to be much more flexible throughout this process. I did, however, tell Josh that he would take her to school from now on. I can't go through that again.

In order to get Ella prepared for sleeping on the mat, we moved her over to her big girl bed on Saturday night. Let me just say that I was expecting the worst and she has done awesome! I think the fact that she doesn't use a night light and it's pitch black in her room helps a lot. If she got up, she wouldn't be able to see her toys or books anyway, so what's the point? The first night at 2:30am, she accidentally got out of her bed and couldn't see how to get back in. So I heard her through the monitor saying "I wanna go night night, I wanna go night night". So i went in there and placed her back in bed under the covers and she went right back to sleep. The second night, she fell out of her bed and I heard her crying. I ran in there and she told me "Mommy, I f-f-f-ell d-d-d-down". It was so sweet. So I put her back in bed again, and right to sleep she went. Since then, she's done perfectly. She took a 3 hour nap on Tuesday and has just been awesome at it. I attribute it to all of the hard work we did when she was a baby, teaching her how to put herself to sleep and making it known that night time is for sleeping not for playing. That and the fact that I think she's amazing at anything she tries. Now i do have a feeling that once she gets used to things, she's going to test us and get out of bed just to see what we do, but for now we are enjoying an easy transition.

Here are some pictures of my grown-up little girl.

Ella's first day of school:

Ella's 2nd day of school:

And here's Ella and Avery doing some super cheeses:

preschool!

i'm one of those crazy people who doesn't like vaccinations. i stopped vaccinating ella at six months because i started educating myself and decided that our children get way too many vaccinations before they are two years old. now, i'm not so hard core as to think that vaccinations aren't good at all, i just think that they are pushed too hard and given too many. i decided over a year ago that when she turned two, i would start catching her up slowly....on my schedule, not my doctor's. i feel like it's the parent's responsibility to know and have an opinion on their child's healthcare. and BE EDUCATED!!! doctor's don't always know what's best. i'm not saying that they are harmful to children, but i'm also not saying that they aren't. What I'm saying is PROVE to me that they are safe! Let's see some (unbiased) research!

okay, now that i'm off my soapbox.....i had to take ella to get her MMR and varicella vaccination this morning. now, i said i was going to wait until she was two to start catching her up but ella is starting preschool on Monday. I cried while she got her shots and watched as they pumped those viruses into her precious little leg and I cried all the way home and prayed that God would take care of her body and give her an amazingly strong immune system. It was really traumatic for me.

Ella's original day to start school was January 5th, but due to some recent health issues with our current arrangements we had to bump that up. I happened to call Little Hands yesterday, which is so hard to get into, and they had an opening for their 18-month MWF class. I happened to call on a whim, hoping they'd have an opening and they did. I just wasn't expecting her to say that she could start on Monday. While it's obviously better timing for us, Mommy is not ready for Ella to start preschool. Luckily Little Hands is on Josh's way to work, not mine. I'd cry every day for the rest of the year if I had to drop her off. We'll both take her on Monday, so a few prayers would be appreciated. It's hard to know that for her first (almost) two years of her life, she was loved on continually and cared for by Josh and myself primarily, and for the past two months her Nonnie watched her once or twice a week. So this is hard for me to let a stranger take care of my child. Are they going to kiss her every bump and bruise when she walks up and asks them to? Will she feel like she can ask her teacher to kiss her bo-bos? Are they going to give lots of hugs? Will she feel secure? There are so many things running through my head and I just hope that she adjusts well. I take comfort in knowing that if she absolutely hates it or Mommy feels like it's not time yet, I can always take her out and try again another time. She's also got to learn how to sleep on a mat. So you might say a few prayers for her teachers too :)

Here's to my beautiful little girl, who is growing up so fast right before my very eyes. I love you Ellabell and I hope you have so much fun at school.

avery comes to visit!

I had the pleasure of getting to babysit Avery this morning. Ella and Avery had so much fun playing together. We watched some Baby Einstein and played with blocks, puzzles, and every toy in Ella's toybox. Although I did hear the word "mine" way more than usual, they played so nicely together. We also watched The Last Unicorn (well the first 30 minutes of it). I don't know if anyone else remembers that movie, but it was my favorite when I was a kid. Watching it now is a little disturbing, but I went ahead and passed it along to my daughter anyway! :) The things you could get away with in the 70s and 80s!

Thanks for coming over to play and come back again soon, Avery!

And I've decided that when I have my second child, I wouldn't mind if it came out a two year old :)

This one was funny because they both wanted to sit in the chair. Whoever was sitting in the chair wouldn't get up because as soon as she would the other one would take her seat. It was so funny! Every once in a while one of them would see something worth getting up and losing the seat over. :)

I was driving down 288 with Ella the other day and I realized that her future is my biggest worry. I was a lot of trouble to my parents in high school and college. I got caught up in lots of things I shouldn't have. I look back and think about how far away my life then is from my life now. I love everything about where I am and Ella and Josh bless me beyond belief. My parents raised me right. I was just a stubborn, bull-headed kid who was determined to get into trouble. I knew everything and was always right. My parents were stupid. So, my take on parenting is that you do the best that you can and you pray for wisdom and guidance from God and from there, it's up to your children. Luckily, my parents raised me in church and God never left my side. I realize that I could still be doing the same things (or worse) that I was doing seven years ago. Something about my personality coupled with the fact that I had faith in Jesus Christ brought me home. I just hope that Ella avoids a lot of my mistakes. And if she doesn't, I pray that God will steer her back, just like He did me. Knowing that one day, I will have to let Ella be the person that she wants to be is terrifying. I just pray that I am instilling values that will stay with her forever, no matter where she goes. She is my heart and I love her more than my own life itself.

Here is ella practicing good hygiene:

and then lovin on her brobee.

this one is a little fuzzy, but her new thing is to try and walk around in my shoes. she makes it about two steps and then falls out of them.

it was the first day of fall, so we had to put on our fall clothes! here she is cheesin it up.