who brought that?

Ella has always had to know who everyone around her was. Anytime she'd see someone, she'd ask "who's that?" and I'd tell her. She has always needed to know everyone's names. She loves to know their names and she's also a big fan of nicknames. She thinks that calling my mom and dad Davey-baby and Patty-Wagon is absolutely hilarious. I think so too. She calls her big cousin Alley by her nickname, Alleycat. Or Alleygator or even Alleycatgator. I'm usually Paigey, skittles, or paigerator. Josh is joshy, of course. But lately, now that she has everyone's names and nicknames figured out, she's taken a new approach. I remember my brothers going through the "why" stage with their kids. Maybe we're not there yet, or maybe she doesn't care why. She just needs to know who. So she'll see something (food at the grocery store, her easter basket, a sippy cup, etc) and ask me "who brought that?" It's too cute. I love listening to her figure out the world and being able to help her along the way with all of her questions. She's a smart kid. Oh, and the unprompted please's and thank you's are also music to my ears.



And on the potty training front, Ella's still doing great! We haven't been back to diapers since my last update. It's wonderful. At first I thought potty training would be a big headache and I just avoided it. It was so much easier to put her in a diaper for 3 to 4 hours instead of taking her to the potty every 30 minutes. Since Ella finally figured it out, I've realized that potty training is a piece of cake. She just got it one day and she can hold it for 3 hours usually and will tell me when she needs to go. The little boys potty training at school had a lot to do with her getting movtivated to do it too, I'm sure. But mostly, I think it just finally clicked for her. If she's playing and having fun, I have to remind her to go and I always make her go before we leave the house. A soaked car seat does not sound like an experience I want to have. I'm sure I will soon enough, but I'm going to avoid that as long as possible. *UPDATE - this has already happened...and it wasn't as awful as I anticipated.* I have heard about regression, but hopefully the next six weeks of successful potty training will make the regression minimal and easy to bounce back from, if she regresses at all. But I definitely love this new potty trained kid of mine. She's a blessing, a handful and a sweet, affectionate kid. It's great to get to new places, but it also comes with new sets of challenges to figure out. On to the next one........