Happy Half-Birthday, Elinor!

Elinor is 18 months old today!  And I have not written a post in three months!  I don’t even know where to start!

I think I will start with linking to our latest batch of pictures on Picasa.  My camera bit the dust (or shall I say sand!) after our spring trip to the beach so we have not been taking as many pictures, except on the iPhone!  But here are a few pictures to show how much Elinor has changed and what she’s been up to in the past 3 months.

Since we last posted, we completed the sales of our two houses and purchased another one.  We’ve packed, made countless trips to Goodwill, moved, and unpacked (mostly).  Whew!  We do love our new house and I can actually say I have not thought about our old house one bit (except to be very glad I am not there dealing with the cherry tree right now!).  We love the additional finished basement space, where we have Elinor’s playroom and our TV.  Elinor has a slide, tent, train table, and lots of other toys down here.  It is also nice and cool on these hot summer days we are finally getting!  We have really enjoyed getting to know our neighbors.  Our immediate next-door neighbors have a 3 year old and a newborn baby.  Two houses down is a couple with a 9 month old.  And three houses down is a couple with a 2 year old and a newborn.  We have Mazama friends right around the corner.  We are 1/2 mile from Laurelhurst Park, and there is a “church park” just a block away with lots of toddler slides, playhouses, etc.  We like to go there in early evenings and on Saturdays, and we’ve heard that the church people don’t mind that the neighbors use it at all (if we ever see the church people we will ask and make sure)!  There is a big block party every year in August and our house is one of the houses that plans it, so we have a list of tasks to accomplish before then.  Our street is a bike street, so it is low traffic (except for bikes!) and tends to see a lot of pedestrians as well.  We are really happy here and so is Elinor!

Elinor did have a rough couple of weeks around the time of the move.  I think that our stress and of course witnessing all the change really affected her.  We also had to put our cat Beatnik down right in the middle of all of this, due to a spinal tumor that honestly seemed to materialize overnight.  So lots of things going on all at once.

But it seems that she has really rebounded and is smack dab in the middle of a period of rapid development–especially with language and with growth!  She is talking up a storm, sometimes with recognizable words, sometimes not so much.  I am continuing to work on signs with her, to help me understand her when she talks.  As she starts saying a new word, I try to teach the sign as well, so that she will do them together.  Some of our favorite words to hear her say: All Right, Oh Wow, iron, yuck, ice and ice cream, big toe, bubble, pop, olive, and hummus.  Most of these do not have signs that I know at all, so I’m glad they are pretty distinct and recognizable!  She also is identifying letters and numbers on things…her favorite is the letter O.  When we read books, she is quick to point out all the O’s on the page.  Her comprehension of language consistently amazes me.  We’re already having to spell words out in this household to make sure she doesn’t comprehend them–crazy. I am able to get some things done around the house these days by giving her instructions to go do things for me (put clothes in the hamper, pick up her shoes, “help” on the kitchen floor by playing with measuring cups, etc).  Hopefully this will bode well for “help” with a new baby around!

Elinor is still fascinated by trucks, tractors, trains, etc.  She’s not so big on animal sounds (except for meow, moo and whatever you want to call those sounds elephants and monkeys make) but she certainly can tell you what an ambulance, motorcycle, helicopter, sound like!  She loves sandboxes, tools (allen wrenches!), pebbles, rocks, sticks, and as of today, drawing on the sidewalk with chalk!  Our foolproof (but messy) distraction technique remains a cup of uncooked rice and kitchen implements.

She still is as sweet as can be, offering lots of hugs and kisses (when she’s in the mood!), snuggling up for book-reading before naps and bedtime, and lingering in bed with us in the morning after she wakes up.  She is paying a lot of attention to my big belly, giving it lots of pats, hugs, and kisses.  She knows a baby is inside, but she doesn’t know how this is going to affect her when it’s not inside anymore!  There’s only so much preparation we can do…but we are trying hard to do what we can.  The pregnancy is going well but definitely has been a lot harder on me this time around.  Who knows whether my excessive fatigue is due to pregnancy, a new house, a toddler, or a combination of all of these (plus work, etc!)!  We know from ultrasounds that this is a big baby (and I know for sure that I am bigger at this stage than I was with Elinor), so I’m sure that is not helping matters much either.  We only have 6 weeks left and are quickly realizing that we have a lot more preparation to do!  It is sneaking up on us. 

We’ve had fun with visitors this past month.  My high school friend Erin and her son Jack (4 years old) came and stayed with us for a weekend.  We had a blast.  It was so much fun seeing how it will be in a few years with two kids in the house.  Jack constantly entertained Elinor with his dancing, fake sneezes, and general silliness.  Burke’s dad and stepmom came for a long weekend and got to spend a lot of time with Elinor and with Burke by himself as well.  I was in the midst of grading for my community college class so was unavailable a lot of the time but we all got together for some good meals and nice times visiting on the back porch.  Then Aunt Jennifer and Dan came and visited for a weekend too.  We got to take Elinor with us to pick them up from the train station (they rode down from Seattle) which was fun for Elinor. We fit in lots of fun things.  Elinor seems to have a difficult time sleeping when we have guests around…she is to that stage where she knows we are up having fun without her, and she wants to be in on the action!

Burke turns 40 (!) on July 20 and the two of us are going to get away for a weekend and let Elinor have a trial run of staying with Miney and Jake like she will be when the baby is born.  I did have my first weekend away without Elinor in May, when I went to the coast with my friends Jen and Sarah.  It all went really well and Burke did great holding down the fort.  I could tell upon coming back to town that it was really great for them to get that daddy-daughter time together.  So when can I go again? 🙂

There is no way I could capture all the joys of life with Elinor that have taken place in the last 3 months, but thank you for letting me share a little bit here with you.

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