Elise Carolyn » Daily Elise

Elise Loves the Farm

valerie — Mon, 18 Apr 2011 04:52:25 +0000

Elise is becoming quite the little animal lover. She is not afraid to hug, tough, feed or otherwise interact with any creature she comes across. We went on a working sheep ranch tour this past weekend and Elise was in hog heaven. With real pig-a-lets even. She could not get enough of the baby lambs in a small enclosed barn. She stood at every fence with straw in hand, enticing the animals to pay her a visit. And when she hit the chicken pen. Oh joy.

She was given the basic idea of how to catch a chicken from a nice neighborhood kid who is a frequent fixture on the ranch. I think she’s a natural–once she learns to slow down a bit.

Of course, we’re raising a real rancher here. After loving on a very sweet newborn lamb, she asked, “Is this the lamb bone to eat?”

Little girl loves her lamb riblets.

On Climbing

valerie — Sun, 17 Oct 2010 16:47:25 +0000

Elise comes into the sleeping room this morning and tells me “Mama, night night” and proceeds to climb up into Maia’s bed. A few minutes later she announces “I come down!” As she reaches the bottom, she loses her footing and I hear a small thud followed by “I fall down!” and turn to see her laying on the floor.

She shakes herself off and goes on with her morning. I am loving the play-by-play announcements.

Possession

valerie — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 21:26:27 +0000

And so it begins. Stella was playing with a toy on the changing table and Elise comes charging in, sees Stella and yells: “MY zhu-zhu pet! MY zhu-zhu pet!” She then takes her toy and charges out of the room again.

I expect to hear a whole lot more “my” from now on. But on the bright side, hey, a nice complete thought was spoken and very little screaming was involved.

Little Bean

valerie — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 15:47:30 +0000

At 21 months and counting, Elise is having a language explosion. She’s putting together two-three word sentences. And this morning as I was pouring a cup of brow elixir for John and myself she came up with a new one: “Happy coffee (caw-caw) baby!”

That’s my girl.

May I introduce, Scarface

john — Wed, 12 May 2010 04:55:16 +0000

Last night, Elise was sporting a lovely red mark across her face. Inquiries with Maia revealed some sort of incident involving a shoe, but, details were hardly forthcoming, and no one involved could care less about it.

But, I can’t help but see a budding mobster ready to make her mark on the kids at the playground.

And so I says to Tony, take this back! — I ordered the linguine, not the fettuccine…

NIKON D200, ISO 320, ƒ/2.8, 1/60sec, 70mm focal L.

The Goddaughter

NIKON D200, ISO 320, ƒ/2.8, 1/50sec, 70mm focal L.

Steps Away from Stepping Out

valerie — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 05:47:41 +0000

Elise took a halting half step tonight. Maybe more of a foot adjustment, but still. The idea that she can remain upright and move is beginning to solidify. She just loves to stand and today she was letting go and holding an independent stance for as long as her baby attention span lets her. She is just so proud of herself. She’s going to figure this whole walking thing out any time now, and I think I might be ready for her.

Park Date

valerie — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 17:32:03 +0000

We did something today that I have been remiss in doing lately. We went to the park. My favorite park for little crawlers and just standers and the big sister that travels with them.

It was a beautiful day for it. Sunshine, cool breeze, temperate weather. The time was right…after lunch so it was very quiet. The girls had a fantastic time. Elise and Stella both loved the swings. Elsie has been loving them, but this is a new development for Stella. Stella spent the entire time laughing her perfect baby laugh, laughing to the point where she gave herself the hiccups…which only made her laugh louder.

After swings we went to the small child play area with a large sandy area that is partially shaded. There is a small climbing structure with a “Maia sized house” and slide. Maia loves the play structure and Stella and Elise enjoyed the sand, both giving a shovel a try. They then scooped sand and, wonder of wonders, put it into their small buckets and not into their mouths. Yay!

Then it was teeter-totter time. This teeter-totter is really a cantilever type beam with a spring in the middle, so it bounces as opposed to moving the kids up and down in the air. Better for little ones. Elise loves to pull herself up by the seats and make the whole thing bounce and once she realized she could sit on the seat and bounce big time I had a hard time convincing her to do anything else. At one point she even tried to throw her little leg over the saddle herself, but the seat is still a bit high for her.

Stella also enjoyed the bouncy teeter-totter, but not as much as she enjoyed the sand area and flirting with the other moms and grandmas. Stella was holding court with her bucket and shovel. She’d do peek-a-boo and then smile and look away and then laugh as the other women coo’d at her. She was just too cute, and we almost lost her to the grandma who just wanted to take her home.

There were tears all around when we had to head out. I’m thinking that’s a good thing, in a way, because all the girls had such a good time playing.

Standing Tall

valerie — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 03:37:46 +0000

Today Elise managed a neat new trick. As she was playing with the (for lack of a better title) Tupperware drawer she pulled herself up to her feet to look inside and see what she was going to pull out. She then took note of a shoe she wanted to hold and instead of dropping to her bum and getting the shoe, she bent from the waist and picked it up. She then decided to let go of her hand hold on the drawer and stand there looking at the shoe in her hand.

Stand. On her own.

And then, instead of crouching back to her knees or bum when she was done, she simply steadied herself on the drawer again and went back to rummaging around in the plastic containers. Never once bending knees or going back into her default sitting position.

It’s not going to be much longer until we have a toddler on our hands.

Six Toothed Girl

valerie — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 05:18:14 +0000

Lucky for you, I’ve dropped the teething ball and Elise popped just about three teeth at the same time. She now has four upper and two bottoms. Yes. Just enough to really get you when she bites you.

She’s working on more bottoms, but man. She’s loving crunching up crackers. I started them on Goldfish–The Official Cracker of Modern Childhood–and there is much happiness from those biting teeth.

Got Wheels

valerie — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 16:40:28 +0000

Elise has wheels. Her crawling skills have improved and she’s added the effortless move from crawling to sitting and back again. She can tear through the house and end up–who knows where?

I pulled out the little walker cart to give her something to climb on and she’s enjoying that. We also played a little game of “stand and hold onto the couch” which she thought was fun, but not as fun a crawling. The funniest (for me in a mean mom way) part is when she wants me and cries as she crawls to where I am. It looks like she’s lost in the desert…looking for an oasis.

The downside is she is no longer content to sit in the stroller (or car seat or on the changing table) and just look about. She wants out/down and into whatever she can get her paws on. We’re leaving for our “all girls road trip” at the end of the week and I’m nervous about having her in the car for as many hours as we’ll need to be. I’m sure she’s not going to be happy. I plan on leaving early and hopefully all the girls will sleep for the first big push. Then we’ll take it easy and stop early enough in the day to get her and her sisters some needed exercise.

We’ll make it through. I will say, it’s much more interesting around her with our little scooter.