Cracking Eggs

Elena and Papa often cook together. Right now, they are baking banana bread. Elena is often put in charge of cracking the eggs into the mix. Unlike many other kids her age, she does not struggle with over-banging them. Rather, she makes a small crack on one end and carefully widens it to a hole. She then watches the albumen slowly seep out. Today, she was talking to it as it emerged: "Want to come out?"

Scary Movies

So, lately I've been rocking Elena to sleep while watching some show or movie. It gives us some wind-down cuddle time. We'll watch things like How It's Made or Modern Marvels. I had recorded some G-rated movies for this purpose too. Charlotte's Web was a big hit. Alice In Wonderland (Disney's) was good too. Ratatouille was good.

However, I, not thinking, started into perhaps the scariest movie for her at this age: An American Tail. Now you might be thinking, "Oh, well sure. It's the cats -- they're portrayed in a really scary way." Nope. It was something far more existentially disturbing to her: the thought of being lost from her Papa.

"Where's Papa??" she would ask.
"Fievel's looking for his Papa. He's going to keep trying until he finds his Papa."
"Where's Papa????" she would ask, tears coming into her eyes, her lip starting to curl. "He find his Papa??"

Fievel calling "Papa! Papa! Where are you?" and Papa not responding and not being there... this was a danger she understood quite clearly, it seems.

I would assure her that he would keep looking. I would point out when something good happened to Fievel. "Oh look! Fievel found a friend!" "Oh look! Fievel found someone who will help him look!" It was no good. The issue of Fievel not being able to find his papa was so deeply disturbing that the rest of the story didn't matter a jot. Of course, the suspense-building mechanism of having Fievel and his parents pass each other but not notice each other didn't help things either--it just reinforced the continuing fact of their separation. And it was obvious she wasn't going to sleep until this had resolved itself. Indeed she was quickly losing trust in my assurances that it would even resolve.

Realizing this, and wanting to restore her calm before she slept, I fast-forwarded to the reunion scene, and was glad this movie happened to have a happy ending. I made sure to drive home the point that Fievel found his papa and that they found him. They're very happy they found each other. It took a while for that to sink in. We had to watch all the way through the credits and a little more of Charlotte's Web before her everything-is-alright-in-the-world was restored.

Well, she's not going to go getting herself lost purposefully any time soon.

Ordered Play

We cleaned Elena's room in preparation for Zia Lina's arrival (Elena's staying in our room while Lina stays in Elena's room). Elena LOVES having a clean room. And she'll now put things away in her room and come to us and say "I cleaned!" It seems to me that when her room is clean, her play takes on a very orderly look. Above, she took out the crate of toys she wanted to use and carefully set large animals on the four sides, saying "Leopard is helping" and "Bear is helping," making sure that the animal could sit upright facing the crate. Each large animal had a smaller toy in its lap. I realize this doesn't make the most interesting of blog material, but I found it fascinating to watch and wanted a record of it.

French Braids

Elena's hair is long enough now for dual french braids. The picture is my first attempt. Hopefully both Erich and I will gain skill in this area...

Jokes

I think today was the first time Elena made a joke. She was putting on her shirt, and she went to put her head in the arm hole. "That's not right!" she says, while looking at me grinning, but also making sure I got the joke. She repeated this joke with the other holes on the shirt. What with the way she did it, the joke was actually quite funny.

A little later while playing with Elena's toys, I had her ducky which I was making quack. Quack quack quack quack quack quack. Quack? Quack quack. Elena brought over a bear. "Say hi!" she says. "Quack," I say. "No, say hi!" she says. "Quack, hi, quack, " I say. She laughed and gave me that look that says, "Haha funny joke silly dad."

There's some other way in which her communication seems more sophisticated today than yesterday, but I just can't quite put my finger on it.

Elena's social skills

Tonight at church, a woman came up to Elena and said, "You're so beautiful! Have you always been so beautiful, or did you have to work at it?" Elena immediately responded, "I have to work at it."

Yes, the worms are still alive

Apparently that's enough of a shock to some of you that I thought it newsworthy. Vive la vermi!

I hope she doesn't want it back...

Eating ice cream with Papa, he ate the last bite. She looked at him and said, matter-of-fact, "My ice cream is in your tummy."

"potty trained"?

Potty training has been a very, very gradual process for us. We started putting her on the toilet to do her business when she was 6 months old, and from then would generally be willing to go in the toilet if A. we put her on there and B. she had to go. About a year ago, she started consistently telling us before she had to poop so that we could put her on, so it's been a while since we've needed to deal much with poopy diapers. When we moved to CA in late June, we started having her hang out naked (from the waist down, at least) and she almost immediately began peeing in the toilet, as long as she was naked. At first, this was through her yelling "PEE!! PEE!! I NEED TO PEE!" and one of us rushing to her to get her on the toilet. Then, a couple of months ago, she started going by herself. She still frequently says, "I need to pee" and one of us will say, "You know what to do" and she'll get on the toilet by herself (she's not tall enough to turn on the lights, though...). Though this was great, for a while she would still wet herself if she was wearing anything (underwear, diaper, whatever). But more recently, she's been consistently telling us she has to go regardless what she's wearing, so we've been able to have her clothed much of the time with no problems. Though she has a harder time removing all the clothing and thus needs more help. And she is not yet able to re-clothe herself, so she's actually still naked a lot... But still! I feel much more able to call her "potty trained" now.

I wanted to make a comment about how she's finally able to wear clothes in time for winter, but it's October and the weather yesterday was still in the upper 90's, so... I think she'll be fine being naked for a good while. It's nice to be able to dress her in normal clothes to run errands or go to church, though.

Writing

I'm always skeptical when people tell me "Elena wrote a [insert letter]"--I think "sure, one of her scribbles may LOOK like a letter, but..."

This latest occurance is more difficult to ignore. Elena came to my mother and said, "See I made a fish...a golden fish....and I made an f for fish." Above is the picture.

No reunion for us...

Short story: I have been unable to find plane tickets to allow the three of us to travel to Iowa for less than the extremely-unreasonable price of $1,500.

I had really wanted to go to this year's Enke reunion. I've been a bit homesick for Iowa and I feel like I haven't seen the family in ages. And I think it's important getting to the reunions now and then. Particularly ones my parents are hosting. :-(

As a concession, at least I can be around for the groundbreaking ceremony at church. We're starting to build our new church building. I was really not supposed to miss that.

And what with Serena not having the day after Thanksgiving off as holiday (!) I don't know if we'll be out for Thanksgiving either. :-(

Note to self: Start booking Christmas flights stat. Start coordinating and planning stat stat and post haste.

Digging up the garden

We're putting in a winter garden. I'm going through preparing a new bed that hasn't been a garden before. That involves:

• Finding the sprinkler lines so I don't injure one while digging
• Breaking up this sandy, claysome, Californian soil
• Adding organic material to it (some non-fertilized, non-chemical, organic-food-safe soil from Home Depot) and mixing it all up
• Adding drip watering lines from the hose spigot, because the sprinklers will cease being useful once plant leaves are getting in the way
• Planting
• Mulching (to keep in the moisture -- very important here in the desert)

This should allow enough time for some of my seeds to germinate. I've been trying to grow seedlings in peat pellets. So far, with a couple exceptions, only my peas are sprouting. I may have to resort to store-bought plants. I had no idea how differently different seeds come out of dormancy. Some need cool temperatures. Some need to go through a frost first. Some need to go through a fire first. Some need to pass through the intestines of an animal first. Some need moderate cycling temperatures. Some are light or dark sensitive. ... So I understand now why the plants are more expensive than the seeds. It's not easy to germinate seeds, and once you have the seedlings, they're relatively easy from there.

But I don't have to worry about that until my new garden bed is ready.

Elena likes helping plant the seeds in the peat pellets, watering them, looking at the seedlings, digging holes in the garden, finding pipes in the ground (digging up the sprinkler system), and such. She's mildly enjoying the whole process so far.

Great kid

I've been nudged to update the blog, since I haven't in a while. Problem is, I haven't had much to blog about. Elena's been pretty boring lately.

Actually, I'm just kidding. She's not at all boring. :-P

But, I AM having difficulty finding something particularly bloggable. One thing from today sticks out though:

I had to go to the DMV, with Elena in tow. She was all happy there, not even asking to color or anything. She was just watching all the hustle and bustle. I leave when my number is called, and she tails behind me. I'm at the desk there doing my DMV business, she's right there standing looking around. She asked to be held so she could see above the counter. Not a problem with her at all.

We got home, and I had a horrendous headache. That, and being tired from waking up too early, and I laid down on the lower bunk in Elena's room. For the next hour and a half, I was alternatively relaxing, massaging my neck, and fading in and out of consciousness. All the while, Elena is laying right beside me playing with her stuffed Animal (muppets) and singing to herself. What a boon! I didn't have to worry about her at all. The best: when I finally got my head figured out and was waking up, she was falling asleep. I got up, and she conked out. I decided not to worry about her not having a diaper on -- I would wash the sheets if needed. It turns out she didn't wet the bed! Yay!

Now most people comment upon seeing Elena on what a well-behaved child she is, or how chill she is, or some such. For example, she has sat through an hour-long adult lecture with my grandparents just coloring away. And Serena and I have been able to chant in church for an hour while holding her because she caused so little fuss. But today seemed to be exceptional. What a great kid!

And yet, somehow, it isn't because she's passive. She definitely has her own mind on how she wants things to be done. Though she isn't the most adventurous sort -- she's pretty cautious like her father. I guess how I'd put it: she's peaceable and willing to negotiate.