"Sometimes the smallest things take up the most room in your heart": April 2012

Can you believe Ela is a toddler? I can't...especially since she will always be my little baby :) It feels like she has been growing faster than ever lately. I can not believe the things that she knows now, especially her expression of love, happiness and even getting mad. It still amazes me that a little 22 pound 15 month old can get mad but she is learning like the rest of us.

Here are some of her recent developments:

* She is 22 pounds in the 26% percentile. Still in some 12 month clothes and smaller 18 month ones.
* She says her name thanks to the older boys at daycare calling out her name all day.
*Her current vocabulary includes: no no, more, hi, bye, all done, good, Ela,utoh, and huggie. She even says a few words in Polish. I was feeding her and I asked if it was good and she said "tak" which means yes. I am so excited for her to be bilingual.
* When I tell her to get her jacket or shoes, she understands and brings them to me.
*When she wants something she points and says "more". This is probably said 20+ times a day.`
* Every time she likes something she eats, she goes mmmmm.....
* She feeds herself with a spoon.(the easier items)
* The other day she pulled on my dress and said "hug mamma". I melted
*She knows how to blow her nose.This is a great help with colds.
*She pushes the wall by the elevator button to go downstairs.
* When she goes to the bathroom she goes over and lays on the floor by her changing area and says poop. (Not so proud of this one) ;)

The most recent learning opportunity was to teach her not to bite. Hence the name of the blog post. Over the past month this has been a big problem. I am sure she learned it from daycare because we don't bite in the house ;) It turned into just at home once or twice but then I started getting reports from daycare. This is very embarrassing. The first day she bit a little guy her age, two days later she bit a 3 year old and on Wednesday she bit a 3 month old and left a bruise. This is when I got really upset. If I was that 3 month old's mother I would certainly be understanding of the nature of the situation, but clearly upset. The teachers at daycare are great and we decided to attack it together. I had tried everything at home. Touching her mouth/teeth when she bit, putting her in the highchair for a 5 minute time out and even gently hitting her little mouth. For those of you that are shocked by that last one, don't worry she laughed at me when I did it and thought it was hilarious and bit me again. How do we get this to stop? I noticed she only did it when she did not get her way which was an even bigger problem. While I was googling advice, Ela came up and bit my toe and I had enough. I put my finger in her mouth and let her bite me. :/ I told her firmly no and put my hand on her mouth. We repeated this 10 times and she finally understood...I hope. My fingers are a little sore, but in the end it is worth it if it works! So far so good. Check out a video of the progress.

Ela -Don't Bite your friends!

Ela- Dont bite your friends 2!

We also watch Yo Gabba Gabba "Don't bite your friends" what seems like a million times a day. Kind of crazy entertainment but Ela loves them!

Yo Gabba Gabba Video- "Don't Bite your Friends"

Cross your fingers her bitting stops...especially for the sake of the little fingers at daycare!
Here are a few pictures of the past month including Easter.