Time for a little Ellery update. Ellery has matured a bit since her third birthday. She is finally old enough to understand good choices and bad choices, and I can often talk her into the good choice, and avoid a tantrum. Not always though : P She does still choose to throw a tantrum fairly frequently, and often does time out as a consequence. However, she is much quicker and more willing to say sorry and say she’ll make the better choice next time. We just started a sticker chart that is for basically whatever we want. So if I want her to hurry and get dressed, I may give her a sticker. Or if she cleans her room, she may get a sticker. Anything that I feel she may need or like a little extra motivation. Once she fills out a row (7 stickers), she gets a couple of m&ms. Once she fills out the whole chart, she’ll get a bigger treat. It worked really well the first two days. Since then, it’s just exciting when she gets one, but not always a motivator to do something she doesn’t want to do. The sticker chart did NOT motivate her to potty train a few months ago. But maybe she’s doing better because she’s older, and because it’s not about potty training. ha. Which we have not attempted again, although we do often talk about it, and say things like, “if you want to go on the potty you can” or “if you go poo poos on the potty you’ll get strawberry ice cream” or “Big girls go on the potty” to which she responds “I want to be little. I want diapers.” So we’ll give it a few more months…Well, she does sit on the potty a few times a week, but not if she actually needs to go (that’s when she says she wants to be a baby). Ellery’s favorite meal is definitely still breakfast. She loves all breakfast foods, but especially pancakes and cereal. She eats more than I do in the morning (but much less as the day goes on). She’s been great about drinking green smoothies lately, and now loves to help make real juice. She will finally eat oranges. I bring this up because I’ve determined her favorite words are oranges, spirits, and astronauts. Haha. She talks about those three things all the time. It’s so random. She talks about oranges and says she wants oranges all the time (but doesn’t seem to LOVE eating them, although she’ll eat a couple of slices). She often mentions spirits and asks about them. And she talks about astronauts all the time, even though she seems to have no interest in space or space travel. She just seems to like the word : ) She also made up the word “Nich” and says it all the time (in random contexts). She rides her balance bike like a pro now and loves to take it out. Ellery is very social *sometimes* and LOVES her fiends, but often has a hard time at some point when they are over. She is often very shy as well. Sometimes she does great at the gym and play school, and other times she does not do well. I’m not sure what makes the difference. I do think sleep has something to do with it. If she’s tired or not feeling great, then she’s less likely to do well. But maybe there are other factors as well (like a kid taking her toy away or something). We’ve actually recently discovered/realized something interesting about Ellery. She may have some form of “learned helplessness?” She passes out (as in, falls into a very deep sleep almost instantly) under stressful situations, or just situations she doesn’t want to be in. Here’s an interesting article on it:
So I think her body just says, “You don’t have any control in this situation, you don’t know how to handle it. Just shut down.” and then the sleep helps her process it and learn from it. That’s my guess. She did this type of falling asleep multiple times during her potty training week, once at the gym, once at play school recently, and then again when we had a babysitter the other day (she was crying hysterically and then just passed out…needless to say, the babysitter was quite worried ha!). Anyway, it’s fine. Just interesting…And I wonder what this will translate into as she gets older. Or if she’ll grow out of it. Thankfully she does not live a very stressful life (like in an abusive home or parents who are getting divorced or anything like that). I’m also reading Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child right now. I started reading it for Capri, but since starting, I’ve realized that Ellery is not in the norm for how early she quit napping (she quit regular naps at 2 and all together at 2.5 years), and she would probably be happier and more adaptable if she did still nap…I don’t think I’ll ever get her to officially start napping again though (trust me, I’ve tried…and still try…), but I’ll see what the book says…On another note, I find it crazy that she is now old enough to possibly be able to remember things for the rest of her life! I’m so curious as to what she will remember as an adult from this time of her life. Her first week of primary (the second Sunday in January, because she was sick the first Sunday) went pretty well, and her second week was great! She loved it. She did not want to leave!
When Capri first became mobile, Ellery all of the sudden became extremely bossy. She was constantly telling Capri what she could and couldn’t do or have. She would dictate Capri’s every move, and was constantly saying “No, Capri!” It was driving me crazy (even though Capri didn’t know or care). So I’ve been working with Ellery on it, and she’s gotten quite a bit better, although she still does it a bit. Thankfully, I feel like their relationship is still sweet and kind and like best friends the majority of the time.
Ellery and Capri always take baths together, but Ellery last a little longer in the bath than Capri does. Ellery likes to help wash Capri. They do overall pretty well together in the tub, but often have to remind Ellery to give Capri another toy if she’s going to take one away from her, and that kind of thing.
A few things Ellery has said that I wrote down so I could remember:
In just talking to herself (which she does often), she said, “My house is temple. My house is church. Wow that's so cute!”
We got a book that had maps and showed different landscapes and Ellery pointed to a volcano and said, “That’s a fireplace!” and then pointed to the river and asked, “That’s a riber?”
She says Grandma and Grandpa Stevens like “stee-fens” and Shurtliff like “Shur-liff” She says her name like “Eh-yee Jean Shurliff” and thinks her name is spelled “E.R.G” and often tells me it’s spelled “E.R.G., E.R.G!”
She likes to say “Juliet! Capri Juliet!” and she says “like me do!” instead of “like I do!” and I’m always reminding her that Capri is a “she” not a “he.”
a while ago (as in a couple of weeks after Halloween), she random said to me, “I don’t want to be Red Riding Hood for Halloween! I want to be Elsa!” I found it funny because she was so excited to be Little Red Riding Hood for Halloween and had no problem being that. But I guess after seeing a whole bunch of Elsa’s on Halloween, she decided that she’d rather be Elsa. So now she says she’s Elsa for Halloween. We’ll see if she still feels that way by next Halloween. I just think it’s funny that she was still young enough to let me put her in whatever costume I wanted until two weeks AFTER Halloween. haha. Next year I’m sure I won’t have a say with Ellery.
The other day she told me, “I want to marry Capri! I love her.” Ellery calls Capri "my sweetie little heart,” which she made up, and I think it’s the cutest. She says it often.
When Ellery was playing with her toys the other day she said to herself, “Now you can work with me?” “Nope. I work all by myself.” She says stuff like that often. Things that I find kind of funny and random, but not too many really funny, “where did she learn that from!” things. I love my girl.
