Careful what you wish for

When Ellie was eighteen months old, she didn't have much to say. She appeared to understand everything that we said to her, and she responded to commands and questions, but she had only about three words and five baby signs. Even Ellie's tantrums were silent; if she was truly upset, she would lie face down on the floor and stay there until she was over it. (I can't tell you how long it took for me to realize that these episodes actually represented tantrums.) As a result, our house was nice and quiet. It was quiet enough to worry my husband, who kept wishing that our daughter would start to talk.

Just after her second birthday, we enrolled her in a preschool class. It's only three mornings a week, and during the summer term the class size is quite small. I don't think we've ever seen more than six or seven other kids in her classroom on any given day. But just two months of preschool have turned her into a whole new child.

Ellie now has a vocabulary of over 100 words, and regularly links three or four words in complete sentences. Her articulation is still poor, but it's improving. She can now say "coffee" instead of "co-hmm", and Jason and I are now Mommy and Daddy rather than mama and dada. She puts concepts together, so when I tell her that I'm taking her to school, she'll say "Mommy take cool, Daddy pick up noon" since her father always picks her up at noon. And she's always making comments, like "Daddy make eggs" or "Daddy play video game". Her favorite sentence is "Today is Saturday!"

However, the biggest development has been in Ellie's personality. The child who was once easygoing and acquiescent and, yes, quiet now has something to say about everything. She's become a drama princess (not quite a drama queen). God forbid I should ask her to drink some milk. "Noooo! Noooo! Noooo!" she'll say, putting her hands up to her face and writhing around hysterically. She's bossy now as well. One night during dinner, I left the table to get something from the kitchen. My little tyrant pointed at me and said, sternly, "Mommy! Sit chair, eat broppy!" Yeah, kid, I'll eat my broccoli. But the funniest (and most aggravating) development has been a spice of pre-teen attitude. Her father told her one day that she should stop crying, because good girls don't cry over their milk. She thought that one over for a minute, then told him, "Carl cries." That's one of her friends at preschool. Jason was dumbfounded by this, so Ellie seized the moment to list all her school friends. "Ally cries too. Jordan cries too. Tejas cries too." It's a line of reasoning that will likely come back to haunt us, I'd guess around middle school.

I think it's safe to say that we have no more worries about Ellie's speech. In fact, just the other day Jason told me, "I miss 'Quiet Ellie'."

The moral of the story: be careful what you wish for.

More broppy, please

I never thought I'd live to see the day.

Ellie has been asking for broccoli this week. I find this a little bit odd, but I figured that it represents part of that mysterious entity known as "Green Vegetables", and if Ellie wants to eat some, then I'm happy. She calls it "broppy", and she actually seems to like the stuff. Once she finishes her own portion, she'll look over at my plate and say, "More broppy, please."

On the other hand, she has NOT been liking her milk. This child used to gulp down an eight-ounce bottle of formula in less than five minutes, and she'd do this four times a day. When we weaned her from the bottle to the sippy cup, her intake dropped by about half. This was no big deal, considering that 12-16 ounces of milk a day is all that a toddler really needs. When we switched her to lowfat milk at age two, even 12 ounces a day became a real struggle. She refuses it, she fights it, she cries if we even suggest it. From time to time, with that fickleness that's so typical of two-year-olds, she'll just pick up her cup and drain it completely, and we hope that this happens often enough to meet her calcium and fluid requirements.

One evening last week, she was putting up her usual fuss and refusing to drink any milk. I actually found myself saying, "Listen, Ellie, if you'll drink your milk like a good girl, Mommy will make you some broccoli."

Ellie picked up her cup and started drinking her milk, so I moved to the refrigerator to get out some broccoli. My husband watched this scene unfolding, and he asked me, "Did you ever imagine, in your wildest dreams, that you would be bribing your child with broccoli?"

I thought about that for a moment and replied, "No, never, but did you ever imagine, in your wildest dreams, that it would work?"

Family vacation

It is amazing how much additional gear you have to carry when you're traveling with a two-year-old. She herself may only weigh 27 pounds or so, but she was easily responsible for twice her weight and three times her bulk in extra baggage. We were away from home for four nights, and my husband and I could probably have taken everything we needed on the plane as carry-on luggage if we were traveling childless. But the addition of Ellie meant that we brought a large suitcase which weighed 56 pounds at check-in (costing us an extra fee for an overweight bag), plus two fully loaded backpacks, a car seat, and a stroller, to say nothing of having to carry the two-year-old herself. It was a real joy getting on and off the shuttle bus from the long-term parking lot to the airport. We got to repeat that process once we arrived at our destination and had to take a shuttle bus out to the rental car agency.

Aside from the logistics of getting there, we were fortunate to avoid most of the other pitfalls of family travel. Ellie turned out to be a great traveler. She was thrilled with the shuttle bus ride, insisting that it was a "choo choo" no matter how many times I told her it was a bus. We even sang the "Wheels on the Bus" song that she loves, but then when we finished, she said "choo choo!" The airport fascinated her with new things to see and lots of people to watch. And while she certainly did not approve when we buckled her into her seat on the plane, she fell asleep the minute the plane started moving and slept through the entire flight. When we arrived at our hotel in San Diego, she immediately took possession of the hotel crib, and never had any trouble going to sleep in it. I owe a big thanks to a colleague of mine who suggested that I should bring along one of Ellie's own crib sheets, so that the hotel crib would have a nice familiar feel and smell.

We went to San Diego primarily so that my husband, Jason, could attend Comic-Con. This event is billed as a celebration of pop art and culture, but should really be called the world's largest geek convention. Nonetheless, I enjoy people watching at Comic-Con since so many attendees put tremendous effort into costumes. All the major comic book characters are represented, along with figures from science fiction and fantasy works, especially Star Wars and Star Trek. The convention floor is packed with booths, offering everything from comics and toys to video games and sneak movie previews. Autograph row is always a sight to see as well, with rows and rows of has-been actors selling themselves shamelessly. Through it all, Ellie put up with having her travel stroller used as a battering ram to clear a path through the crowds, and she actually fell asleep once or twice on the first day. For the most part, she and I much preferred hanging out upstairs, away from the chaos of the convention floor, watching the geeks go by.

The big attraction for Ellie was the San Diego Zoo. She could easily have spent the entire four days there and been happy, but unluckily for her, this trip coincided with the most horrendous heat wave in recent memory. We arrived for our first zoo day right when they opened at 9 am, and the heat hit us like a ton of bricks as we got out of the car. The San Diego Zoo is beautiful, but huge and very hilly, so before long both Jason and I were sucking wind and sweating like pigs. (Actually, no; we were sweating far more than any of the pigs I saw that day.) Ellie, on the other hand, looked perfectly fresh and bright as a daisy. She was interested in each of the animals as we went by, asking to "look, look" at each one more closely. The absolute highlight of the morning was the elephant area. Dumbo is currently Ellie's favorite movie, so the excitement of seeing Dumbo live and in person was incredible. It seemed to us that twenty minutes is a long time to stare at three pachyderms, but whenever we tried to walk away, Ellie would call out, "More Dumbo! More Dumbo!" Around noon the heat and fatigue finally wiped out Jason and me, and we retreated to the air-conditioned comfort of our overpriced hotel for an air-conditioned lunch and an air-conditioned nap.

After nap, Jason headed over to Comic-Con while Ellie and I ventured back to the zoo. She immediately reminded me, "See Dumbo, yeah?" With difficulty, I managed to persuade her to leave the elephants and look at a few other animals. We visited the children's petting zoo, and Ellie was thrilled with the sheep and the goats while we were outside the paddock, looking in. "Hi, sheep! Hi, goat! Baaa!" she kept saying. But the minute we set foot inside the gate, she became an albatross wrapped around my neck, refusing to let me set her down, and screaming at the very idea of petting an animal. I contented myself with taking a few pictures of the animals she wouldn't pet, and took her back out. Once outside the paddock, she transformed again to the little girl rattling the fence bars, calling out to the animals, and asking to go back in. Stinker! Ellie loved the gazelles and impalas ("deer!"), the zebras ("zeebees!") and the giraffes.

For our final night in San Diego, we decided to take a chance on our daughter's good behavior and went out for a nice dinner at a Brazilian steakhouse. Wow, I've never eaten so much meat at a single sitting! The side dishes and salads were all set up as a buffet, and waiters just kept coming by with a variety of cuts of meat on skewers. "Sir, would you like to try some filet mignon wrapped in bacon? How many?" "Ma'am, can I slice you some skirt steak?" "How about a pork sausage?" It was amazing. Naturally, Ellie decided to have a full and complete meltdown toward the end of our meal, screaming at the top of her lungs, to the great discomfort of all the other patrons. Of course, she had to do this while I was in the bathroom! The one good thing about having a screaming child is that you'll get your check very quickly.

On our way back, we found that the same suitcase which weighed 56 pounds on the way out now weighed 75 pounds on the way back. Wow, we managed to use up most of the diapers and disposable utensils and such, and still brought home nearly 20 pounds more than we took!