Pico DiPaolo

Petie and I had separate errands to run yesterday. Joelle and Elise chose to split up (which is unusual). As Elise and I were on our way to the MAC, we passed a park.
Elise: “Hey, there’s a park.”
Me: “Hopefully soon it will get cool again and we can go to the park every weekend.”
Elise: “Yeah, not this week, we’ll wait until it gets cooler.”

I thought the conversation was over but the Elise kept on going.

Elise: “It’s better to be cooler because then you can go on the slide and your legs aren’t hot. Nana took me to the broken seesaw park [which was the park we passed] one time and it was cooler. I went on the slide. Nana took me there and we had ice cream and I had nuts on my ice cream. I liked that ice cream with nuts on it! That was fun when Nana took me to the broken seesaw park.”

Later when we got to Honey’s house she proudly showed me that she could mark her place in her book by putting it upside down. She said “Mommy showed me how to do that!”

Up until recently, we were more likely to be able to fool Elise even if it meant changing what we had said before.  Now she’s old enough to remember what we said and hold it against us – something that will be great for her and horrible for us when she’s a teenager.

For now, though, it’s more humorous as she calls us out.  On Easter Sunday we heard two such instances.  During the day Elise and Joelle were having a fight about dyeing Easter Eggs.  At one point Joelle stormed into the house saying, “Elise, you RUINED MY DAY!!”  That night when Petie asked Joelle if she had a good day, she said “Yes.”  Elise immediately piped in and said, confused, “but I ruined your day.”

Later as we were finishing up Easter dinner my mom said, “I’m full.”  A few minutes later Elise asked her if she wanted to go and play.  My mom said “I can in a few minutes, I’m going to have dessert.”  Elise retorted, “but you said you were full!”

Usually on the weekends the girls both wake up around 7:00 or so.  Joelle goes into the playroom and plays quietly.  Elise, on the other hand, usually stumbles into our bedroom and whines (as if we woke her up) “I wanna watch tv, wanna sausage patty, want my choca milk”.  If you don’t have everything done within about 30 seconds she barks out orders because surely you didn’t hear her the first time.  Progress on one front just means you aren’t doing one of the other tasks.

A couple of weekends ago she came out of her room at 7 and quietly padded down the hall.  I played possum.  I heard her pad down the hallway with the light jingle of her bear accompanying her.  She came to the place in the hall where she was standing between the door of the playroom and the door of our bedroom.

She studied her options and opened up the playroom door.  I heard Joelle say something and Elise replied “Yeah.”  I was given a reprieve to snooze by the girls for the first time I could remember.  Sure Elise proceeded to open the playroom, do a lap around the house and slam the door shut every five minutes after that, but it’s progress…

As parents, we are constantly seeing ourselves in our children.  Often, I think Elise is more like Chris, but bringing out all the Christmas hoopla yesterday made me realize that really, children are bits and pieces of both parents and then they have a little dash of their own spice to boot.  I say this because she started playing with all the ornaments on the tree.  She moves them around and starts having them talk to each other and interact.  I used to do the same thing.  It makes me smile to see her do it.  Joelle is territorial over the ornaments that are her ornaments, but I keep fighting to let Lis play with all of them.  I remember how much fun it was. 

Little Elise is almost completely done with the baby phase.  She has diapers to conquer…and that’s about it.  Recently, she pulled out an old forgotten binky from a backpack.  Needless to say, we didn’t know it was there.  Chris held his breath to see if she would remember her addiction and pop it back in her mouth.  Instead, she said, “it’s a bink and put it down.”  She used to also insist that all pictures of Elise or Joelle as a baby were her.  However, we were in the playroom recently and she started naming off who was in each picture.  “That’s a picture of Joelle with a face.  That’s a picture of Joelle with a dance band…he he.  That’s a picture of Nana and Papa.”  She mysteriously stopped before acknowledging the last picture (which was of Joelle as a baby and a picture of Chris that actually doesn’t really look like him.)  I said, “Lisie, who is in the last picture?”  She said, “Two people.”  I pressed further and she clearly didn’t really know.  Finally, she said, “I know… it’s Unkey Joey and a baby!”  She would have insisted it was a picture of her not so long ago…

Elise copying Joelle isn’t really all that new.  I still remember the first time it was obvious – when she was not getting her way and said “I want it NOW!” which echoed Joelle’s tantrums earlier in the year.

Gradually over the summer Elise has taken to copying Joelle more and more.   Joelle and Elise got out their dance outfits in anticipation of starting in a few weeks.  Joelle would do a dance move and say “Elise – do THIS” and Elise would copy, no matter what it was.  Even when not asked Elise is looking to see what she should be doing by casting a sideways glance at her sister.  A couple of nights ago Elise saw Joelle brushing her teeth and immediately improved her form to match.

Another aspect of her using us to learn what to say and do is when she repeats what we say.  When Petie and I are frustrated with them but not actually angry we might say something like “Goodness!”.  So Elise and I were at Honey and Grandpa’s pool the other day and I was trying to get her to hang on to the wall (which she could most definitely do if she wanted to…she has done it before).  As is her personality she was obstinately refusing to the point that she would let herself slip underwater.  As I quickly pulled her above water she sputtered and rolled around trying to grab onto something even though I had her snugly in my arms.  When she finally realized she was safe and swept the wet hair from her eyes she announced, “Goodness, Daddy” like “What in the world are you doing? It’s fine when you are holding me, why do you have to make things so difficult?” or as if I had just toppled over a cup of chocolate milk for the second time in a row….

Last night we were going to Berripop and Petie and I were joking about a song – I pretended I didn’t like it and, because it was one of her favorites she jabbed back “ooh, that’s like a slap to the face” and we laughed.  From the backseat we hear a little giggle followed by “haha, slap in the face!”

As her speech is improving, Elise is picking up some pretty funny words.  Today, when I asked her if she was ready to go inside, she said, “‘fraid not.”  I almost started laughing – it was so cute.  Our other favorite word (and when I say, “our,” I mean Joelle, Chris and me) that Elise says is, “bottom.”  She pronounces it “bot man.”  It’s truly a litmus test of whether or not she is in a good mood, too.  If she’s in a good mood, she pronounces it the wrong way because she knows it makes us laugh.  If she’s in a sour mood, she ignores our pleas to say it or replies with a curt ”bottom.”  (she learned to say it correctly very quickly.)

So, this last mention of learning what kind of mood she’s in…  reminds me that she’s started her terrible twos this past week.  Elise has always been a pretty fun, lovely child.  Sure, she can be a little demanding but was always pretty jovial.  Today at the library, she was ticked because some kid was using the computer she likes to use.  She demanded that he get off for her and when he didn’t… well, let’s just say 2 different librarians came to see if there “was a problem.”  (and we only lasted about 5 minutes in the library – I am not one of these moms that makes everyone suffer when my child isn’t behaving.)  She just gets very ornery at times.  It can be funny, in a second child kind of way.

In any case, her cuteness makes up for any trouble.  She mixes her “l” and “w”, so it brings a smile to your face when she says, “sit in your wap” or “I wuv you, too, mommie.”  I also loved how she got a box of cake mix out for me when I said I was making pancakes.

The girls were being pretty cute tonight.  Elise has gotten really good at copying everything Joelle does, step by step, line by line.  The only time Elise stops copying her is when Joelle reads and Elise, if she’s not tired, will stop and listen for a while.

After their “fashion show”, there were clothes strewn about the hallway and I asked Joelle to put one of the items away.  She said she “found it there”.  While I was explaining that she could still put it back, Elise swooped in and ran down the hall with it.  Puzzled, Petie said, “Elise are you putting it away?”  Elise said “yeah” and came back.  She went up to Petie and said “gimme a quarter”.  She had seen us give Joelle a quarter for doing things like helping us clean up, put her clothes away, etc.

So now Elise has a little piggy bank of her own, with a quarter in it. And she loves to go up and down the hall shaking it so we can hear how proud she is of her new treasure.

As some of you know our house was a construction zone for a couple of months when we decided to have our master bathroom remodeled.

One of the more pleasant memories was how Elise reacted. Elise had gotten very used to people coming in and out of the house, shouting “HI” as they went back and forth through the house. I guess she had heard us warn her about getting in their path a few times, since after her nap one day she busted out of her room into the living room where they are working and shouted “watch out workies!”

I was reminded of the Katy Perry song this week in retelling stories from the Turtle classroom.  On Wednesday, when I dropped off Lis, I was beaming with pride as Ms. Iva told me how little Lis had distributed all the lunch boxes to the 11 little MDO kids in her class.  Apparently, the teachers line up all the lunch kits on the table while the little ones wait for them to get to the table.  Elise, watching this process since the beginning, decided to bounce up and distribute the lunch kits to the proper kid.  She got them all right.  She’s an expert mimic.  Ms. Iva also mentioned how she has become the best sharer in the class.  Just say the word, “share” or “___’s turn” and she immediately drops the toy.

Then, I go pick her up on Friday and I hear from Amy, having already picked up Lucy, that Elise is apparently in a crabby mood.  Indeed, I pick her up and she won’t give Ms. Iva her kiss good-bye.  I know that’s not a good sign.  Ms. Iva says that Elise has been terrible and has been throwing down anything and everything they give her.  I know that action well.  I particularly love it when she throws down her milk and we get a nice spray of milk on the floor.

Same baby?

Well, I got my first “time out” tonight, care of Elise.  Here’s how it went down.

I was trying to clean up the playroom a bit.  For those of you who have kids with messy rooms or play areas you might use the same technique I do — go through the room and start tossing things in the general area where they belong.  Things are so randomly assorted in the room there really can’t be a better way.

In my path I spotted “bear” and “dolly”, her two lovies.  Those go in her bedroom (it was nearly bedtime) so I tossed those into the hallway from clear across the room.  What I forgot was that her lovies have an alarm system.  Bear has a distinct rattle that all of us could pick out of an audio lineup.  Little did I know as bear flew through the air and landed in the hallway, Elise’s head whipped around.  To her surprise, as she realized I had just thrown bear, she sees dolly flying through the air to follow.

Something Elise has picked up (I assume from Joelle) is the habit of throwing stuff when she doesn’t get what she wants, so she knows that when you throw something you aren’t supposed to, that’s bad.  Especially food on the floor.  Within seconds she realized the appropriate thing to do – Daddy was in big trouble.

“You don’t throw bear!”  “Go to your room right now!”  She grabbed my hand and led me into my room.  She was very determined and was walking briskly like I’m sure Petie does when she sends Joelle to her room.  Then I heard her go back into the playroom (where Petie was) and say “BAD!”, like “what was that guy thinking?”

Later Joelle came bounding out of her room saying “I heard you got a time out ’cause you chucked bear.” Yeah, yeah, rub it in.