Potty Training Resumed

After being offered a little potty by a friend of mine in our playgroup, I decided to resume potty training in the hopes that it wouldn't end quite so dramatically as it did last time. I'm happy to say that Ella ROCKED it! She went all on her own all day long. The only caveat is that she had to be naked almost the entire time, because it seemed to feel like business as usual when I had her wearing underpants (plus she loves any excuse to be "nuuuuude! I want to be nuuuuude!"). I have been resisting getting the separate little potty and have thus far been trying to get her to use the regular toilet with a potty seat, but it hasn't been consistent because she can't get onto the tall toilet without help. Although I don't relish the thought of having to transition from the little potty to the regular toilet, I am thrilled that she actually likes using the little potty, which she calls the "Fairy Potty" because it has fairy stickers on it, courtesy of my friend's little girls.

The day was going swimmingly, Ella was using the potty and I was actually getting housework, laundry, and Piddies done. As I was packaging a pair of bunnies and a pair of mice to ship this afternoon, Naked Ella climbed up on a chair to see what I was doing. She wanted to help cut the packing tape, so I let her use the small scissors. She asked if she could cut her hair, and when I told her, "Of course not!" she responded with her usual, "Why?" I replied that she would look silly if she cut her hair and left it at that. She climbed down, seemingly satisfied, and went over to her little table where her crayons and crafting supplies are. I turned around just in time to catch her with her little pinking shears up against her head, cutting away. I got them away from her just in the nick of time, and when I asked her why she was cutting her hair, she said, "I want to look silly." Naturally.

A few minutes after the scissors incident, she was racing around the house laughing and giggling in that hilarious high-pitched toddler way, and I was chuckling listening to her while loading the dishwasher. I noticed on her third lap that she was in hot pursuit of the poor cat, and worse, that she had found one of our spray bottles full of water and was unleashing its full fury on poor Daisy. As I was trying to catch her to get the spray bottle away, Ella cornered Daisy and yelled, "ANY QUESTIONS!?" before spraying her in the face, like some kind of tiny, naked Dirty Harry.

We're excited for Easter, and Ella has been thoroughly enjoying the "pwizes" she has received in the mail from Wah Wah Janet, Grandma Betty, Aunt Marie ("Aunt Puh-mie"), and Uncle Denny (who totally outdid himself with the packaging this time - see photo). I'm planning to color Easter eggs with her on Friday at Wah Wah Jill's house, assuming I get my act together in time to actually *get* to Wah Wah Jill's house before Easter. I've got about 6 pairs of bunnies to cobble tonight, and tomorrow I have to go get the little "pwizes" for Ella's Easter basket. My insane belief that I can do about twice as much as I actually can strikes again.

Showing off the rather hefty box sent by Uncle Denny (and Uncle Richard by proxy).


Sporting some of her fun new Easter "pwizes".

Below is a video (or as Ella says, an "Ella bido-eo") of Ella at her finest: washing her hair with the handsoap at the bathroom sink, singing some songs, and performing several examples of her "picture smile". Enjoy!

More Adventures in Toddlerhood

We've had a relatively funny couple of days at the Cougar-Mellencamp household, with Ella in top form. We've recently been painting with watercolors at her easel, which is her new favorite activity. She likes me to draw shapes, animals, and people, and then she paints them. Today I stepped into the kitchen to get a towel to wipe her hands, and while I was gone she plunged 2 strawberries into the paintbrush rinse cup and painted both of her ears blue (including quite far INSIDE her ears).

Ella really hasn't been much of a fan of snow until this last snow storm, when she actually *walked* in the snow for the first time willingly. It figures that she'd decide to love it right when we're probably not going to get much more.

Ella loves to tell stories and sing songs lately. Today her favorite story went like this:

"One day, Little Ella spilled the cat food allllllll over the kitchen, and Mama cleaned it up. Baby Bear got in the box and got dirty. Ella gave him a bath in the bathroom sink and he was alllllll clean. The end."

Incidentally, that story was mostly true, and happened a couple of weeks ago. (Baby Bear is a little stuffed baby polar bear that the Uncles next door gave her. She loves him.)

Her favorite songs of late are "Rock a Bye Baby", "Where Has My Little Dog Gone", and what she calls, "The Train Song", which goes like this:

"Choo choo the big fwain is coming down the fwack. Stop....and yisten, stop....and yisten!"

As she gets older and grows out of her baby things, I gradually move them downstairs into storage. Today I was trying to move some bibs and burp cloths that have somehow remained in her dresser, and Ella spotted me. My attempt was completely unsuccessful, as she grabbed what she could out of my hands and declared, "These are my FAVORITE, Mama! I NEED these!"

Last week I was so eager to sew something other than slippers that I made an easy 2-piece pattern and made this little dress out of some cotton I've had lying around. It turned out so cute and was so quick & easy that I think I'll make more. Ella loves the pocket, but thinks it should have two pockets (note to self for next time!):

The food battle remains a battle, and I'm not sure if we'll ever win. I suppose she won't starve herself completely, so as long as she seems to be thriving on milk, air, and fruit, I guess that's okay. She does love new foods that she's either never had or hasn't had in a long time, and I'm always looking for some tricky new way to prepare veggies so she'll eat them. So far the dip idea has flopped - she just dips whatever veggie or chicken strip or breadstick she happens to have, licks the dip off, and repeats. It has completely failed to entice her to eat whatever she's dipping. I can usually convince her to eat a new pasta dish, so I invent new ones at least once a week. Tonight was fusilli with a tomato cream sauce with caramelized onions and garlic. It was quite good, and a hit with Ella. The recipe is below, both to share and so I don't forget what I did. We all, including Ella, really love garlic, so there is a LOT in this recipe, but it does mellow quite a bit as it caramelizes with the onions (and slicing rather than mincing it keeps it in check as well). Feel free to use as much or as little as you prefer. This would be great with a handful of fresh basil stirred in at the end, but unfortunately it's not basil season just yet. When they're in season, I would definitely use fresh tomatoes rather than canned. I was thinking this would probably be quite good served over chicken as well for those who are watching carbs or just not huge pasta fans.

Tomato Cream Sauce with Caramelized Onions & Garlic

2 tbsp olive oil
6 tbsp butter, divided
1 large onion, peeled & sliced 1/8" thick
1 head of garlic, cloves peeled & sliced
2 Tbsp sherry wine
~1/2 cup dry white wine
1 15 oz. can diced tomatoes
1 cup cream (could substitute half & half)
~3/4 cup grated parmesan or grana padano cheese
salt & pepper to taste

Heat olive oil and 2 tbsp butter in a large saute pan and add onions and garlic. Cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until onions begin to caramelize, about 20 minutes, adding water 2 tbsp at a time if pan becomes too dry. Add remaining butter, sherry & white wine to pan, bring to a boil and cook about 2 minutes. Add tomatoes, cream, and half of the cheese. Reduce heat and simmer for about 15 minutes. Stir in remaining cheese and season with salt & pepper to taste before serving.

Cream of Potato Soup

I threw together this soup this weekend with some odds and ends we had on hand, and it turned out great! I decided to post it here so I don't forget what I did. :)

Cream of Potato Soup

1/2 lb bacon, chopped into 1/2" pieces (well, apparently I use bacon in absolutely everything)
2 Tbsp butter (feel free to omit to reduce fat - but why would you do that?)
1 sweet onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
5 - 6 Yukon gold potatoes, peeled and chopped
1 yam, peeled and chopped
1 cup chicken stock (or 1 15 oz. can, if that's what you have on hand)
~2 cups milk
1 cup half & half
1/4 cup chopped fresh chives (scallions would work too if you don't have a chive plant outside your kitchen door)
Salt & pepper to taste

Brown bacon in a large pot. Remove bacon from pot, and pour off all but ~3 Tbsp bacon grease. Add butter, onion and garlic and saute until onions are translucent. Stir in potatoes, yams, chicken stock, and milk, and simmer until potatoes & yams are tender. Using an immersion blender, puree about half of the soup, or alternatively, use a regular blender. If using a regular blender, puree 1/2 the soup (be careful and cover with a dishtowel!) and return it to the pot. Stir in half and half and cook until heated through (don't boil). Stir in chives, and salt & pepper to taste. Serve topped with crumbled bacon.

This was delicious served with a salad and freshly made garlic bread, and I loved the added color and sweetness of the yams.

I Don't Like Creamy Meat

"Ow. I bonked my noggin." 3/23/09

"No! I yike milk. I don't yike creamy meat," trying to convince me to give her milk instead of her breakfast of Cream of Wheat. 3/25/09

"AHHHH! Don't want Maggie to smell my fruit snack!" 3/22/09

"Ella do it by self." Every single day of our lives.

UPDATE:

I thought "creamy meat" would be the funniest thing I heard from Ella today, but apparently I was wrong. As I was laying down with her for a nap this afternoon, she was her usual crazy self and not exactly in nap mode, so after telling her several times that it was time to settle down, I held her up so she could see my face. In a very I-mean-business sort of voice, I said, "Ella Mae..." Without missing a beat, Ella said, "I swear to God!" So, I guess I'll cross that little phrase off of the list of things I can say around Ella.

One of Those Days

Today started as yesterday left, just after midnight. I was sitting at my desk before bed, admiring the new brochure I designed for Sean's office. We were planning to send it out today as a direct mail campaign to 13000 people in Utah County, and I was thinking that if I were looking for a dentist, this would be exactly the kind of office where I'd like to go. Then I noticed the typo. The hideous, glaring typo that I had somehow missed over proofread after proofread. Right on the front panel of the brochure, our office address is listed as LAYTON, not Lindon. Those of you who live in Utah know that Layton is about an hour or so north of Lindon, and therefore people in Lindon will probably not be terribly interested in a dental office in *&?#$@& Layton. I ran into the bedroom, nearly in tears, to confess to Sean. He was his usual wonderful, understanding, downplaying self, and assured me it wasn't the end of the world. He convinced me to come to bed, where he held me while I spent the night tossing and turning, wondering how I could have made such an awful mistake, and having nightmares that I had gotten the phone number wrong too (I didn't, thank goodness). With some help from our great mailing people at World Wide Mailing, we can solve it. But it's not going to be the fabulous, polished, perfect brochure I had worked so hard for.

Ella was having one of those mornings when she woke up at 8:00. One of those, "NOOOOO! Go OUT! Don't get me out! Want DADDY!!!! Too bwight! Shut bwinds! Don't change my diaper! ELLA DO IT! AHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" mornings when she has her first full-blown fit in her crib seconds after she wakes up. I wanted to get her up and get to the grocery store early to get a jump on my errands, but she wasn't having it. We went anyway, and what should have been an hour-long trip took over two hours. Part of the problem was trying to rent a steam cleaner for my area rugs and dining room chairs. We're having a dinner party on Saturday and I'd like the place to look as nice as possible, and the rugs have needed to be cleaned for a while now. It was about as easy to rent this steam cleaner as I imagine it would be to rent a leer jet. We waited in line for ages, finally got the thing rented, and asked the service guy to hold it while I did the rest of my shopping downstairs.

The shopping went fine for the most part, other than me suffering from a bout of delayed-onset placenta head and having to run back and forth across the grocery store a hundred times. We finally got to the checkout, and Ella had had enough. Enough again. After the "enough" she'd had upstairs at the service desk, and the "enough" she'd had while we bought some pansies for the pots outside, and "enough" she'd had at the dairy case. Now she had had "enough" with the checkout. She was trying to stand up in the front part of the cart so she could push the buttons on the credit card machine, while I was quickly loading groceries into my bags to placate the impatient people who had been drawn like moths to a flame to the express checkout immediately after the sympathetic checkout lady had allowed me to go through with my 1.2 million items. In order to avoid a head injury, I lifted Ella from the front part of the cart into the main part, where she couldn't reach the credit card machine and couldn't get out. I finished bagging the groceries and turned to lift the last bag into the cart. There sat little Ella Mae unloading an entire carton of eggs around her, gleefully chanting, "Eggies! Eggies! Eggies evooeewhayooo!" By the grace of god, none of them broke and I caught her just as she was preparing to launch one overboard. As we walked away from the checkstand, she yelled, "Thank you, nice yady!" to the checkout woman.

The rest of the day went about the same way, Ella alternating between positively infuriating to totally disarming. The problem was partly Ella, partly me, and partly the Leer Jet Steam Cleaner that worked half the time and the other half puked out its contents onto an almost-clean floor. After taking over some groceries and flowers for Richard, our neighbor who is finally returning tomorrow from what seemed a very long winter away (we have to wait a few more weeks for Dennis, sadly), I sat with a glass of wine watching Ella and Maggie chase each other around, Ella half-naked, squealing and giggling with Maggie at her hip, while Sean got her bathed and ready for bed. Thank goodness for a fabulous partner who comes home from a long day at work and immediately takes over, rescuing a tired, exasperated wife from One of Those Days.

Backyard and photos

The seeds *finally* arrived for my spring garden, so in go the peas, arugula, lettuces, spinach, and radishes. Hooray! I'm so excited to get the yard cleaned up, and especially for the backyard. We have 1500 lbs of bamboo sitting in the garage just waiting to become a fence, 6 raspberry and blackberry bushes waiting to produce my future jams, jellies, pies, and crepe fillings, and I'm sure there's some sod out there somewhere just begging to be my new tiny lawn. It will be so great for Ella to have a nice place to play in the backyard, and I can't wait for the backyard barbeques!

While I dream of a finished backyard, here are a few photos:

Ella and her favorite guy, Connor.

Connor helping Ella bite her teething ring (the teething ring has recently re-emerged as an acceptable alternative to chewing on scissors, nails, and knives).

More of the "picture smile".