Ella talks like books!

Just more words in this one. (Pics and videos are getting hard on account of our computers not having enough space to hold them anymore.)

Ella is a very good talker, and she is also an avid reader. She wants to be read to for about 9 hours a day. At bedtime, when she first wakes up, before nap, whenever she's on the potty which is sometimes for an hour (literally!), whenever she happens by a good book ...

And she hears book-language so much that it now influences the way that she talks and the things that she says. For example, she often tells lauren or me, "I love you so," which is just about the best thing in the world. Or she might ask us, "would you care for some cheese?" And the other day while I was swinging her around and dropping her onto the bed (even the literati still enjoy this game), she mentioned that she would like me to swing her "quite high indeed."

She also likes to narrate what she's doing sometimes. For example, she'll run into the room and shout "I WANT TO PLAY WITH TOYS, I cried." Or, if she's making her stuffed animals talk while arranging them all at a tea party, she might make her piggy, Francis Bacon, say, "'I would like some cake too,' he said with a grin." (The italics indicate her piggy voice. Also very cute.)

And she also tells jokes! A NEW joke, that is infinitely variable and often goes on for ever! It goes like this:

Did you ever have a [blank] in your [blank]?

And the blanks have to rhyme. They do not, however, both have to be real words. Usually you just look around the room and use whatever you see for the first one and then see what you can come up with for a rhyme. "Did you ever have a spider in your ... cider!?" That was a good one.

OK, one video.

NOT Christmas

OK, so here's what you're not going to get: anything about christmas, because we still haven't even seen those videos ourselves, and maybe we never will.

But here's what you will get:

I know, right?!

Also, here are some fun words for you to read!

So, Ella has now entered the "why?" phase. Pretty big time:

Me: Ella, time for bath.

Ella: Why?

Me: So we can play in the water and get you clean.

Ella: ... but why does it get me clean?

Me: Because when you get wet all the dirt comes off.

Ella: ... but why am I gonna get wet?!

Me: Because you'll be in the water and the water is wet.

Ella: ... but! ... but! ... why is the water wet?

(Good question. I have absolutely NO IDEA.)

She will even ask it about things that she’s just said:

Me: Do you want milk or juice?

Ella: I want milk.

Me: OK, milk coming up!

Ella: Why?

Me: Because you said you wanted milk.

Ella: Why?

Me: um …?

And if she’s in the room, do NOT try to leave her out of the conversation. Say a sentence to another grown-up that's over her head, and she wants in, "What did you say?" Say two, and it's "WHAT are you TALKING ABOUT!?" Ignore that and she will get down right persnickety: "STOP TALKING!" We try to tell her that it's rude to holler at people to stop talking, but really she has a point. It is rude to leave someone out of a conversation in the first place.

And sometimes when she gets tired of listening to our explanations of things (which usually she herself has prompted), she'll start making up stuff to tell to us:

Me: Ella, do you want Oatmeal for breakfast?

Ella: off!

Me: ...

Ella: (explaining) Do you know what "off" means? It means raspberries and yogurt.

Me: Oh.

One day on the way home from our friends' house, I was trying to explain why I had just honked at a lady who had cut me off. Ella didn't quite get it, so Lauren helped, "He was letting the lady know she was doing something dangerous. ‘Whoa! Look out lady!’" Then Ella took over the explanation and started improvising. In her best announcer voice she hollered from the back seat, first something incomprehensible about a tightrope, and then:

“… THERE ARE TOO MANY PEOPLE THERE! DON’T GO IN THERE, CARS! THERE ARE PEOPLE THERE!”

And then ended with a very small and cheerful “... bye-bye!”

We laughed and laughed and asked her what she said. So she said it again in the same warning tone:

“THERE’S A TIGHTROPE! WALK CAREFULLY! THERE ARE TOO MANY PEOPLE IN THE CIRCLE! GET OUT OF THERE! THIS IS NOT FOR YOU TO DRIVE! ... bye-bye!”

We laughed again and she went on:

“GET OUT OF THERE! THERE’S GOING TO BE TROUBLE!”

We were laughing so hard that Lauren said she was going to pee her pants. Ella took it in stride:

“THERE’S GOING TO BE SO MUCH TROUBLE YOU’RE GOING TO PEE IN YOUR PANTS!”

And then we all peed in our pants.