Remember me? Can I? Why? Love you more…

Yup, those are Elyssa favorite new things to say. She will look at me with those big inquisitive eyes and ask “mommy, daddy remember me?” I try not to laugh and say “Of course Daddy remembers you”. Of course she answers this with, “why mommy?” and the day begins….

I sometimes think that Elyssa talks just to hear herself talk. It is truly amazing to me but I think she could amuse herself all day long just talking to herself! I remember saying that I could not wait till she talked and we could carry on our own little conversations, now, sometimes I wish I had a good set of ear plugs!

She certainly is learning how to push buttons with the phrase “Can I?” She will ask if she can do something and I will say “no, Elyssa”. She will answer this with “Can I?” I will say “no”, she will again ask “can I?”, and Again I will “no Elyssa” a bit more firmly. Does this stop her, of course not. She will yet again ask “Can I mommy, Please!!!” I look at her and ask “Elyssa, what did mommy say?” she then will get these adorable pouty eyes and whisper “Sorry, mommy, sorry”. I honestly think she thinks if she asks the same question multiple times she will get a different answer. And this scenario will play out about 20 + times a day with the same routine. I sometimes start to wonder about Pavlov’s theory…..

The sweetest thing she says and of course I could listen to her say it all day long is “love you more, mommy”. I can’t even imagine 3 sweeter words that she could ever say. She is just changing so much and growing up way to fast. I know I’ve said that a million times but it is so true and there is just no way to stop time.

Well it is official, Elyssa is 100% “poopie in the potty” trained! No accidents for about 2 and a half months now. Of course the “pee-pee” in the potty is a whole other story. Isn’t #2 suppose to be the hard for kids to get and #1 is the easy one? Well we think that Elyssa really has no control over it at all. The last time we had her VCUG for her renal reflux it had progressed from Stage 2 to Stage 3 so it was not getting any better. The dr agreed to allow us to wait till she was 3 to do the surgery (in case we could get her potty trained with the hope that it might help) but it appears my little girl is ready to be all the way potty trained and because mommy and daddy don’t want to do the surgery she is unable to “hold it or feel the urge” to go. In fact when I ask her where does the “pee-pee” go and she will reply “in the potty mommy”. So I ask her why is it in her diaper, she looks at me and says “no fair mommy, not fair”, so I ask her again and she tells me “hush your mouth mommy”! So, I think we have decided to call the urologist and see if we can go ahead and do the surgery and pray for the best.

Elyssa has been enjoying the fall. We went to the TX state fair where Elyssa got to see, pet and feed all kinds of animals and eat her first Corny dog. We took her to pumpkin patches, fall festivals, Six Flags Fright Fest and 2 Halloween parties. I don’t think there was anything she missed out on. She even went Trick or Treating on Halloween. It was her first time and she did great. She said Trick or Treat to everyone who came to the doors and held her bag open. She of course kept asking to “eat candies” all night long as well, and of course we let her. What else is Halloween about ….CANDY!!

Right now I have flooring installers at my house installing new floors downstairs. I am so excited, no more carpet on the first floor. Next is the upstairs!!

Pumpkin Patch 2009

Make a Smilebox slideshow

TX State Fair~ Oct 2009

Make a Smilebox slideshow

The amazing Jumping Bean..

Elyssa loves to jump. I guess all kids love to jump, but I just think Elyssa is sometimes obsessed with jumping. She even at 2 years old wants to jump rope. I hold the jump rope for her and she will jump over the rope. Now I only hold it about an inch off the ground but the girl loves to jump. Recently, on one of our many trips to Collin Creek Mall, Elyssa notices a new play object. They have something new that allows a person to be strapped into a harness and jump as high as they can. Elyssa of course when she first saw it, begged to go on the “jumping bean”. Jumping Bean is what she so loving calls anything she can jump on. The first time I saw it I told her no that she had to be “bigger” to get on it, to me it just looked a bit to dangerous for a kid her size and I honestly did not think they would allow her to go on it. So she was happy to do what we always do; ride the train, play in the play area, and ride the coin operated cars on the way out. Well the next time we went a few days later daddy was with us. Of course as soon as daddy saw the new “jumping bean” he was intrigued. As Elyssa was riding the train (it is in front of the area where the train is), he walked over and talked to the gentleman who was running the “jumping bean”. He found out that Elyssa was no only big enough they had actually allowed kids smaller than her to jump. Apparently the weight limit on the “jumping bean” was 20-150lbs and Elyssa is 30lbs. So after the train ride we walked over to the “jumping bean” and discussed what to do. As Eddie and I debated whether or not to allow her to jump Elyssa was standing beside me pleading “want to mommy, want to, please mommy want to” so of course as I looked into those adorable blue eyes and could not refuse..she got to ride the “jumping bean”. I won’t lie, I was scared to death that she would start bawling and hate it, but my little Elyssa was a real trooper. She not only did great, she loved it. The gentleman who ran the “jumping bean” was great with her and helped her the whole time. She was giggling and laughing as she jumped at least 10-13 ft in the air. All I could do was laugh with her and of course take a ton of pictures and videos of her first amazing experience on the jumping bean!

Of course since that first time jumping on the “jumping bean”, we now have to ride on the jumping bean every time we go to the mall, but I have to say her giggles and laughs make it all worth it…

Skateboards and Roller Skates...

Yes, I said a skate board and roller skates. I know she is only 2 but she was watching one of her favorite cartoons (Max & Ruby) and they were roller skating and on a skate board and she sooo wanted them as well. We did not exactly buy them at the same time. We actually went to Academy and got her the skate board first. We bought her a helmet, knee and elbow pads to go with it. In fact she insisted we buy them when we got her the skateboard. Of course it is a princess helmet with matching elbow pads and knee pad, what else would you expect? She did not do real well on the skateboard and pretty much just sits on the board and lets us push her around. We got her the roller skates about 2 weeks later at Target. They of course are princess roller skates and also came with matching elbow and knee pads. The kid is set for safety that is for sure. She did so much better with the roller skating. In fact reminded me of myself when I was learning to skate. She wears the skates all around the house. She does great on the carpet (does not roll as much…lol) and when she goes in the kitchen she does great as long as she is holding on to the counter and such. I’m really proud of her on the skates. In fact we took her roller skating at a real roller rink a week after we got the skates. She absolutely loved it and did a great job for a first time. Daddy was home so he went as well and Aunt Lisa went with us to. I actually think we could start skating more often … time will tell.

First Family Vacation...

Well we finally broke down and took our first and much needed family vacation. So we worked some magic with daddy’s horrible schedule, got the plane tickets, packed the suitcases and headed for the first Borden family vacation. Now what better place to take a well needed vacation than….WALLY WORLD…oh, wait that was the Griswold’s National Lampoon vacation I’m confusing this with, …we actually went to Disneyland or in the words of Elyssa “Mickey’s House”. Ok, really Disneyland was only a part of our trip, we took 8 blissful days and enjoyed the San Diego Zoo, a bunch of beautiful beaches, and 2 days at incredible Disneyland. Thanks to daddy working his horrible travel job, the plane tickets and the hotel were all free! Ok, since daddy sacrifices so much family time with us because of his job, I guess the tickets were not really “free”. Unfortunately daddy had to pay for all the “free” stuff with time he had to spend away from myself and Elyssa. There truly is a tradeoff for everything in life, nothing is every truly free!

We started the trip off by flying into Las Angeles and driving to San Diego where we spent 2 days. We went to the world famous San Diego Zoo where Elyssa had an incredible time visiting with all the animals and got to take her first Gondola ride over the Zoo and a tour of the zoo in a double decker tour bus. We also went to Mission Bay Beach, Ocean Beach and Dog Beach. At Dog Beach Elyssa got to run on the beach with all of the puppy dogs. She had an incredible time visiting with all the dogs. Dog Beach is an off leach beach that pet owners can take there dogs to play in the water.

After leaving San Diego, we made our way to Anaheim, CA to our hotel, Hilton’s Embassy Suites. We spent the rest of our visit there where we spent 2 blissful days at Disneyland, Downtown Disney and the rest of the time at Huntington Beach and Crystal Beach.

Elyssa had a wonderful time at Disney, and I have to say the most incredible way to see Disney is through the eyes of an inquisitive 2 year old. I had never been to any of the Disney parks so this was a first for me as well. The joy of seeing it through the eyes of Elyssa was more than any mom could hope for. At first she was a bit afraid of the characters but quickly warmed up to them and ran to great each and every one of them! She even really surprised us and rode all of the rides that she was able with us.

All I can really say to sum the whole trip up is….. MAGICAL!

I speak Elyssa, and other idle ramblings...

Elyssa is just talking and singing up a storm. She is her own little jibber jabberer, she is either talking to me or talking to Pooh Bear, or talking to her baby, but she is always talking or singing to something. Now, to me, everything she says is almost completely understandable but there are several times that others and even Eddie look at me as if to say “what the heck did she just say??” So I realized that I indeed speak “Elyssa”. Now what this means is that I am the only one who can decipher some her “not so perfect enunciations” of some of the English language. I’d have to say for the most part, she does pretty well with most words but some are just a little less than perfect. I’m sure it will work itself out in the end and she will be speaking more clearly but for a 2 year old I think she is doing just great. I still think it is absolutely adorable the way she makes up words for things she has no idea what they are. One example of this is that she likes to ride “Coooch” What is “coooch” you ask? It is the exercise equipment (a stair stepper and stationary bike) that is in our room. She saw Eddie on it one morning and decided she wanted to try so she said “ride coooch daddy, ride coooch”. We explained to her it is exercise equipment, a stepper and stationary bike. She can very clearly say stepper and bike but the 2 collectively are not exercise equipment, they are “coooch”. So she will wake up in the morning and ask to ride “coooch” and it is something only myself and Eddie would understand.

We have been spending a lot of tome making new friends. We have been having lots of play dates with kids of all ages lately and it has been a real blast watching how Elyssa interacts with all the new kids. I used to think she would always be very shy and never play with other kids but it seems she is starting to come out of her shell. Usually she is very shy in the beginning, like the first 10-15 minutes, and then she is out of her shell and playing just fine. It is so cute except when she starts the “mine” stage. We are working on sharing still and from what I hear it can take kids till they are almost 5 before they completely grasp the whole idea of sharing! We have been using time out a lot. I have set up her old pack-n-play in the downstairs guestroom and when she gets totally out of control she gets a timeout in her pack-n-play in a room separated from us. I do not leave her in there long and I check on her but, she does not get to come out till she a) stops crying and b) apologizes for what she has done. I have no idea if it is working but it helps at the moment!

We got some bad news about Elyssa’s Stage II renal reflux. She had her VCUG procedure a couple months ago and the results showed that her Stage II has progressed to Stage III. Her urologist is ok with putting off surgery till after she is 3 or potty trained. He said if she gets potty trained they will do another VCUG and the reflux is still present they will have to do the surgery anyway. He did tell us that potty training will be more challenging. Apparently she has a lot of pressure on her bladder and even when she goes pee-pee and thinks she is done a few minutes later she may go more. It is very difficult for her to understand. I can say she is doing wonderfully with potty training but a bit discouraging also because it seems she is never going to just get it. She used to be only 50% potty trained now I’d say it is about 70% …she has started going potty when we are out places. In fact I’ve probably visited every public potty in every public place I’ve been and sometimes, several times. She of course does not go every time, but she does get to visit a new potty, which is I guess the whole thrill. On a positive note, she is no longer afraid of the automatic flushing potties. The noise does not bother her at all!!

We have finally planned our first family vacation! We are going to California! We are going to take Elyssa to Disneyland for a couple days, to the San Diego Zoo and of course several beautiful beaches since she LOVES the beach. We are so looking forward to it. Poor Eddie has been working a lot and has not been able to spend a lot of time with Elyssa and I so we are looking forward a whole week of just family time!

I think that sums up what has been happening in our world, time to get little princess some dinner!