the ELLA echo

a vocabulary comes in many shapes and sizes

spoken words:

1. daa-daa-daa-daa (formerly "baa-baa-baa-baa"):  daddy
2. co-co-co-co:  coal, her favorite dog.   
3. bea-bea-bea-bea:  bea, one of our cats.
4. meh-meh-meh, or alternately maa-maa-maa:  milk (meaning to nurse--she won't drink cows milk)
5. choo!:  shoes, always with an exclamation point
6. booeh:  book
7. foo:  food, specifically cat food
8. boo:  blue, from blue's clues, or boots from dora (understood in context)
9. a coo:  a clue (see above)
10. pees:  please
11. peas:  peas
12. cor:  corn
13. hah:  hair
14. eyeeeees:  eyes
15. no:  nose
16. teess:  teeth
17. ars:  ears
18. shin:  chin
19. hins:  hands
20. pih-pih-pih-pih:  piggies, i.e. feet or toes.
21. pince:  pants
22. kees:  keys
23. doa:  dora (the explorer)
24. mat!:  map (if you've seen dora, this makes sense)
25. batpat:  backpack, always whispered (dora again, don't know why the whisper)
26. lula, or sometimes "allula":  tallulah, from maisy
27. ho?:  hello, used to answer the remote control (this could possibly also be "whore", a word which she also hears pretty often).
28. i!:  hi, used to wave to the security camera outside my office
29. lodi-odi-odi-odi-odi:  expression of glee
30. gikl-gikl-gikl-gikl:  conversational expression meaning, "mother may i break this?"  or "i'm ready for some turkey and a hat dance, thank you."
31. bah:  ball
32. bibi:  baby
33. beer-beer-beer-beer:  bear
34. hus:  horse  (again, this could be "whore", of which she has probably seen more of them than of horses)
35. dot:  dog
36. kih:  kitty
37. dut:  duck
38. cacka:  cracker
39. chee:  cheese
40. m-m-m-m-m:  more

sounds and sound effects:

1. o! o! o!:  barking 
2. mao:  meow
3. dack:  quack
4. buh-buh-buh:  buzz buzz buzz, accompanied always with flapping hands
5. thrrrrrrrrrrrp!  (with tongue stuck out):  horse
6. ding! ding! ding!:  sound for tapping her head
7. beep:  sound for tapping her nose, or taking temperature
8. ya-ya-ya-ya:  general singing, esp. used for the theme song of "play with me sesame" and laurie berkner's "song in my tummy"
9. grrrrrrrrrrrrr-ssssssssssss:  snoring
10. crkloo:  cock-a-doodle-oo
11. teet:  tweet
12. oot-oot:  hoo hoo
13. ooo:  moo
14. nonk:  oink
15. sssssssssss:  the sound for watering the plants

signs and gestures:

1. milk
2. more
3. water
4. food/eat
5. water
6. diaper/change
7. please
8. thank you
9. dog
10. cat
11. read
12. banana
13. peas
14. cantelope
15. dance
16. fish
17. help
18. coat
19. cracker
20. gentle
21. good-bye
22. blow kiss

a day in the life of ronald mcdonald

9:41am:

10:37am:

11:18am:

12:09pm:

1:19pm:

2:00pm:

2:32pm:

2:52pm:

3:04pm:

3:45pm:

4:16pm:

4:49pm:

5:35pm:

ella's nursery

while talking to my sister andrea last night (a rare and always fun treat), i realized that she has not yet seen ella's nursery.  and really only my parents and one sister have seen it, so for the rest of you gonzalez's, here is a little tour, "the history of ella's nursery".

this room joins onto our bedroom, and served mostly as a place to keep the futon.  i made curtain strips out of fashion fabric that i had bought by the pound at a mill end store, and the only other things in the room were some boxes of stuff that we were too forgetful to take to the attic.  the primary occupant of this room was coal:

about 6 weeks before ella was due, we finally decided that we were definitely having a baby and needed to have a place to put it.  :)  to get this room ready to even paint, we had to rip out a hideous, badly-installed, painted-over-twice false ceiling, the hideous, badly-installed, painted-over-8-times false panelling, and a hideous, badly-installed, not-painted-over-but-could-have-used-some-paint ceiling fan.  however, i loved the hideous, well-installed vintage vinyl flooring so it stayed.

we hired our friend scott to come help us with the more complicated stuff (scott was the one here when the car ran into our house--but that is another story). 

when scott cut the opening around the doorway to make repairs, he found VALENTINES!!!  some sweet little construction paper hearts.  since we know that wall was closed sometime in the mid-1930's, we figure the hearts are around 70 years old:

meanwhile, i was working on fabric projects.  i couldn't find fabric that i liked--i never can--so i bought several different homespuns and ginghams and overdyed them to the colors i wanted.  rudi used these colors to design a paint scheme for the room--he made a wheat field--inspired by our fantastic drive cross-country the year before.  he made the sky so that it rises from the horizon behind the fields, and the wheat is so tall that even i could get lost in it.

we went to a local carpet remnant store and found a fantastical piece that was just big enough for this room.  a friend gave us a dresser that has a convertible place on top for a changing table, rudi stripped it, sanded it, and painted it to go with the room.  i bought a bassinet (like this one) on ebay for about 1/3 the original price, and then rudi found a rocking chair that he refinished by hand.   i made the linens, a new bassinet cover, curtains, cushions for the rocking chair, and a matching diaper changing set (diaper bag and changing pad).  i dyed all the fabrics using procion MX dyes, acid dyes, and/or union dyes (depending on the fabric and the result i wanted).  the final touch was installing a chandelier from the house i grew up in (the same house that my sister andrea still lives in--she gave me the chandeliers when she redecorated).  the results of all this effort--not exactly completed until after ella arrived--are as follows:

the bassinet (shown in the kitchen, because the room wasn't ready when i took this picture):

the view from our bedroom, before and after:

ella's crib, with the mattress lowered to the bottom so she can climb in by herself (the little suitcase was my dance bag since i was 8 years old, now it is her step stool and my foot rest at the rocking chair):

the windows, with curtains that i dyed and sewed to replicate the walls, and the rocking chair that rudi refinished:

ella doesn't spend that much time in this room--she sometimes starts the night in her crib, but by midnight i bring her to bed with us.  she plays in the step-n-play every day, she climbs in the crib to play with bear-bear or to read books, and this is the room where the panty raids happen.  but when the time comes, at least i can send her to her room knowing that it is a nice place to visit.  :)

and what i did with the old curtains--two nursing tops.  on the first one, the upper bodice lifts from the faux empire waistline, there is an underlayer that pulls down--no slits!  on the second top, the outer part of the wrap moves aside, the underlayers are just strips of fabric--again, no slits!  these are my two favorite nursing designs, i've made about a dozen different tops with these two types of access.

what a difference just a few hours can make.

yesterday morning, ella did this for over an hour:

then she did this for another hour:

 

and when she woke up, she went out to the playground with her daddy and did this for an hour and a half:

but she woke up in the night doing this:

103.2 degrees F

i really didn't freak out that much--because until she got the fever, she was just her usual self--but as the night went on, and her fever stayed high, i did start to really worry.  she wouldn't let me put her down, it was as if laying down hurt, so i ended up holding her from about 9:30pm until 9:30am when i put her in the car to go to the baby vet.

luckily, it seems to just be a viral infection--they did a thorough check-up, including making me pin her to the exam table while they drew approximately a gallon of blood--and made us wait a suitably interminable amount of time for test results--but everything came back negative and tonight her temperature is nearly normal.

one neat thing about all this is that my sister juliana had sent us an ear thermometer that arrived yesterday, just in time to be called into action.  thank you lala.  ella spent this whole afternoon putting it into my ear and going "beeeeeeeeeeep!".

now, what did i do with that post-it note?

don't pay attention to anybody but your child

like any mama worthy of the name, i torture my child on a daily basis by stubbornly refusing to give her everything she wants.  lately, what she wants is to nurse non-stop--as in, 24/7--as in all day and night long.  don't get me wrong--i LOVE nursing her, and i am really proud that our nursing relationship is still so strong--but a mama needs a break now and then, esp. at 1:00am. so i've been trying to limit our nighttime nursing to just every 3 hours or so--enough time for me to get some sleep, but not so long that she is starving. 

besides, other mamas, even our baby vet, a.k.a. pediatrician, have told me not to let her nurse just anytime she wants too--"only let her nurse when she is really hungry, don't let her nurse just for comfort or she will never give it up"--but isn't that part of mothering?  to comfort my child?  when it comes to something so primal as nursing, i don't really like telling her no, but i don't know where to draw the line, so usually i let her nurse because it makes her happy and makes me feel like a good mommy.

you know how it is--you're making up all this mama stuff as you go, and when someone who has been there tells you something, you store it in your mental mama file for future guilt-inducing reference.

tonight, around midnight, ella starts trying to nurse, but i decide to just try to get her back to sleep.  ella is not down with this plan yet.  she starts crying, and the more i keep her from nursing, the harder she cries. she keeps clenching her little fists and saying, "meh?  meh?  meh?"  ("milk?  milk?  milk?")  over and over, and the crying turns into sobs, with big heavy tears rolling down her face.

so i pick her up and hold her tight to my chest and rock her right there in bed, and then the shrieking starts.  the high-pitched kind that humans shouldn't be able to hear, but because it is your own child you can hear it loud and clear.  and since i have her head resting on my shoulder, her vocal cords are right in line with my ear drum, which means i have the best acoustics.  but still i keep hoping she'll run out of steam and just go back to sleep.

and then the guilt starts gnawing at me.  what if it is her teeth?  what if her head hurts, or she has an ear infection, or a tummy ache?  i don't really think it is any of those things--i think she is mad at me for not letting her nurse--but i can't bear the thought that she might actually be in pain so i give her a dose of tylenol, just in case.

nope.  not teeth, or ears, or tummy.  the crying turns into heaving sobs, the kind where she can't catch her breath and her nose is dripping onto my sleeve and she gasps between the tears.

so i take her into the living room, we walk and rock and hum and hug bear-bear and then i see the clock and holy smokes, it's been over an hour and still she's howling.  i can't take it anymore, the sound of her begging for meh in her sweet, tender, cried-out voice finally does me in, and i decide that i will hold out for just a little while longer and then let her nurse as soon as she asks.  and bless her heart, she goes another 10 minutes before she finally lifts her head and looks at me and asks quietly one more time, "meh?".  and then i start to cry, because i feel like the worst mommy in the world for making my child beg for her milk.

when she finally latches on, she is so relieved that she falls right to sleep.  fast asleep. 

she only nursed for 5 minutes before she popped off and rested her head on my chest, sound asleep and snuggled up tight.

why oh why oh why don't i just listen to my heart???  all she wanted was a little bit of meh and the warmth of her mama.   i should have just let her nurse when she first asked, instead of putting her thru over an hour of trauma. 

never again, ella, i promise you that sweet baby.

new mamas:  if there is one bit of wisdom i have about being a mama, it is that 99% of the time you are right.  way too many people will butt in with advice because supposedly they've been there.  well, they have not been there, not with your child.  if you think your child is hungry, she probably is.  if you think she is sleepy, she probably is.  if you think she is in pain or sick or lonely or scared or cold, she probably is.  listen to your child and act on your instincts, if you're wrong at least you won't be up at 3:00 in the morning writing out your guilt trip on the internet.

just one more way to mess up my child

for about a year now--ever since ella started having a real evening routine--we've done things more or less like this:

1. dinner
2. bath
3. teeth
4. diaper and massage
5. nurse to sleep

even on nights when we don't have dinner at home, if we have a little snack and then go on to the bath, she is happy with the routine. 

well, two nights ago, i suddenly realized that i have made it almost impossible for ella to brush her teeth.  you see, i always put her on my left hip when i carry her, so that my right hand is free.  i would reach her the toothbrush, and hold my own, and we would brush our teeth together.  and--i had been putting the toothbrush in her left hand. 

but she is clearly right-handed, she feeds herself with her right hand and she "writes" with her right hand and she turns pages with her right hand.

so last night, i put her on my other hip, and put the toothbrush into her right hand, and put my own toothbrush into my left hand.  WOW--BLESS HER HEART--i've been making her a clutz.

all this time, i've been thinking i was such a diligent mama, and then this.  i guess that's nature's way of keeping mamas humble.

Mama

(this post was inspired by my friend and hero julie, The Blah Blah Blog : Mama):

when i was a little girl, i would say, "mama, i love you!", and mama would say, "rowa, i love you most." and because i have always been stubborn, i would say back, "mama, i love you most most!". it became such a habit to say it that i can't sign a card or end a phone call to a member of my family without saying, "i love you most most."

but it turns out i was wrong. mama loves the most most. i know this because i am her child and i am now also a mother, and i know that i love my ella so much that sometimes i can barely breathe. and wonder of wonders, that's how mama loves me!

i wish i had known, all these years, i would have been kinder, and not so difficult.

so mama, you win, you love me most most, but i'm still going to say it, because i'm still your baby, and i'm still stubborn.

i love you most most!

feeling sad, and feeling silly for it

tomorrow, i go "back" to work from holiday break.  actually, i've been at work, but i've been working at home these past two weeks.  tomorrow, i go back to my office on my regular schedule.  i'm blessed--ella comes to work with me, and rudi works there too, so our whole family is together much of the day. 

but when we're at work, ella is cooped up in my little office, having to play by herself or parked in front of the tv while i make phone calls or take care of business.  and bless her dear little heart, she mostly obliges, and she hardly ever complains.  but my heart breaks a little every single day, because she really doesn't have that much fun--she often has to stop whatever she is doing so i can take her with me to a meeting or a rehearsal--and she doesn't get out of the room much, entirely too little in fact.  makes me feel like a really bad mommy.  :( 

but these past two weeks have been HEAVEN--we haven't had this kind of time at home since she was born--and she has FLOURISHED!   she has laughed more in the past 14 days than she has her whole life.

 

we have sung songs, and played ball and she could crawl in our laps whenever she felt like it.  she could pet her doggies and kitties all day long (or as long as they would put up with it)--she got to "move to the music" on noggin a dozen times a day--and when it was nice out (which wasn't nearly enough), we got to go to the playground and run around in the cool, fresh air, and climb and slide and swing and just be freeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!

and she has started using more words--like "baba!" (bubbles)--and "doda" (dora), and "cacka" (cracker)--plus she now knows where her ears are ("aars!"), where her hair is ("ha!"), where her chin is ("shin!"), where her hands are ("hins!").  she "dings" her own head, just the way have done since she was born. she wakes me up in the morning, poking her little fingers at my face, giggling "eyeees!", and "tees!" (teeth), and she kicks her little legs and squeals "pi! pi! pi!" (piggies--i'll teach her the word "toes", one day, i promise).

i feel silly for even feeling so bad about going back to work.  i like my work--and i know that i have a very special situation--for myself, i have it good.  but for my baby, i am heartbroken that i have to end this holiday.  i wish so much for her--i wish she could just be a baby and do baby things.  i wish she could sleep in more, or stay up later so our days wouldn't have to end so soon.  i wish she could have lots more long, playful bathtimes when she could splash the whole room and giggle wildy while her daddy plays the happy clown.    i wish she could stay in her jammies all day more often.    i wish she didn't have to take her naps on my office floor.

and i wish i could chase her around the dining room table whenever she felt like it--i wish i could drop everything and read her a book whenever she asked--i wish we could have

long silly   snacks wearing silly felt   hats

and empty every drawer more often, and play peek-a-boo all afternoon.  i wish we could play so hard every day that she would fall asleep at her daddy's feet more often. 

but things are getting hectic again--when i'm doing a show, there isn't much free time, it's spent shopping, and cutting fabric, and fitting singers who care more about what their friends think than they do about whether or not the costume is right for their character.   i wish she didn't have to get into the carseat a dozen times a day.  i wish we didn't have to shop until she dropped. and i wish there would be no more nights when she will cry all the way home, because it is almost midnight and she is so tired and has been as good as any child can be for  longer than any child should have to be.   those will be the same nights that i cry myself to sleep too.

i know some moms are going to be mad at me for feeling like this--they don't get to bring their babies with them wherever they go--and they're right to feel mad about that.  but i bet their babies get a lot more playtime, and a lot more snacktime, and a lot more naptime, and i just wish a little more of that for my baby too.

its never easy, is it?  no matter what we do, no matter what our situation, something always hurts.  i guess that's what it's like when your heart toddles around in somebody else's body.

the next logical step....

....in any good panty raid: