Kindness of Strangers

photo from here

Today Elise and I went to Wal-mart to get groceries. We had a lot of shopping to do, and it took forever. I had coupons and WIC vouchers to use, and I was price matching, which is how we make things work out for our family financially. By the time we were finished shopping, Elise was more than finished sitting in the cart. I ended up having to go back twice (from two different registers) to get things I forgot.

Before I went back the first time, I got in line behind a woman who was trying to use WIC vouchers incorrectly, and all the people behind her were really annoyed. One man in particular was complaining loudly and rolling his eyes a lot. I started to get nervous about my giant cartload of food, and then got even more unsettled when I realized I had missed something. I didn't want to be that annoying person in line who causes all kinds of hold-ups.

I went to another register, and the cashier was so nice to me. She was super patient with WIC transactions, and she even gave me price matching prices in addition to the ones I already had. Instead of getting annoyed when I used coupons, she practically congratulated me for saving $4 after she scanned them. She didn't even get annoyed at all when I had to go back to get something I had forgotten (the second time, and in the middle of my transaction). When I almost bought some twistable crayons for Elise (she is always breaking crayons by accident), the woman made sure I knew that they weren't washable, which I was grateful to know and then ended up not buying them. No one really got behind me the whole time. I was so grateful. I thanked the woman for her patience, and started to leave the store.

I was about to walk out the doors when I realized I hadn't paid for the toilet paper that was on the bottom of my cart. I hurried back to the same register, got in line, and tried not to feel too annoyed at myself. (Did I mention Elise was done at this point?) The woman who was now in front of me in line saw that my cart had already been bagged and politely asked me why I was still in line. I told her about the toilet paper I almost stole inadvertently, and she practically beamed at me. She told me a couple of times how impressed she was by my honesty, especially because I was "so young" (apparently she is not used to young people with a conscience?). She offered to pay for my toilet paper for me! Wow! I was so grateful, especially because this expedited the process of us leaving the store. I thanked her as sincerely as I could, and hurried out with my toilet paper.

Thank you, nice cashier and stranger in front of me in line, for really making my day. I hope the Lord blesses you for your kindness and generosity.

Worse than Eating Stickers

Here's an overview of what Elise had to eat today: peanut butter with apple, string cheese, Go-Gurt, pineapple chunks, corn Chex cereal, and her own poop. Yep, that's about it.

As you have probably guessed, most of these items were provided by me. One was not. Elise made that item available to herself. You're probably horrified. Not as horrified as I am.

Elise got a bath first thing this morning, even though she had one last night, and I made sure to brush her teeth.

I don't think she ate very much. But somehow that's not very comforting.

Nursery

This is Elise before church this morning. She put these shorts on her own head and said, "Hat. Church." Apparently this is what she thought she was going to be wearing to church today.

We opted for a dress, but maybe we'll go with the pajamas-with-shorts-for-a-hat look next week.

Today was Elise's first day of Nursery at church, which is the class for kids 18 months to 3 years old, and the youngest age group to be in a class. (This was their lesson today, if you want an idea of what they do in there.) We have been looking forward to this day for a long time now. Elise is just way too rambunctious to be expected to sit still and be quiet for 3 hours straight during church! Even with Whales crackers.

One hour is more than enough, especially because Matt played the organ today and I got to wrestle Elise all by myself. She almost fell off the pew backwards once, ripped a page in a hymnal, and had to be taken out after she hit her head and cried a little. She was still pretty noisy the entire first hour meeting, but we made it through. The two older women sitting behind us kept commenting on how curious, active, and vocal she is. Definitely not news to Matt and me. We just usually refer to these traits collectively when we say (all the time), "Elise is crazy."

So you can imagine how happy we were when, as of a few days ago, Elise became officially old enough to join the Nursery class. And she is just as happy about the transition as we are. She didn't cry or act distressed at all when I dropped her off. I even peeked in between second and third hours to see how she was doing; she was so busy that she didn't even notice me. The Nursery leaders said she was doing "phenomenal." (Isn't this supposed to be about the age kids hit the peak of separation anxiety? Apparently I was more anxious than she was about our separation.) When I went to pick her up after church, she barely glanced my way before continuing to chase bubbles.

So, all in all, a good day. I have to admit that I'm a little sad she doesn't seem to miss me at all if I drop her off for a couple of hours with people she has never met before. But overall, I am overjoyed that she does so well in Nursery. And that I actually got to sit still and listen in my classes today.

Sticker Eater

Elise loves stickers lately. She asks for one almost every day. We got some free in the mail with some Disney offer, so I have been giving her those, but we only have one left. I guess it's time to buy some more! She also loves fruit stickers, which are free and more abundant. She's not too picky about what's on her stickers.

If we are in the grocery store, Elise begs for banana stickers. I usually give her one (not off our bananas because I know she'll want those stickers later). I have to watch her carefully, though, because Elise eats stickers. In much the same way all river water eventually ends up in the ocean, all stickers eventually end up in Elise's mouth. I have found stickers in her diaper on more than one occasion, if you know what I mean.

So I guess stickers are something I will be including in Elise's Easter basket. Maybe even Elmo stickers? We'll see.

In the Dark

Elise has been fascinated with the concept of dark lately. As soon as the sun starts to go down, she wants to talk about it. I didn't have a sign for dark (and sometimes we still need signs for clarity, like when dark sounds like dog or stick), so I made one up for Elise to use. It was actually kind of an accident. As we were coming in one evening, I finally realized she was saying dark, not dog, and covered my eyes, then Elise's, to demonstrate the concept. (a little like the real sign, I guess) It stuck, and now Elise says and "signs" dark at night, if the light is off in her room, if the sun is in her eyes in the car, if she is ready to take a nap (like in this video from today), or any other time she wants to talk about the dark.

I love the way she looks when she covers her eyes. I think it's so cute. And I love it when she covers my eyes with her chubby little hands.

I love this girl.

Colors

Matt plays a game with Elise to help her learn her colors. He asks her to get a certain color block from her wagon, and she has to bring him a block in that color. I didn't realize how well she was doing with learning her colors until Matt and Elise played this game this morning. Here is the stack of blocks she brought back correctly. The trick is to get her to stay focused on the game long enough to demonstrate what she actually knows.

So at almost 18 months, Elise can identify blocks in pink, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple. And I'm pretty sure she knows white too.

Bowling

Disclaimer: If you don't want to read the details of Elise's sleep habits yesterday, skip the text and head straight for the pictures. In fact, feel free to skip all the text in this post. In a lot of ways, this blog is journal-esque to me, and some things are mostly for me to remember later.

Elise didn't wake up until about 9am yesterday. She has been doing that a lot lately, despite her 7pm bedtime and typically about 2.5 hour nap. Not that I'm complaining or anything! It did mean that her nap time was bumped back a couple of hours, though. Then she had some trouble settling down, and before I knew it, it was 2:45pm and she was just getting to sleep (usually she is asleep by about 11:30am if she gets up at a normal time, meaning before 7:30am).

Matt came home around 4pm and Elise was still sleeping. Since she didn't get up until about 4:30pm, we thought that we could do something fun that would keep us all out a little later than usual. Bowling! (my suggestion, Matt took some convincing)

We went to Chick-fil-A for dinner, which was amazing! (Don't laugh.) Sometimes I forget how much I like eating there. I have been craving fries and fast food lately, so it really hit the spot.

Then we took Elise bowling for her first time ever. She was so excited! In the pictures she isn't smiling because she was just too focused on what was going on, but I guarantee you that she was having a blast.

Matt bowling his first turn of the night

me about to bowl my first turn

(I think I already look pregnant!? Is that normal at 11 weeks!? At least I'm not in maternity clothes yet.)

For some reason the ball return was super clogged with balls most of the night, but I didn't want to move them because the balls were there before us and the people in the next lane might have wanted them. So we just kind of managed.

Matt helping Elise bowl

With gutter guards and that ball chute thing, she scored higher than I did (for both games)!

As much as Elise loved the bowling and the clapping for Mom and Dad, I think her favorite part of the night might just have been the air blowing out of the ball return.

And my favorite part of the night was watching her!

This picture makes me laugh.

final scores for game #2

None of us are experts, but we had fun together!

(I don't want to talk about the fact that I lost twice in bowling to my daughter who is not yet 18 months old.)

This might give you a taste of Elise's enthusiasm. I love the little skippy step she does when she is running and excited. Notice she doesn't care at all about the pins at the end of the lane.