Back from hiatus!

After a 3-month hiatus, I am back! I know I have not given this blog a lot of love for a few months :(. For that, I am sorry. I know Elle's fans have been waiting for an update for a while. We just had too many things going on these past few months, I cannot even catch a break to sit in front of my laptop and update my blog!

Elle is now 23 months old and she's been growing up and reaching her milestones way faster than I can update my blog! Where do I even start? I'll try to give a summary of what she's been up to for the past few months. 

For those who are wondering how she looks like now, this is her! This is her school picture taken when she was 22 months old. We were pleasantly surprised with how this turned out since for the past two years since she has started school (day care) and have made attempts to take her school picture, it was always a failure. She looks so grown up here than she really is in "real life" but one thing is for sure...she is not a baby anymore :(.

Daycare

Last August,  got an email from one of the day cares where we were waitlisted on since I was pregnant with Elle. After almost 2 years in the waitlist, they offered us a spot in the toddler room! This caught us offguard but it was an offer too hard to pass up. We were happy with Elle's previous school and all the people there were like family to us so it was a very hard decision to make. Long story short, we did make the switch (but not after Mommy Jarbs has shed a lot of tears). I felt very sad leaving the place where Elle has been cared for since she was 5 months old! All the people there were nice and most of all, I was sad for Elle leaving her friends which she has known all her "life" (Yep, all 22 months of it lol). The new school is only a 5-minute drive from my work (15 mins by foot) so it was very convenient compared to the previous day care which was about a 20-30 min drive from my office. The first couple of weeks of transition at the new school was rough for Elle. There were tears everyday during drop off. Things started to get better by the third week and now, after almost 2 months, she's completely adjusted :). Every morning whenever I would drop her off in school (Daddy Jarbs will bring her in into the building), she would say "Mommy go to work, Daddy go to work, Nana go to new school. Mommy will be back!" lol. She would also say "Bye bye Mommy":).

Sleep

Elle normally gets about ~11 hours of sleep at night + ~2 hour naps at day care (total of ~14 hrs). It's interesting to note that she's been napping better at the new school compared to the previous one. I am thinking that maybe it is because in the previous school, the toddler room was smaller so you could hear every little noise. She would end up waking up easily. On weekends though, it's a completely different story! This girl loves to sleep in! We would just let her sleep as much as she wants (unless we need to go somewhere so then we would wake her up). She would sleep between 12-14 hours with another 2-3 hour nap in the afternoon!! Thankfully, she got her sleeping habits from Daddy Jarbs! lol. Back when she was 18-19 months old, she went through a phase when she would skip naps in school. I thought she was ready to drop her nap time but good thing, it was just a phase! I am soo thankful that she ended up to be a good sleeper (knock on wood). Every once in a while, I would think to myself that I am glad the sacrifices Daddy Jarbs and I made when she was a newborn to make sure she develop good sleeping habits has paid off. She loves her sleep although now, she knows how to stall ("I want potty", "Mommy, read book",  Mommy: "Elle, do you want to go to sleep?" Elle: "NO"). Sometimes she tries to fight it but once we are already in her room, she gets excited to go to bed. Sometimes, she would even tell me to leave her room and close the door lol.

Speech and language development

Elle has been a little bit advanced in her speech and language development. During her 18-month doctor's appointment,  her pediatrician told me normally, kids that age can say up to about 20 words?! At that time, Elle could already speak 2-3 word phrases! I am bummed that I am not able to really keep track of exactly when she started saying things. All I know is now at 23 months, we can have real conversations with her. In the car, she would point out things that she sees and it's nonstop:
"Mommy, look" or "Mommy, hand, I see it (she's talking about the stop/no crossing sign) or "Mommy, I see doggie" or "Mommy big airplane" or "Mommy, I wanna go Costco" or Mommy, look at me", or "Cmon Mommy". 

This is our regular conversation every day while on the way home from school:

Mommy: Ano ginagawa ni Mommy? "(What's mommy doing?)
Elle: Mommy dri-bing (driving; yeah, she is still confused with her "b" & "v" lol)

Mommy: San si Daddy? (Where is Daddy?)

Elle: Daddy work

Mommy: San si Nana (Where is Eleiana?"
Elle: Nana on the carset (carseat)

She talks nonstop! Sometimes she talks way too much! lol.  It's so much fun talking to her though. She cracks us up every day :). I will try to start documenting all the funny things she says every day.

Here is a video I took of her the other day while she was sitting on the potty:

Potty Training

She is still not potty-trained but continues to use the potty. She sits there every morning and night. She is more vocal now about using the potty. There were a few times when she has pee'd on the potty (one time she called me "Mommy, look" and pointed on the potty for me to see her pee lol). She has also pee'd on the potty (they have kiddie pottys) in her new school one time! lol. Over the last few months, she has pooped in the potty one time. Since she can talk now, she can say "I want potty" or "I want pee pee again". A lot of times she just wants to sit there and read her book so we just let her. We have started using pull-ups on weekends. She now knows how to pull her pants down and take her diaper off. She is very conscious of when pee or poop are coming but most of the time she would tell us after the fact that she has gone :). My goal is to have her potty-trained before she turns 2.5 yrs old :). We'll see how it goes.

Girly-girl

Since she can now talk, she has strong opinions about what clothes or shoes she wears lol. She loves anything with Elmo, Mickey Mouse or Hello Kitty! Her favorite shoes right now are her Crocs with Hello Kitty and flower clip-ons. In the morning, I would let her choose which shoes to wear to school and surprisingly, sometimes, she would choose shoes that would match her outfit lol. 

This is a photo I took of her wearing a Hello Kitty shirt, Hello Kitty leg warmers, Minnie Mouse pull-ups, Minnie Mouse head band and Princess necklace. Yes, she chose this outfit herself lol. 

Reading
Elle still loves reading which is great. Sometimes, she would contently sit on the floor and read her books. Sometimes, we would hear her "read" the book to herself, it's kinda funny.

Counting
Elle can count 1-20 in English, Spanish and Filipino. She actually started doing this when she was about 18 months old so this is kinda of old news lol.

Singing and dancing
Elle loves singing and dancing. A lot of times, she would say "Mommy, look, Nana dancing".

Eating

Elle loves pasta and bread. I think she was Italian in her past life lol. She eats pretty well but is still a picky eater at times. She would look at the food and if it doesn't look good to her, she wouldn't even try it. You give it to her another time, and she would inhale it! She still loves her milk and continues to have 3-4 cups a day. She now uses fork/spoon to eat and has mastered drinking from a cup/glass. In school, they don't even use sippy cups anymore!

This is a picture of her eating roaster broccoli, her new fave!

So this is all for now. I will post more as I think of more stuff. Hopefully, I will be able to regular post from here on out :). I may occasionally back post pictures from the past couple of months, so please bear with me :).