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February 19, 2004
Valentine’s Day
Despite the fact that VD is NOT one of my favorite holidays—in my opinion it is just a chance for the card and flower companies to gouge us in the name of ‘true love’—we actually ended up having a very festive, and very nice, holiday. I had been directed to the website www.tlcfamily.net by someone on these boards and they had some cute ideas for Valentine’s Day crafts, including some no-bake recipes we tried together. First, Ella helped me add red food coloring to cream cheese for Valentine’s Day bagels (we were going to put them on bread cut into hearts but, alas, we were out of bread. Bad mommy!). Then, later in the day, we made Valentine’s Day shakes with ice cream, milk, bananas, and strawberries in them. Both recipes went very well, both in the enjoyment of making them and the enjoyment of eating them, and Ella was pleased as punch with herself. Both were simple ideas, really, but probably not something I would have spontaneously come up with myself, especially not in a timely manner to tie it into the holiday (although I do think we will be having green cream cheese this St. Patricks day!). The next day at school I heard a girl bragging to Ella about all the candy she got for Valentine’s Day and I was hoping Ella wouldn’t be sad or jealous that she didn’t get much candy and would remember that we, too, had a lot of fun, in our own way….
Oh! And while I am (sort of) on the subject of recipes to make with toddlers that I found on the internet, I would like to recommend Peanut Butter Play dough. It’s on a lot of different websites so if you do a search it’s guaranteed to pop up. I can’t remember where, but I stumbled across it a few weeks ago. It’s an easy, no bake recipe for these peanut butter treats that kids can play with like play dough before they eat them. Ella absolutely loves to make them, to play with them, and to eat them and I like that they are chocked full of protein (in addition to the peanut butter they have powdered milk). I am always worrying about Ella getting enough protein (she’s generally bigger on the carbs but protein is a challenge) so I don’t even mind the extra calories.
Silly Vent
I know this is going to come out sounding super shallow, but it’s been on my mind lately so I thought I would mention it. I also was wondering if I am the only one who has ever doubted or regretted their child’s name.
I actually really love Ella’s name, both by itself, with its middle name (Ella Rose, which I call her all the time) and her full name (Eleanore Rose). Eleanore is my grandmother’s name, one of the wisest, kindest, most loving women I have ever had the honor of knowing. She has been a blessing to me in so many ways I was thrilled to have the honor of naming my daughter after her, and I loved the name Ella as a shorter, more modern nick name. When I first thought of the name I was thrilled but really had to sell Jamie on it, since at the time we had never heard of anyone outside of Ella Fitzgerald with the name. But he grew to like it and then love it, and we were both very happy with our decision (we never did come up with a final boys name…). Rose is Jamie’s mom’s name and I love that name too, I think it is beautiful and the two go together so well and honor her legacy on both sides.
One of the things that I loved about the name also was that it was unique, without being so ‘out there’ that people would mispronounce or ridicule it. The year that we were considering names for our child (2000 and 2001) Ella was ranked #268 and #195 (according to the Social Security Website). I thought I had truly discovered a hidden gem. Well, for whatever reason, this name has been flying up the popularity lists lately. Last year it was #92 and for 2003 it was #38!!! I know that one reason it has become so popular is that, in the 2 ½ years since Ella has been born, no less then FOUR major celebrities have named their little girls this name (Annette Benning and Warren Beatty, John Travolta and Kelly Preston, Ben Stiller and Christine Taylor and, most recently, Mark Walberg). Where did all this come from?!!? (Okay, just did a little more research and happened to note that the first two named their daughters before Ella was born but still, I swear I had already thought of the name….) I know it is totally stupid to worry about such insignificant things but I feel so protective and proud of the name, I hate that’s it’s become so mainstream.
This last part is something that I don’t think I would ever do, but I was thinking that we could choose one of the other nick names for Eleanore—my personal favorite is Lenore—and go with that. But I’m sure the psychologists would say it would give her some sort of identity crisis so we won’t of course. Plus Jamie hates the name. He thinks I am just ridiculous on this. Still, it gets to me more then it should, and when I saw the latest rankings (not to mention at least three articles I have read touting it as an up and coming name) it just got my rankles up again. Oh well, if that’s my biggest worry I really am a lucky woman, I know…
Co-op update
Well, I guess it was about a year ago that I remember writing about cautiously and skeptically entering into a babysitting co-op. Over the year my feelings on it have been mixed. For one thing, we have only used it a handful of times (either to sit or be sat for) and I was surprised that we needed it so sparingly. I have also been disappointed since most of the times we are looking for sits are in the evenings, often until 11PM+. This is not when most of the moms in the co-op are looking to sit (many prefer daytime sits that they can treat as play dates) so we haven’t always been able to get our needs met through this avenue. All the same, as I hoped, I have become very familiar with many of the families within the group and I have grown very comfortable leaving Ella with any of these people. While not meeting all our needs, it is very nice to have this essentially free source of sitters available to add to our bag of resources.
Nevertheless, I was nothing less then shocked when I left our most recent semi-annual planning meeting with the brand spanking new title of Director of the Co-op. It really wasn’t something I was even considering but apparently I shot my mouth off a couple too many times (got to learn to control that…) and was deemed knowledgeable and a go getter and worthy of the post. Oh, and did I mention nobody else volunteered. I guess it’s an honor… it’s not that much work anyway, just check in with everyone from time to time to make sure there are no problems and try to keep people involved. Can this go on a resume, I wonder?
Freckles
When Ella was born she had one darling little freckle on her back. Since then I have been noticing other little ones popping up here and there—she has one behind her left thigh, behind her right ear, and just to the right of her belly button. Jamie is a complete freckle face—actually a freckly body, with freckles all over his arms, chest, and face. It’s not too much of a stretch to assume that some day we will have our own little freckly faced moppet but so far we still just have these random little beauty marks popping up from time to time. Does anyone know when ‘real’ freckles start to show up?
Bonnie’s book reviews
The Chocolate War—I read this book in high school (maybe even middle school) and decided to give it another go. My feelings on it were mixed. In some places I thought it was totally over dramatized to the point of being completely unrealistic. But it does send a powerful message about the difficulties of going against the grain and rejecting mainstream society. All in all, I think it is probably at its best and most meaningful to a middle-high schooler so I probably should have left it at that.
As always, thanks for reading.
Bonnie
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