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August 31, 2004
Imagination Station
Ella’s imagination has been in full force lately, and it has just been a joy to watch. She loves various games of pretend and is constantly giving us scenarios to act out. They all follow a somewhat standard pattern and, when she finds one she likes she usually requests to act out the same short scenes over and over, switching the roles back and forth between herself and whatever adult she has roped into playing with her. Here are a few of them:
“Okay, mommy, you be the person who was swipping along (her term for ice skating, which she has never done by the way) and broke her leg and I will call for the ambulance” This one is followed by an adorable one way call to the ambulance, followed by her in the role as first the ambulance driver and then the hospital worker. Ella loves all sorts of medical scenarios but seems to get particular delight when telling her patient that a shot she is about to give is going to hurt or that the medicine she is about to administer is “really really yucky”. The little sadist.
“Mommy, you be Shrek and I will be Princess Fiona”
“I will be Dora and you be Swiper the Fox”
“You be the little mouse and I will be the big hungry bear”
“I will be the ice cream woman and you be the customer”
Recently as soon as I finished a quick game of “This little Piggie” on her toes she announced that she would be the Little Piggie that went to market while I was to be the Little Piggie that stayed home. So we acted it out, with her announcing she was a pig and she was heading out to the market and me asking her to pick me up some slop, as I was going to stay home. Too funny.
She also loves playing house and is always trying to get Jamie or I to play the role of the baby or the little sister but she is also just as happy to take that role on herself. Gurgling and screaming and crawling around delightedly. When nobody else is available to play with her she has a mess of baby dolls that she will happy cart around, putting them to sleep and feeding them and crooning to them with heart wrenching cuteness. You should have seen her the other day hauling four of these dolls around at once in her pint size arms crooning the whole time in a “baby talk” falsetto “C’mon babies, it’s time to go for a walk”.
While I am on the subject of Ella at play I should also record that she has been able to make an E for quite some time now (maybe a month or two) and, if I make the circle for her, she will fill in eyes, nose, mouth, and hair on a person. Funny thing is, though, that she insists E is the only letter she can write. I try to show her that L is even easier then E (I mean, really, she’s actually making an L within her E) but she is stubborn and insists she cannot and will not try. Sigh…. All things in good time, I suppose.
Ella’s school is off for this week and when they go back after Labor Day many of the kids will have switched up to different classrooms. Ella, as the youngest child in her room right now, will not be moving up. I knew that was inevitable but was very disappointed when I found out that every other girl currently in the room is going to be moving up. In addition, her best friend of all was a little boy, Akash, who will also be moving up. I spoke a little with the director and expressed my disappointment that most of Ella’s close friends were leaving and she basically said that they made the changes based primarily on age. I knew that was true but later she attempted to assuage my consternation by telling me that Ella doesn’t really play with the girls in her class anyway but rather stuck with some of the quieter boys instead. I found this to be partially insulting, since I have seen her play with the girls and I know she talks about them a lot at home when discussing her friends or the what not. But now I have started to doubt myself and am wondering if I was somehow seeing what I wanted to see and asking her about who I expected to hear her talk about.
In any case, I can’t change the way the classes are going to be arranged next year and I do hope that Ella will gain confidence by being one of the older and more experienced kids in the classroom. And there are, of course more kids coming into her room to replace the ones that have moved up. So hopefully things will work out for the best. The room was already heavily male weighted with five girls and nine boys but now I think it’s going to be four girls and ten boys. I’m not too happy about that either but what can I do. I guess the whole school is pretty much like that so it’s not like they can juggle the kids much to even things out….
Ella’s third birthday is just around the corner. With much trepidation, I am planning out her first real ‘kid’ birthday party and we are inviting all 14 kids in her class, with the hope that about ½ will actually come. Why don’t people RSVP anymore???? Why? Why? Why? Do they think the host doesn’t really care? That they are above it all? That it doesn’t matter? SO FRUSTRATING!!! Anyhow, Jamie’s niece Iris is going to come to the party. She runs “Wiggle and Giggle” sessions for young children at a health center and does birthday parties as well so I was very happy to hire her to do Ella’s party. It’s nerve wracking for me anyhow, especially since this is her first party and she hasn’t been to a whole lot of other ones so I don’t know what people will/won’t expect. I know I am probably worrying more then I should (Jamie thinks we should just take them all down to the playground) but party throwing has always been a source of extreme anxiety for me.
Not sure what iParenting will do with my diary after Ella’s birthday. I suppose I should be moving up to Preschoolers Today but to be honest I wouldn’t care if I stayed here as I have gotten comfortable here and am not sure what kind of traffic the ‘big kids’ at Preschoolers today get (actually, I don’t really know what kind of traffic I get here either but I think it’s probably more). Well, if iP keeps going the way it has been it will probably be six months before I am switched anyway. But if on the off chance I suddenly disappear and you are dying to know more on the chronicles of Ella I would suggest trying there.
As always, thanks for reading,
Bonnie
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