After coming back from paradise, 3 days of work seemed like 3 weeks of work! Thursday has finally come and I was able to enjoy a beautiful day with Ella and a beautiful night with Sunny and the Kim/Arenas. Ella and I started our journey today by going to My Gym. Ella did a fantastic job jumping on the trampoline, hanging from the uneven parallel bars, running up stairs, sliding down the slides both on her back and on her belly, and just being an all around great kid. After My Gym, we went to lunch at Maria’s for grilled cheese and french fries and then we took a walk down town. Ella fell asleep for a little while while I was doing some stuff and then we came home an took the dogs out. At around 3:30, I took Ella to the gym and we went swimming. Ella is so brave in the pool. She walks around on her tippy toes all over the place. She told me today that she wanted to go under water all by herself. I told her to remember to blow bubbles. She did it and did a great job. After the pool, we met up with mommy and went over to Helen and Ron’s for dinner. After dinner, we all took a walk to this new park a few blocks away from our house. The park is in a funny place, right under the freeway, but it has some great basketball courts, a tennis court, and a beach volleyball court. This huge lot is filled with sand. This was a true test to see if Ella would actually put her feet in the sand. Anguilla had the most beautiful soft sand and Ella would not walk on it. Tonight, after a few minutes of touching the sand with her hands and hanging out by the edge, Ella actually walked all over the sand and played in it! Go figure. It was a really fun night.
The sun is finally out here! What a beautiful day.
This is right after My Gym. What a happy kid.
I took these pictures of Ella after swimming while we were letting the dogs out. She did all the poses by herself. I did not encourage them. The last one is like the old ad, “Nothing comes between me and my Calvins”.
This is from this evening. Ella was calling for her buddies to come run on the grass with her.
This was the how Ella began her sand process…she was hanging out on the edge and touching the sand.
In the meantime, here is an amazing role model. Stella was having a blast playing in the sand.
Another amazing role model. Although it was pretty cold and windy, Juliet put on her hood and kept playing in the sand.
With some amazing coaxing and support from mommy, Ella took the plunge and stood on the sand.
And she started walking around all by herself.
By the end of the evening, you would have never known that she had OCD about sand. Thank you Kim/Arena family for helping Ella work through her issue!