Life With Ella

Friday morning was difficult for Ella and mommy.  Ella cried a lot when mommy dropped her off at school and mommy cried too.  Ella didn’t see mommy crying but Ms. Alicia did and she sent over another parent to support Sunny.  We are so lucky to have her as Ella’s head teacher.  She told us that Ella recovered pretty soon after mommy left and had the best day out of the whole week.  That made us feel really good.  Again, this is all going to take some time.  After school, we went to Bi-Rite for some amazing ice cream and then we all went swimming.  After swimming, we had dinner at Nama and then ended up hanging out with the Kim/Arena clan and Emily who was visiting.  We had a great night.  Today, we took it easy.  We all slept in (until 8:00) and then we played around the house and eventually made it over to Maria’s for some grilled cheese and french fries.  We had a quiet night at home.  I think we all needed the down time together.  Tomorrow is Strike Out Violence Day.  Hopefully we’ll get some great pictures from on the field.

On the swings after school.

Here are Ella and Tegan – the other sensitive little one in the class.  Tegan is the one that Ella talked down the other day.

Ice cream and kisses after school.

Mommy is sharing her grape popsicle with Ella.  Ella also shared her chocolate ice cream.

YUM!

Getting a shot from Dr. Juliet.

Ella and mommy had a great time playing with the bubble sword today.

This morning at school was rough.  Once again, Ella was totally cool leaving the house and even in the car.  Once we got to school, she got super clingy and really didn’t want us to go.  In the classroom, she pretty much tried to climb into me and told me not to leave.  We realized that this was really not a good thing, so I kissed Ella and left the classroom.  Sunny stayed with her and showed her some photos that we printed out last night and she stopped crying.  Ms. Alicia gave Ella her blanket and she was calm enough to let Sunny leave.  I am not going to go to drop Ella off tomorrow.  Hopefully this will make it easier for Ella.  Yesterday, I asked Ella about these water tables that they have at school.  She told me that she wanted to play with them but there were too many kids around.  Today, Sunny wrote an e-mail to Ms. Alicia to check in and told her what Ella said about the water table.  Here is the response from Ms. Alicia:

“That’s cute that she told you that there were too many kids at the water table but actually the reason probably is more because she isn’t ready to leave my side or if I’m not on yard duty then she won’t go outside with the other teachers, it will all work out soon! She was much better today. She painted I think like 5 or 6 paintings, one for you, one for Lauren, one for grandma & papa, and a few more. She’s going to be fine; it’s just going to take her a while to adjust.”
That made us feel good.  Ms. Alicia is wonderful and we’re really happy that Ella is doing a little better each day.  Ella told us that she had a good day and that she didn’t cry too much.  She’s getting really good at expressing her feelings.  She said that at times during the day she felt a little sad but then there were times when she was happy.

After school, we went swimming, had dinner at the pub, ran around behind the gym and then came home and took a beautiful walk behind the ballpark.  The weather is gorgeous – it’s hard to stay inside.

Doing ballet in the hallway before school.

Running down the hall to get to the elevator before school.

Going swimming.

Taking turns on top of “stone step hill”.

Mommy was laying down in the grass chillin’ when she took this shot.

Running around behind the gym.

Ella found her special present from Purple Debi

Pretty cool look.

Having a blast on the Lou Seal statue.

Ella, mommy and I made it through Ella’s second day of school.  It was more difficult for Ella today than it was yesterday.  The teacher said that she pretty much cried all morning.  She told them that she missed her mommy and mama.  This morning, Ella was excited to leave the house to go to school but by the time Sunny and I were leaving the classroom to go to work, Ella was saying things like, “I love you – don’t go”.  We let her know that we loved her very much and that we would be back.  Ms. Alicia told us that another little girl was crying and Ella went up to her and said, “Don’t worry – school will be over soon and your mommy will pick you up.  It will be ok.”  The little girl stopped crying!  Hopefully tomorrow will be a little easier for Ella, but as we have been hearing from other parents – soon Ella will be skipping off to play with her new friends.

Leaving for school this morning.  Ella left her wings in the car because we told her that wings weren’t allowed at school.  She was cool with that.

In the classroom before we left.

We went to Acme tonight for dinner.  Ella was very busy drawing, hanging on the rail, and peeing and pooping on the toilet!

Not only did Ella make it through her first day of school, but she seemed like she had a really good time!  Ella woke up a few times in the middle of the night last night for no apparent reason – we think she was just excited and anxious.  Sunny and I took Ella to school this morning.  We arrived there at about 8:10.  There are 25 kids in Ella’s class so there were 25 kids and at least one parent for each kid…pretty crowded classroom.  Ella immediately went over to a clump of play-doh and started cutting it with scissors and rolling it with a rolling pin.  We gave her hugs and kisses and told her that we would be back later.  She said “OK” and then went over to another table and started drawing.  We left and couldn’t believe that this day had actually happened.  We both picked Ella up at 2:15 and she was really happy to see us but told us that she had a great day.  We don’t have that much information about the day since we couldn’t talk to the teacher (there were too many parents there) and Ella shared a little bit.  We’ll hopefully get more information as the week goes by.  We did get a really sweet e-mail from Ella’s teacher during the day with 2 pictures attached.  In the e-mail she told us that Ella was doing fine and that she colored a place mat for lunch time. Ella had the same clothes on when we picked her up which means that she didn’t have any accidents at school.  We thought she would be shy about asking for help to go to the bathroom but we were wrong.   After school, Stella came to our house to play.  Every Tuesday, Stella and Ella are going to hang out with each other.  Ella was so excited to see Stella.  They played really well together and had a great time.  Tuesdays will be really special for Ella.  Whew – we made it through the first day!Ella right before we left the house this morning.  She was like, “Hurry up – we have to go to school!”The teacher put this name tag on Ella when she walked in.Play-doh!These are the pictures that Alicia, Ella’s lead teacher sent us.  Ella’s class has 3, 4 and 5 year olds.  Check out the kid’s artwork next to Ella.When we picked up Ella, she was really eager to show us the red bicycle that she was riding during school.More activities!  This is Ella at home.  Ella and Stella watched a Blue’s Clues where they were blending colors and they said that they wanted to blend colors.  At this point in the pictures, Stella was finished painting so Ella took her brush and painted with both hands.

Tomorrow (Tuesday) is Ella’s first day of school.  She will be going from 8:30 – 2:15.  We have visited the school a few times and we’ve been talking about it with Ella.  Hopefully, she’ll have a blast at school, but you never know.  Yesterday she told Faye and Purple Debi, “mama and mommy are going to take me to school and then leave.”  That was good to hear.  We’ll soon see…

Here are 2 pictures from tonight – I wonder if she’ll look different tomorrow night.

Today we took Ella to Great America with the Kim/Arena family.  It was a really fun day for everyone.  The girls were great – they went on rides with us and rides with each other.  The weather was perfect and the environment was something that would be great to do once or twice a year.  Ella was out of her mind when she saw a Dora ride and on the ride, we saw Swiper the fox.  She kept saying, “Swiper, no swiping”.  The girls also saw Dora and Diego in “real life” (costume).  It was a really exciting and really stimulating day.  Ella passed out in the car on the way home and took a 2 hour nap…very rare these days.  We went over to Phyllis’ house for dinner tonight to hang out with the South Side girls.  It was another really sweet night.

Here we are with Blue from Blue’s Clues.  After these pictures were taken, Ella looked at me and said, “I love blue.”

Here we are flying on the Dora ride.

Check out this huge Dora!

The Kim/Arena family riding on a giant coconut.

The girls and Ron with Dora and Diego.

Ella with some other Nick Jr. characters.  I’m not sure who they are.

Ella and Stella having a complete love fest.

Fooling around on the shark.

Ron took this picture of us while we were waiting on line for a helicopter ride.

Riding a snail.

Sisters.

Ella had an absolute blast riding this car with Stella.

This ride went up and down when you pulled the lever in the car.  Ella didn’t quiet understand it but Juliet mastered it.  Stella was just sick of hearing us scream, “Ella – pull the stick – Stella – get Ella to pull the stick!”

Ron won 2 basketballs today and he gave one of them to Ella.  Thank you Ron.

Two of Sunny and Phyllis’ closest friends from childhood, Faye and Debi are visiting us in SF. We had everyone over for dinner tonight and it was a lot of fun. Debi and Faye ate Ella up! Ella loved all of the attention, love, excitement and of course cool presents. We had a delicious dinner cooked by Sunny – brisket, rice pilaf, broccoli and carrots. Ella is not a huge meat eater, but she loves her mommy’s brisket. Michael, Hannah and Naomi were also at dinner. Ella had so much fun with everyone.

Ella was dancing around the house waiting for our guests to come.

Crest Sisters. Sunny, Phyllis, Faye and Debi made this “crest face” when they were kids. It’s that thing that they are doing with their mouths. Not everyone can do it – Ella is certainly trying to do the crest.

Blessing over the candles.

Reading a new book with Hannah, Michael and Naomi.

Almost ready for bed – just finishing up the Wizard of Oz.

We started this morning at Children’s Day School. We had a parent-teacher conference with Ella’s teachers. We took Ella with us to the school because she had her last My Gym class right afterwards. While we were in the conference, Ella was happily playing on the playground. She was the smallest kid out there and we were both a little nervous leaving her alone with so many other kids running around, but, according to the teacher who was keeping an eye on her, she was great! Whew, what a relief. I realize that this doesn’t mean that things are going to be smooth on Tuesday when Ella has her first day of school, but at least today’s 1/2 hour was a success. I took Ella to My Gym and mommy went to work. Ella had a great time as usual at My Gym, but it’s time to say goodbye to My Gym. There is going to be too much going on this year and My Gym just has to go. Maybe we’ll have her birthday party there again. After My Gym we had lunch and then we went downtown to shop for socks. Ella doesn’t like socks at all, but today when she was playing at CDS, wood chips kept getting in her shoes and I told her that one way to avoid this was to wear socks so she said that she wanted socks. We bought some really cute ones (cute for Ella, not me!). Some have sparkles, some have stars, hearts, polka dots etc. We also rode on the carousel and had a lot of fun. Tonight, we had dinner with Helen, Ron, Stella and Juliet. All the girls are starting school on Tuesday. We are taking the to Great America on Sunday as a special treat.

Having a blast on the last day of My Gym.

Riding on the carousel with Genevieve (the little ballerina doll that is on the mane of the horse).

Ella is very happy here. I just had given her a quarter to throw in the water. I told her to make a wish. I asked her what her wish was and she told me that she wished that she had another quarter so of course, I gave her one.

I gave Ella my shades to wear after I caught her wearing Sunny’s reading glasses.