Tuesday, August 16, 2011

Elise the Scratching Post and Other Notes

* Elise got scratched by two of our cats today. Two separate incidents. She pretty much deserved the first one. Our big fluffy boy cat, Vincent, really does tolerate her much much much better than one would have guessed given his normal disposition. He puts up with a lot of crap from Elise. But today she smooshed him to the ground and then tried to roll him over by grabbing fistfuls of fluff and pulling. He flailed around on his back, claws out, and scratched her face.

Later on, she was kind of harassing our I-don't-take-shit-from-anyone girl cat, Toesie. So Toesie swatted Elise's hand and scratched it. Honestly, Toesie could have done much worse-- Elise's face was probably an easier target-- so we all just called it even and left it at that.

* Elise learns new words practically every day. I can't keep up with her vocabulary anymore. Some of her favorite things to say as of late include: "star" when she sees star shaped things, asking for help by saying "help," if something gets in her eye she rubs it and says "got boogie" (eye boogies, I guess?), and she talks about owls all of the time because they're her favorite animal right now. Elise loooooves to point out what color things are; she can identify red, blue, green, yellow, pink, purple, brown, and black. She also likes telling me if people are boys or girls. She knows the gender of everyone in our family. Sometimes she gets it wrong with strangers, which is going to end up being embarrassing sooner or later, I just know it.

* After 4 weeks of swim lessons and despite the massive amount of zinc sunscreen I slathered all over her entire body every single day, Elise's skin is now darker than mine has probably ever been. I thought she had my complexion, but I guess I was wrong.

* Every day in swim lessons, the instructor and I tried to get Elise to blow bubbles in the water. Elise would laugh and drink the water. She did not seem to understand what we wanted AT ALL. None of the babies in the class really understood, in all fairness, and the instructor said that usually only one kid in each class ever figures out how to blow bubbles. It's a kind of advanced concept at that age, I guess.

Well, last night in the bath tub Elise puts her mouth in the water and blows an endless stream of bubbles. Then does it again. And again. Yay, Elise, for figuring it out! I just wish the instructor could have seen her doing it. I also wish she'd have done it in sort of clean chlorinated water, instead of dirty butt water from the bath tub. Oh well.


No comments:

Post a Comment