Playing by Herself

Ellie has been in a play-by-herself sort of mood today. We went to the Children's Museum this morning and she played very nicely. She played in the rice table (went right to it, climbed up on the "short kid" platform, and played) and even kept most of the rice in the table. She dropped little tiny handfuls of rice through the "spinner funnel" (for lack of a better term - it's a funnel with a wheel underneath that spins when you pour rice through it) and generally played nicely. She didn't even try to eat any of the rice, which is a first, I think. When the other kids in our playgroup arrived, I took Ellie over to say hi to them and she wasn't very happy that I moved her away from the rice table. She got over it quickly, though, and played with the balls back in the basketball area. Then she meandered around the museum, playing with this and that until she finally settled on drawing. I was a little apprehensive about how the drawing would go... she's 14 months, and what 14 month old would actually sit and color instead of eating the crayons?? But I let her do her own thing and she VERY CAREFULLY clutched the crayon with her thumb and first two fingers, then delicately colored little lines. She didn't try to eat the crayon, and she didn't color on anything but the paper. She just carefully colored back and forth, back and forth, on her paper. She did that for about 15 minutes straight and was still going strong when Leif called to say that he was ready for us to meet him for lunch. I picked her up to go and she let me know in no uncertain terms that she was NOT ready to leave. Yes, we have hit the tantrums, folks. But it was relatively short lived and by the time we got outside she was excited about seeing Daddy for lunch.

After lunch she fell asleep on the way home. Unfortunately, she woke up on the transfer from car to bed, so she didn't actually take a decent nap. She played in her crib for a while, then cried for me to get her up. She's been playing by herself all afternoon now. It's funny how hard it is to predict how a day will go. Usually no nap means a grumpy girl. But she's just been a doll today and I've been able to get some stuff done while she's entertained herself.

Just when I think I've got her figured out, she goes and surprises me again.