Control

Currently, Ellie seems to value being in control of a situation over receiving a positive outcome. Case in point, when she takes a bath, she would much rather be in control of the cup which dumps water on her hair than allow me to pour the water. Of course, when she controls the cup, much more water runs into her face and eyes, but that doesn't seem to matter. She lifted the cup. She dumped the water. She cheers at her accomplishment through clenched eyes. I certainly encourage the cheering because she is managing to get her hair washed, somewhat, and because she's overcoming her fear of getting water in her face.

She's also taken to climbing into her crib when it's time for bed. I taught her to use my hands as footholds as she shimmied up the bars. It was great fun, which of course was a good enticement to climb into bed. It was also interesting because it was another chapter in the ever morphing going-to-bed ritual. Once crib climbing was discovered, pushing the CD player's play button lost its luster and closing the door and turning out the light were long forgotten. Of course, going to bed became a less contentious process once she decided that climbing in was her idea and that she chose to scale the bars.

The last few nights, however, climbing into bed hasn't worked so well; she's decided that she needs to do it by herself. No footholds provided by dad will be accepted. She's tried piling things to create a starting point from which to shimmy up, but to no avail. She can't get in on her own, yet. Eventually, she or I get tired of her attempts; she'll wander off to something more interesting in the room and/or I'll just pick her up and drop her into the crib. Then she gives me a sort of "You didn't do the ritual right, so I don't have to go to sleep" look and proceeds to bounce around her crib, rather than lay down to get tucked in. It's a bummer because I don't get a good night kiss and she doesn't seem to fall asleep for an hour or two.

The going-to-bed ritual has also picked up running off to give Mommy a kiss. I used to suggest it to her and she'd go find Elizabeth, or more likely, try to find Elizabeth and get distracted on the way, at which point Elizabeth would hear her getting into something, find her, and ask her if it was time for a kiss. Now she'll decide it's that time, say something about "kiss," and go running off to find Mom, without prompting.

In other news she seems to moving out of the peek-a-boo phase into the ring-around-the-rosy phase. Great squeals of joy follow every song ending "down!" which she will merrily interject at any point beginning with "ashes, ashes." She's now working on the phrase "play again" to tell me it's time to get up and restart singing and dancing. In case you're wondering, the song's title seems to be "Ashes, Ashes" according to Ellie.