Building Blocks

I hate Lego. I always have. Eleanor has a Lego set that creates a treehouse for Pooh Bear and his 100 Acre Woods friends. We have had it for two years and hadn't played with it too much. All she wanted to do was mouth the pieces and then when she grew out of that, she would smash what I had just created. I was okay with that, but it wasn't super fun for either of us. The same goes for colouring and painting or playing with Playdoh. I figured she just wasn't into fine motor, rainy day activities. 

Well, like everything with Eleanor, a little time and distance equals progress. 

She built this all by herself. It's not particularly "good" or interesting or remarkable but I think it's amazing. I didn't coach her on what goes where, or how to fit pieces together, she just worked it out. And even with my hatred of Lego and my "if it doesn't look like the box, WHATS THE POINT?" mentality, I think this is cool. 

It probably would have been cooler if she hadn't been reciting "shit, shit, shit!" the whole time. I kept saying, "oh sit! Mummy sits here, Eleanor sits there. Sit sit sit." I have no idea what she was trying to say. 

And as for the other stuff, well, that's exploding too. She loves colouring with her crayons and playing with finger paints. I think because she spent the last year+ working on her gross motor (she was exclusively bum scooching this time last year!), she never had time to pay attention to the smaller things.

One of those "smaller things" is her speech and language. She has gone from a First Word(sign) User to a Combiner in a few short weeks. She is starting to use short phrases and they are usually requests (call daddy) and I can never say no. 

And she can say her name. The most beautiful sound in a single word... Eh-nore! My love for flowery girl names is coming back to bite me on the ass. I knew they would be tricky to spell, but I never realized how hard they would be to say! Poor Penelope has been given the unfortunate nickname "PP" and Eleanor makes valiant attempts at her own name, but it still sounds a little like Pooh's melancholy donkey friend. 

What's up Eeyore? Stuck in a water trough? Sucks to be you.

She is catching up by leaps and bounds. Everyday she seems more like her peers. I'm so excited to watch all these new developments unfold and hear so many new words... even the naughty ones!