Spring Arrives

This week Eleanor celebrated St. Patrick’s Day (again) and the first day of Spring.  St. Patrick’s Day festivities included getting all dressed up in green, and going out for a Shamrock Shake – and for spring we all went out on a nice walk (and stopped by the cupcake shop).  Funny how holidays and tasty deserts are connected :)  Ellie hosted her first march madness party – but had a bit of a cold so unfortunately wasn’t in top form for her visitors.  Sorry for crying in your lap, Uncle B :(

Eleanor has a few of new tricks that she has mastered this week.  The first is clapping.  Not only can she clap, but she will clap when you say the words “clap clap clap” (most of the time, anyway…) and received complements at music class for her clapping ability.  Of course at playgroup after we bragged about this new skill she refused to clap at all the appropriate moments in the songs – but finally redeemed Amy and I by clapping for no particular reason at the end.  She did come through on cue during both of her family “skypes”.  Ellie has also mastered picking up a puff (a Cheerio type thing) from her high chair tray and navigating it into her mouth.  The process takes 30-45 seconds and includes moving the puff from one hand to the other an average of 2.5 times before it is properly positioned for drop off (See video).  Finally, we have learned to hold our sippy cup all by ourselves, and even tilt it up to the mouth for a drink.

Amy and I decided to give Eleanor a “teething biscuit” on Friday – I’d never seen one before and upon inspection I would say it most resembles a dog biscuit.  She loved it – wouldn’t let it go for fifteen minutes, and proceeded to completely soil her outfit with biscuit remnants (see photo evidence below).   We have been working on our standing a lot this week – but so far we haven’t had more that a second or two of free standing.  She is quite good at standing against the couch and then pushing back into Daddy’s lap.  It seems sometimes falling is more fun than standing :)