Ben and Ellie Tidbits

Ben

After several weeks of being content to just roll where he wanted to go, Ben has mastered the commando crawl. Crawling around pulling your body behind you is so inefficient, he can't move all that fast. We've read that babies often start off crawling commando style and then graduate to a more traditional crawl on their knees.

Ben loves to stand up. He can't quite grip the coffee table well enough for that to be really effective, but if we stand him up in front of a baby gate (which has long vertical slats) he loves it. He's surprisingly strong--he can hold himself pretty steady, and even managed to hang from a monkey bar for a few seconds in KL a few days ago. (With mom's hands just waiting to catch him when he fell, of course.)

Ben had his first haircut on Monday. Nothing fancy--just a little trim around the ears and cutting off the few super-long strands that made him look like a baby with a combover. His hair has lightened a bit since he was born, and it's more dirty blond now.

Still no teeth, but he likes soft fingerfoods like pumpkin bread and dragon fruit. He's lactose intolerant (as was Ellie) so he's on soy formula.

New nicknames: Tutto Benne, Baby Benana. He also hears "No Ben!" from Ellie so much that he probably thinks that is his name.

Ellie

Ellie is amazingly verbal--in fact, her brain can't quite keep pace with her tongue, and she ends up saying really silly things. After hearing me shout for my husband umpteen times, she now things that "Hey, Ed!" means "Attention, everyone!" and often shouts "Hey, Ed!" when she wants my attention. When we were on vacation, we taught her that we had left Cambodia and were now in Malaysia. But a few hours later, when we asked her what country we were in, she said "Hotel!" She also loves using the computer, or as she calls it, "piccuter". And she's started unconsciously throwing our language back at us: "We'll see" and "Maybe next time" are things she's heard so often she uses them on us!

Along with her verbosity, Ellie loves to sing. But songs that end by repeating the first line--like Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star--really confuse her. She can never figure out where to stop, so she just keeps going and going! She often sings herself to sleep.

Ellie has a good memory for names and faces, but not surprisingly she can't really separate out the important people in our lives from the strangers. So after striking up a conversation with a stranger in the grocery store, she'll still be asking about them 3 days later. Standing in line to board our flight back to Phnom Penh, she recited her own full name, and then our full names, and then asked everyone around her for their names.

Ellie got a brand new "kid potty" on Monday. We were worried that she would be afraid of it, but in fact it was quite the opposite--we couldn't get her to leave the bathroom. One accident seems to have dampened her enthusiasm and she requested diapers rather than training pants this morning. Could be a long process.

Ellie is just getting in to imaginative play. Just now she put her doll down for a nap before she went to bed, and lately she's been telling us that her stuffed animals and Gumby need to have their diapers changed. The three stuffed animals she sleeps with (we call them her "sleepytime friends") have now become a dad (a ghost) and two kids (a bear and a dog).

Routine is all important to Ellie, down to the last detail. Bed time can often be a battle, and she will dictate that we do things exactly the same way each time, down to where we stand next to her crib and who hands her her water glass.