Saturday, September 01, 2007

Literalist

Recently, I wrote about what Ada's been up to lately. Here's an update on where Ellie is these days.

"MOMMY! Bye, bus! MOMMY! Bye, bus!" Imagine an adorable 3-year-old grinning and alternately hugging my leg and turning to wave goodbye to her bus driver, and you've got the mood of our new daily ritual.

When we get into the house, it's potty and hand washing time, then I open Ellie's backpack and we attempt to talk about her day. (Her contribution often involves a lot of non-specific talk about the bus.)

One day last week, I pulled out a piece of paper colored heavily with marker on both sides, explaining the way she's looked upon arriving home recently. How do you get marker on the backs of your own thighs while coloring? I can only imagine.

"This is beautiful, Ellie! Can you tell me about the picture?"

She looked at me consideringly, then replied, "Blue." And, pointing at various other places on the page, "Brown, yellow, orange, red. Green."

Well, yes.

The next day, she came home marker-free and with a piece of artwork that involved shapes pasted onto a piece of construction paper. When I asked her about it, she said, "Glue." I pressed for more details, and she counted the shapes, telling me that there were 6 items glued to the paper. Then she told me the name of each the shape and its color.

Her dolls are all named, "Baby." Or, "Doll." Or "Baby Doll." Or, for variety, "Dolly."

I love this kid.

I've been frustrated with my purse, so I went out recently - without the children! - to buy a new one. The next evening, Paul opened my new purse to get out the checkbook, and Ellie grew very concerned. It turns out that my new purse looks rather like my friend's, and she thought that daddy was getting into Elizabeth's purse! And that would be wrong! The next day, she commented on it a few times to me, in her Ellie way, obviously thinking it unusual that I was carrying around Elizabeth's purse.

I've often chuckled about Ellie's enjoyment of handbags - particularly the time when she packed for a road trip by placing 7 purses on her arm and walking to the car with that arm held stiffly out in front of her - but I never realized how much attention she paid to my purse and the purses of other women she sees. I thought her interest was focused on her own, Ellie-sized, fancy little bags.

Once again, Eleanor surprises me with how much she knows, how much she understands, and how thoroughly she processes what's going on around her.

3 comments:

Orange said...

Try as I might, I can't motivate my son to give his stuffed animals name names. When he was maybe 4, there was Mousy Mouse, Lamb, and so on.

Now that he's 7 and blessed with such a rich imagination, there's Komodo (the stuffed komodo dragon), Moose (the moose), and so on.

He did used to have imaginary friends, though: Cindy and Cinderella, mainly, and later on, his imaginary neighbors, Dixon and Peterson.

Sarahlynn said...

You know, as a child I wasn't big on naming things either. I think I finlly named my baby blanket - to which I was very attached, and still am today, though to a lesser degree - when I was about 9 years old and already long done with carrying it around the house with me. (It then resided on my bed, as it does now.)

I haven't quite given up my imaginary friends, either.

I think I'd get along quite well with your boy!

flatflo said...

When my sisters I were kids, we each received a stuffed animal. I named my dalmation "Dali", my little sister's cat "El Gato" and my more mature sister's albino bunny "Jo". It does sound like an age thing!