For the record, Elle awes us by gobbling down half gallon of milk by the end of the day. I'm shocked to find out half gallon is equal to 64 ounces after googling for it. For the past 6 months, she could hardly drink more than 26 ounces of milk per day and today she hits the record high of 64 ounces, completely knocks our socks off! Way to go, champ!
Elle was drinking her bottle on the car ride home. I asked Hin if he's sure he was not missing the turn here. Hin responsed, "I know. I know.". Elle immediatedly pulled her mouth away from the bottle nipple and said "I know! I know!". Hin asked her, "You know everything?" and she replied, "I know! I know!". Gosh! Crack us up! She's our happy nut!
We're seeing weird speech regression on Elle. Now she's calling bear and bear-look-alike "Pa Pa". Sometimes she calls dada "Ma Ma" and mama "Pa Pa". She has no problem naming and pointing correctly the nose, eye, ear and mouth at the animals on the books. However, she would pull our ear and say that's "Eye". She calls cat in chinese "Mao" and calls mouse in english "Mouse". She would call most animals names in english and a few in chinese, like cat and piggie. Go figure.
Elle was crazy over the power wheels in the Toys R Us. She had a blast sitting inside the car, messing with the buttons and accessories inside while mama was pushing her around vroom vroom. It ran smoothly like a sport car and it sounded like a real one. We lost track of the time spending inside the store. She was so overwhelmed with all the toys, busy carrying them out of the shelves, sitting on the floor pressing each and every buttons.
Doesn't kid surprise parent what a keen eye they have when it comes to spotting their favorite toy among the crazily-stuffed toys shelves? While Elle was yelling excitedly "Barney! Barney!", it took me a while scanning all over the shelves and found the purple disnasour. Barney is officially the first cartoon character she named, not Mickey, Minnie or Pooh. About 3 months ago, we met a little girl at the library handing over me a Barney DVD movie saying my baby would love to watch it. We watched it for about 3 times learning alphabets, colors and shapes. Later on, I borrowed a Barney book from library and read to her almost every night. A couple weeks ago I borrowed a Barney soundtrack and she surprised me by bringing it to me and saying "Barney! Barney!". Only then I knew she recognized Barney and could say its name. She adores Barney. She would lean forward and press her cheek against the picture of Barney to express her affection towards it. It's very sweet of her to show her affections to every objects she loves on the books when we read to her.
As of now, aside from she can say her own name, she would call her friend's name "Anna" out loud at home. Anna is her little friend she plays with since her day one in daycare.
The foliage in the park is taking on an early autumn tinge and there are fallen leaves of red, orange and brown spreading over the ground, autumn is around the corner.
Elle adored the flock of ducks swimming in the pond, shrilling with joy and pointing at them yelling "Duck Duck Duck Duck" non-stop. She was having fun at the playground and it's funny to see her enjoyed playing with the sand the most. She even discovered the fun of dumping sand on to her own head. Priceless!
This evening, Elle fell and hit her head on the door frame. A big swollen purpleish bump popped up above her left eyebrow immediately. Poor baby.
Elle was talking to grandma on the phone this morning, trying to mimic after grandma. When grandma said "Pa Pa", she said "Pa Pa". Grandma said "Ma Ma", she said "Ma Ma". At one point, grandma suddenly blurted out "Aiya!", she also "Aiya" back, making grandma roared in laughter.
It has been raining non-stop for 3 consecutive days now. Today's a rainy mid-autumn day. The full moon did not peep through the gloomy sky. I miss the childhood days, gleefully carrying lanterns and walking with a troop of kids around the neighborhood under the shine of the full moon, lighting candles all over the gate, and savoring mom's red-bean mooncake with five yolks made especially for me. These are wonderful memories I wish Elle would grow up with. We ate a mooncake while the outside was drizzling. That's our pitiful celebration of Mid-Autumn festival.
Elle spent hours climbing in and out the box, sitting inside watching telly, carrying pots and pans from the kitchen cabinet and then scattering them all over the living room, bouncing the ball around, and listening to Barney's songs and dancing along like a robot walking. She hooked up with doing the "Downward-Facing Dog" yoga pose on the couch, inside the crib, on my lap and belly. She's an explosion of giggles when I bit her bottom as she lifted it up. Just before bedtime, Elle surprised us with her new trick. She wiped our noses with a towel while making blowing nose noise with a serious funny face of scrunchy nose and pouted lip. We were ridiculously amused. Gosh! She's a big girl teaching mama and dada blowing nose now!
Library appeared to be a wonderful place to stay in on a rainy day. We spent the afternoon in the library playing toys and reading some books.
After leaving the library, we headed to Target having some snack and then shopping around. Out of the sudden, a special announcement broadcasted a tornado warning was in effect and required all customers to go to the back of the store where the fire exit located. Swarm of people rushed to the fire exit hallway. Everyone was standing shoulder to shoulder and the tension in the air was creeping up. About 15 minutes later, a staff updated us that a tornado was sighted in the Calhoun county and for the safety reason all customers needed to stay put until further notice. The old lady standing next to me, who told me her old man was left at home alone, wiped tears from her eyes after she heard the news. I could tell she was worried about her old man and offered her my cell to make sure her old man was doing well. I'm glad she looked so much calm and relieved after making the phone call. We waited for another 20 minutes and finally notified that the tornado did not touch down and we're safe to leave. Thank goodness! It was quite a scare! What a relief!
It happened again that Elle got beaten at the daycare while playing the fire truck with other little friends. This time, the anonymous bully beat her on her arms. Oh well, Elle seems to be a bully magnet!
Before bedtime, mama lazed on the bed while Elle and her dada eating watermelon seeds at the computer desk. At one point, mama simply pointed at the watermelon seeds and blurted out "給媽媽", Elle immediately hurried up her dada cracking the watermelon seed's shell and then ran towards mama putting it into mama's mouth. It's utterly sweet of her dashing between dada and mama to transport the watermelon seeds. Sometimes, she'd make "Ahh...." sounds asking mama to open her mouth wide and then carefully popped the seed inside. Heavenly.
dada: Are you a bad baby?
elle: I know, I knooow!
dada: Are you a naughty baby?
elle: I know, I knooOW!!
Dear Elle,
The summertime fun is almost over. Soon, we'll miss thee, the glorious sunshine and the sandy beach, while the winter chill is spilling all around us.
That evening, we found you sitting inside a basket that can barely fit your bottom at a corner with a serious face put on. Dada joked about you looked like potty training yourself and it turned out you were indeed doing some serious potty business at that moment, which cracked us up.
You know we're going out when mama's taking out the footwear and shouting out "Come, wear sock sock and shoe shoe!". You'll run towards mama and then sit on the floor waiting mama to put on the socks and shoes for you. When the door opened, you walked out and waited at the stair for mama holding both of your hands and guiding you walk step by step down the stair. You always run straight into the living room when we're coming home. When mama's shouting out "Shoe Shoe", you'll run back to mama and sit on the floor waiting mama to take off your footwear.
You show us word and action always come together. You climb onto us, keep pushing down our noses with a few mishaps of poking into our nostrils, and yell "Nose Nose"! One fun game you love to play is to clap one's hands. You'll hold both mama's hands and then make them clap, the louder the clap, the louder you giggle. 
Happy 16 month old, sweetheart! We're blessed to watch you growing up and become more independent day by day.
Love,
Mama
Elle's 15 month checkup is almost one month overdue because of her doctor took the whole month of August off. She's supposed to get two shots in this visit, but since she had a fever yesterday and her temp is still slightly higher than normal, the doctor advised us to come back next week for the shots.
Oh boy, she put up quite a show when we put her into the scale for weighing. She's way over the top, deep-red-scrunchy-face screaming, with strings of tear-pearls spilling out the sides of the eyes. The nurse was trying to weigh her as fast as possible while she's throwing fists and feet inside the scale. After the drama at the weight station, we went back to the room waiting for the doctor. We let her roaming around the room and her favorite was to crawl underneath the chairs. The doctor came in at the moment I was pulling her out from underneath the chair. At first she quietly sat on my lap staring curiously at the doctor with his stethoscope pressed against her chest and back. She was not startled at all when the doctor checked her reflexes by hitting her knee just below the knee cap with a hammer-like instrument and her leg kicked out. Things went smoothly until we laid her down to check the mouth, joints and bottom. It took 3 of us to hold her down: her dada held both of her hands over her head, the doctor kept her torso from jerking up in the middle, while mama was holding down her feet. Gosh! She still managed to move her body across the exam table to the edge that the doctor kept saying "She's a very very strong girl!" and pulled her back to the center of the exam table twice. My poor baby was still very upset and cried sadly after we got this over.
The doctor said her throat is red and swollen which explains why she has refused to drink or eat since yesterday. He got a swap in her mouth for strep test, the test result was negative so we'll just let it run its course. At 15th month, Elle weighted 25 pounds, height measured 31.75 inches and head circumference is 47.5 cm. She's again at 75 percentile for all three measurements. She's growing steady and healthy. It's funny that she gave the doctor a very mean look when he was ready to leave; however, she did not hesitate grabbing the cookie from him when he handed her one.
It's hilarious to see her running straight out of the building without looking back the moment we put her down.
What a great finale to labor day, the unofficial end of summer season, was another burning hot day.
We went to Ann Arbor, stopping over at Cabela's shopped for fishing rod, buying groceries at an Asian market and then heading towards Makielski Farm picking fall raspberries. The raspberries were not very juicy probably due to the droughty weather, tasted a little tart yet flavorful. Elle shoveled them into her mouth in a lightning speed, running back and forth between rows of raspberry bushes like a drunken sailor. Sometimes she picked the green one among the red ones, and even those laying on the ground and eat them. When it's too late for me to stop her, I just had to keep an eye closed pretending I never saw what she did. It's drop-dead hilarious to see her dada stuffed his cargo pocket with loads of roasted peanut bought from the Asian market, cracking the peanut shells and popping them into his mouth while he's picking the raspberries.
We ate a belly full of raspberries and picked about 2 quarts of these goodies home. Yummo!
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