The Ella

Ah, the holiday emotion fest has begun. This girl definitely is her mother's daughter. When she's tired she is SO emotional. And when holidays are coming up, she gets SO tired. She feels things very strongly, including excitement. This means nights of interrupted sleep, difficulty falling asleep, and so on. Yes, there is a lot of happy because of the excitement, but it doesn't take much to cause an emotional breakdown either. We may be dosing her with benadryl on Christmas eve. I kid, I kid...or maybe not...
Even with the emotional roller coaster, Ella is a delight. We have our routine and she is amazing at sticking with it. Wake up, get ready, go to school. Come home from school, do homework, chores, and play with friends if there is time. She never tries to skip homework (chores, yes.) She loves learning and reading and so homework time is a breeze. She'll usually finish her lunch while doing so and would ya believe it, but this girl has NEVER eaten her dessert before finishing her lunch. So she doesn't get her dessert until she gets homes. She doesn't even try sneaking her lunch in the garbage! I'm so proud of her honesty. I just love it.
Home life with Ella is always entertaining as well. It's still so strange to me watching her become older. It's a blast, but strange. We no longer have Disney Dance parties. Sad day, I know. Now, our dance parties are to Lindsey Stirling. Nothing wrong with that of course, but it definitely illustrates the change in her. Even her dance moves. It's no longer spinning and bouncing. Now, she tries very hard (and quite often succeeds) to imitate Ms. Stirling. She choreographs her and Livie and will say, "Do you like it mom? I just poofed into my head!" Then, "I don't remember last night's dance. Do you? It poofed out of my head." And then I giggle. Livie is a good sport and lets Ella boss her around with it too. And yes, Ella is a little miss bossy pants. More so with Livie than anyone else. She used to try with friends but that never turned out well so I think she's grown out of that. At least I haven't heard any complaints...
Speaking of friends. Seven years old and very emotional...oi. This is a part of parenting I don't love. The exclusion. There have been a few times where Ella has come home crying because friends were ignoring her. They weren't bullying or being mean, they just wouldn't acknowledge her. Probably unintentionally. The thing with our neighborhood is, most of the girls Ella's age have known each other since birth. Ella was the latecomer and as such, doesn't have the same bond as these other girls and she can feel it. She still plays with them and they have fun, but the second you get more than two Ella becomes the third wheel. On the bright side of all this, it has provided a really great teaching opportunity. Every time she comes home upset at being left out, we chat about being aware of others who might be feeling left out. We've talked about making sure she is the one to include others, to be kind, and to be a friend to everyone. I so hope that these conversations sink in and she can be the type to make everyone feel loved. We shall see I guess. School has been great for this too. She has found her own little group of friends (including a boy that I'm pretty sure she's got a crush on) and I love hearing about their playground games. So, all is not lost.
Now, for a little funny story. I don't remember what we were chatting about, but something to do with houses. I'm sure Andrew and I were chatting about our dream home and how expensive it could be (no, we're not planning on building anytime soon, but we do enjoy talking about it.) So Ella pipes in, "What if we had a rich house? Then we could find the money inside of it!" We giggled.
I sure love my Ella. She is such a good girl. Watching her with Olivia, watching her in her schooling, watching her grow. While I miss my little Ella Jane, I sure am loving my big Ella Jane.