Anyway, Ella gave up naps around 2 years old. Actually, once they started keeping her awake until 11 p.m. at night, I took them away and started putting her to bed really early. That has proven to be a little tricky because now that I have 4 kids, getting one to bed earlier than another takes a small miracle. Especially because they all share a room. And a bed.
Ella has started throwing fits all the time. Right after she turned three, she had several incredibly loud full-on screaming and writhing type of tantrums. I would just walk away (far away, so it wasn't piercing my ears) and let her cry until she was exhausted. She could go at least 15 minutes. One time, after she was finished, she came out quite happy. I casually asked why she had been "crying". She said matter of factly, "Because I didn't want you to use the bathroom."
OKAAAAAAAY.
I have trained everyone in this house to never give in to her EVER when she acts like that. She is FINALLY catching on, that if she will calm herself down, and ask very sweetly, "Please may I have...." then she will get almost anything. Her sisters even have to give up stuff that they are using (if she was using it first and then put it down and forgot about it), as a reward for her behaving like this. It really doesn't happen THAT often, but they are good and try not to complain too much. I also try to find Ella an alternative to what she wants if someone else already has it, to teach her how to be patient, and wait until someone is done.
She still whines a lot and I just tell her over and over that I can't understand her when she talks like that. I have to say it about 10 times before she finally catches on that she needs to change the ways she's talking. Kalia and Annie don't always realize what I'm doing, and try to jump in and translate. Hahaha!
Since the girls got out of school 2 weeks ago, she is doing better. She likes having her sisters around. They are good girls and don't have too much trouble playing nicely together. Ella can be mean though- she scratched Kalia's face once about 2 months ago, and there is still a huge scar down her cheek that we are trying to get to go away. Kalia's skin doesn't heal fast anyway (poor diet probably) but it just reminds me of my little sister Tara, who also had to be tough, being a 3rd child, and who left many scars on my face as well.
Ella has had some anxiety problems as well. She got really jumpy at about 2.5 years old, about normal things though, like random sounds when she was trying to go to sleep at night. Then she was fine for a while. And then around 3 years old (and probably being exposed to some cartoons for older kids, thanks to Netflix), it really got crazy. It was quite windy here for a few weeks, and these huge trees in the backyard were always swaying and the leaves rustling. This set her off really bad. She totally freaked out about having the door open or going outside. She would NOT go outside for like two weeks (to the backyard), although she would happily go outside anywhere else without much problem. It was not logical at all. She was scared of wind in general and didn't like large clouds either. When she heard someone in general conference mention a tornado (and they showed some pictures) she could talk of nothing else all day but the "tornado storm."
Then one day (the Wednesday before Mother's Day) we went into the dollar store to get some greeting cards. They were totally geared up for Mother's day, and had hundreds of Mother's Day mylar balloons all over their ceiling. The a/c was blowing, and making them jiggle around and sort of dance. This triggered her fear and she shrieked and BOLTED out of the store before I could even catch her, right into the parking lot, where thank goodness there were no cars to hit her.
I have been worried about her. I looked some stuff up online and talked to a few friends. I learned that anxiety can be considered "normal" at this age, because they can't yet distinguish fantasy from reality. (Although it doesn't feel normal to me because my first two kids didn't ever do anything like this.) I learned that physical activity that will get her blood pumping may help her stabilize when she has having a bit of an attack. And I talked to her pediatrician about it who also called it pretty "normal" and he also told me we will keep an eye on it.
I have had some success by trying to teach her some logical explanations for what was going on. I got on YouTube and found some sped-up clips of clouds moving through the sky, and I taught her that the wind is trying to move the clouds around so that they could drop rain on whoever needed it. I taught her that the wind was making the trees dance and say hello (she liked this explanation.) And I later explained why the balloons were moving all over the ceiling of the dollar store.
Now she seems to be over those fears. She still talks about rain and rain clouds and a few times when we'd run errands, she'd ask me if there would be balloons where we were going. We have been back to the dollar store since, and there were only like, 2 balloons floating around, and she was fine.
She did just get stung by a bee this last week, and has had heightened anxiety since then, worried that something "is on her" like a bee or an ant. I think we will battle this to some degree throughout her life, and I just hope it's not too severe. It does tend to run in my family.
On a positive note- she says the cutest things sometimes and makes me laugh. She says "remember" as "be-member" and I will miss it forever when it stops. She also came to love olives at the same time that Frozen came out- with the Snowman OLAF- and she can't say olive at all because of it. She asks me to open a can of Olafs and she puts them on her fingers and says, look at all my olafs! Her sisters really tried to get her to say it right, and were like, "Say OL.....- IV" breaking up the word for her. She still couldn't do it. Kalia finally gave in and said, "She'll get it someday.....like when she's 16!" haha, love it. Here's a few other things Ella has said over the last few months that I wrote down.
Ella: "Mom, there's flies in the kitchen!!! Where's the pink smacking thing?"
(fly swatter)
(From watching Frozen when Olaf says, "my own personal flurry"--
One day I gave her some meatballs and she said, "That's my personal meat. And you're my personal meat mama." I laughed and said, "you're funny". And she added, "AND cute."
I said to Ella one day, "I'm pooped!!" "You pooped?" she asked. "No, I'm pooped! That means in tired." "You're fired?" "Uh, yeah. I'm fired. What does that mean?" "It means you're camping."
I was singing along to "Happy" in the car when Ella said behind me. "will you stop singing?" "Uh...sure." (pause...) then she says to herself, "I feel better now."
Ella, in the bathtub: "I feel all watery."
Ella, one morning, sees daddy, then came to find me and said, "Oh, that Daddy. He's such a wonderful guy."
Anything I do something nice to/for Ella, she rewards me with a compliment. "you're so adorable."
Ella, playing with my freshly washed/flat-ironed hair, with dark roots growing out.
"Your hair is black. Like a rain cloud."
Ella in the car: "I burp-did (burped) Like Yakko."
Ella in nursery, "Mom! There's a boyfriend over here! You need to shoo him away!"
I said to Ella, "I need to find a recipe. Do you know what a recipe is?" "Yeah, it's when you get balloons and a big flagger nation."
and one more, from Kalia:
Annie was complaining that her throat hurt, so I told her we better have her take a vitamin to help. Kalia pipes up, "Which one, A or D?" She clearly knew a few things about vitamins thanks to her whole milk.
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