Ella Lets Me Choose... Sort Of

It's been awhile since my last post, and I feel compelled to explain why.  Nothing bad. Just a little overwhelmed, I guess.  I hope to write about it soon.  In the meantime, a little story from this morning to get this thing going again...

This morning, I sat with Ella, dressed in her Rapunzel dress, at the kitchen table as she drew a couple of pictures with her crayons for me. One had a pink butterfly and a purple sidewalk (yes, she said it was a sidewalk... it did look like one... I just don't really know many people who draw sidewalks).  The other had a band of pink colored vertically on one side of the paper.  It wasn't a sidewalk.  I'm not sure what it was, but it really doesn't matter.

She was talking constantly as she drew.  Ella talks a lot.  A LOT.  Incessantly from the moment she wakes up until the moment she goes to sleep.  About anything and everything and oftentimes looking for feedback from me or whomever she's talking to.  Only Zoe, our cat, gets off the hook for having to respond to Ella's comments and questions.

Anyway, Ella had just finished writing her name in blue, green and pink block letters (the L and A were both pink, and the A eventually became a pink circle) when she declared that she would write my name on the picture, too. Afterall, it was for me.

"What color do you want, Mommy?"  She always includes my name in her comments and questions, even when we're the only ones in the room and I'm the only person to whom she could possibly be talking.

"You pick," I told her.

"You pick, Mommy," she came threw back at me.

"Okay, blue."  Not only is blue my favorite color, it's not pink.  Ella's world is pink (with hints of purple).  I think it's time we mix this up a bit.

"How 'bout pink?"  Without skipping a beat, she then picked up a soft pink crayon and proceeded write the letters "M O M M" right under her name.

"That's right!  And what's the next letter?"

She wasn't sure but air drew the letter Y, starting with the vertical line and two angled lines at the top, one shooting off to the right, the other to the left.

"That's right!" I told her.  "Y.  Y is the next letter."

And then she wrote it -- a big fat PINK "Y" -- right after the last "M."  So there it was.  My name in soft pink letters. Not even one blue letter.  Not my choice, but it was sweet nonetheless.

Pink M O M M Y