No . . . .No . . . No . . NO!

These days the word "no" seems to be the most frequent word in my vocabulary. Ella is exploring everything, which is wonderful and annoying at the same time. I love watching her learn, watching her experience things for the first time, and watching her interacting with the world around her. However, her inquiry has to be carefully monitored; after all, part of the reason she is so fun to watch is because she really doesn't know much at all about the world around her. Ella doesn't know about gravity, or electricity, or choking, or sharp edges. All she knows is that object over there sure does look interesting. As she's exploring, I'm constantly telling her "no" to help guide her exploration. Although she doesn't understand the concept of safety yet, I'm trying to teach her by guiding her away from dangerous things with my words. I'm trying to gain patience in this process. After the tenth time I've said "no" for her touching the same thing, I can feel my patience slipping away. I must remain strong!

It was a beautiful day today, so I was brave and let Ella crawl around in the backyard. She had so much fun playing in her new environment. My patience was certainly tested as she played. There were leaves, sticks (which amazingly resembled straws), rocks, shells, and all sorts of other things to "play" with (aka, put in her mouth). I'll let the sequence of photos below speak for themselves. If you'd like to see other shots from today, be sure to check out my Project 365 blog.