Ella has seems to have said her first words or rather her first phrase. Yes, she has been saying: “All done”. Actually, you need a bit of imagination to figure the words out and we’re not completely sure that she understands the meaning, however, she is consistently imitating our saying of the words at the end of a meal. This of course, is very exciting for us and for her as well. She has fun listening to me slowly emphasize each syllable, she laughs and smiles and then gives it a go herself. Otherwise, we are working on trying to get Ella to feed herself. For some reason this is very complicated. Maybe she has just gotten too accustomed to us making up her favorite food – chunks of sweet patotoes, plain yogurt and baby cereal, what we called “mushtt”- and then spoon feeding her. She won’t pick up much more than crackers or cookies herself. But there’s got to be an end to spoon feeding and there’s no question that she is capable of picking up peices and putting them into her mouth. Sometimes, she won’t take anything more than a cracker even if we feed her by hand, unless it is on a spoon! Apparently there is an etiquette to these things in Ella’s mind.