Apparently I am not above bribing my child!

After picking up Ella from school on Monday and having the biggest melt down on record :) I have resorted to bribing my beautiful daughter. On Monday I tried the car lane instead of parking and meeting Ella at her class to see if she would grasp that all the other kids in her class were being picked up by their parents. Unfortunately, Ella saw our car and refused to move! Now if you have kids you pick up, you can imagine the LONG line of cars as the parents are waiting for their child. The line is suppose to move quickly and smoothly so you can imagine the horror on the faces of the teachers who were working the line when my child refused to get up and get in the car. I had to jump out of the car, pick her up and get her in her car seat to leave. Ahhh, the looks I received. Needless to say, I will not be picking her up that way again! Since I am back to work now, she gets some extra playtime with her friends, and I decided to bring a balloon on Tuesday which worked wonders. No tears, no screaming and no melt down. YEAH! Ella is doing really great at school and outside of still not wanting to read any books she just seems to be doing quit well. I am also really happy and relieved to report that Ella's labs all came back towards the healthy range and we will just have to watch her but she should be fine! This is great news and we are so thankful. On our walk tonight, we came across a rattle snake, or I should say, Harley sniffed out a rattler. Fortunately it was dead because I was focused on Ella when Harley had walked into one our neighbors driveways and right beside the driveway near the sidewalk was a HUGE rattler. I, of course, screamed like a little girl and yanked poor Harley off her feet before I realized that it was not rattling nor moving and thankfully was dead. Not sure why or how it had died, but someone was looking out for little Miss Harley today!! Ella was very interested in it, and actually had a hard time seeing it since it blended in with the rocks, but eventually found it and thought it was pretty cool. For the rest of the walk, she would yell "Nol Harley" whenever Harley wanted to leave the sidewalk. Very cute to hear, and we are working on the extra letters she seems to add to words that end in vowels. I am enjoying the intellectual part of being back to work and am working on the endurance part once we get home. :) Hope you are all doing well!