Rollin' Rollin' Rollin'

My kid is so advanced. Seriously - she's a genius. Well, what she did may not constitute genius, but she definitely has exceptional motor skills and a great sense of humor. On Friday, she rolled over from her stomach to her back for the first time. I thought it may have just been a fluke, but she did it again on Monday. And more importantly, she laughed for the first time today. Not just a chuckle - a full on belly laugh. I put her in her car seat on our kitchen table and then I dropped something on the ground, so I leaned over to pick it up. When I popped up, it startled her, but then she smiled. Because I am her performing monkey, I did it again to get another smile... only this time I added a funny face and sound effects. Sure enough - my child recognized comedic genius and let out a huge belly laugh. We did it another three times and then she stopped laughing. Probably had enough of the Tiffany Show.





I can't figure out if she's teething right now because she constantly chews on her fingers, puts everything she can into her mouth, and drools like crazy. As a shower gift, I received a Lamaze Spin and Explore Garden Gym from my friend, Amy. I think Ellie is still trying to figure out what to make of it. She keeps her head up the whole time so she hasn't figure out that there are things to play with on the ground. She doesn't scream when I put her on it so that's good.


We didn't do much this weekend - out for dinner on Friday night, ran errands Saturday, and then cooked out that night. My dad came over on Sunday afternoon to visit Ellie (and us too I'm sure) since my mom was out of town visiting her family. We had a good time and dad got another couple dozen pictures. I think he is starting to rival the number of pictures that I take. Ellie got a little tired so dad sang her to sleep before we had dinner.


Trudie is back in full effect. The medicine for her arthritis has worked wonders and is back to her old self. This is good and bad because I know she's feeling better, but that means she acts like a bull in a china shop. If a door is closed, she'll just ram it. And she's a very entitled dog too. We were watching television this weekend and the papasan was on the floor between us. Before I knew it, she had hopped right into it.


Then last night, I was feeding Ellie in the nursery and heard a ruckus at the end of the sofa. Trudie had helped herself into a large basket where I keep Ellie's burp cloths and other items. Note that the basket + items in it are taller than she is. Completely ridiculous. I'm glad she's feeling better.

Four-peat

Are you ready for this? She's slept through the night FOUR nights in a row. Of course, now I don't sleep through the night because I got so used to getting up at 3AM. I always wake up and wonder if she has woken up and I've missed her or I wonder when she's going to wake up. Then I start to think about the proposal I need to be writing for work, remember that I forgot to put gas in the car yesterday, wonder if we need to get more insulation blown into the attic, and try to think of my third grade teacher's name. Cummings was second, Krovack was fourth and Moore was fifth, but I can never remember third. So I just lay there. Thinking.

After 10 weeks, Trudie finally came home on Thursday. My mom and dad had been keeping her since Ellie was born due to the fact that I have to carry my poor blind puppy up and down the steps. I took her to the vet today and she got on some doggie arthritis medicine. I have no clue how old she is, but I'd guess 12 to 14. You can tell what Ellie is thinking "Oh crap - did they get another one of these hairy things?!" She seems more interested in Trudie than the other two dogs. I think it's because she's white so Ellie can see her and follow her more easily. Trudie has sniffed her once so I think she knows there's a baby here, but has shown no real interest. We took the big girls to the dog park this weekend to swim and play. They love it there, but Lucy lost both of the tennis balls in the lake in the first five minutes so they spent most of the time running around and harassing the other dogs.

I've been working more from home lately and Ellie has a lot more awake time, so she spends a good portion of the day next to me in her papasan or laying on the floor playing while I type. When I need a break, I turn on the iTunes and belt out a song for her. I love how she smiles at me and looks at me like I'm the coolest person on earth. I know that in 13 years, I'm going to be the uncoolest person she knows, so I'm going to soak it in while I can get it.

I got this picture of Ellie on Sunday. I've been waiting for her to grow into that beautiful dress Ashley gave her. She was the best dressed baby at church. This shot makes me laugh when I look at it. It looks so movie-star posed when all I did was put her on her blanket and snap a picture. That's my little star.

After the shots...

After Ellie had her shots on Friday, my friend Ashley came over for a visit. Ellie was a little fussy from the shots so I felt like I had to tell Ashley a dozen times that "she's not usually like this". Famous last words I'm sure she's heard from every single friend with a kid. I gave Ellie some baby Tylenol in the afternoon, but she was fine by the evening. We took her out to dinner with us at Big Shucks and sat on the patio. She didn't sleep through the night that night, but she did do it again on Sunday night. I think it's going to be hit or miss when I get a full eight hours of sleep, but I'll take it when I can get it!

We had a pretty relaxed weekend. I taught an aerobics class on Saturday morning and then we ran errands. We found some infant sunglasses at Target, so I had to get them. I don't think they're Ellie's favorite thing to wear because when I put them on her, she moved her head from side to side trying to get them off. She looked like Stevie Wonder. But isn't that half the fun of having a baby? Making them wear completely ridiculous outfits?

We also got this picture of Ellie on Saturday... Doesn't she sort of look like she saying, "Um... can someone get this dog out of my picture?". Lucy is such a weirdo. If she sees someone else getting attention, she has to hone in on their moment. She's like that annoying guy in college who would jump in the background of your pictures to be funny.

That night, Lee was supposed to go to the Better than Ezra concert with Ben, but wound up skipping because he was tired after putting in 4 hours of yard work. Ellie and I visited mom and dad to have dinner with them and then returned home to have some wine with Elizabeth and Lee in the backyard. Pretty relaxing. Here's one last shot of the new "hands-free" way Lee likes to carry Ellie around... in her Baby Bjorn. They are quite the pair walking around the neighborhood like that.

The two month appointment

Ellie had her two month appointment today, but let's start with the really important stuff - she slept through the night last night! I've loosely been following Babywise since she the day she was born and it works. I don't think Babywise is right for every baby, but it seems like it was right for this one. On Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday nights she woke up at 4:30 AM and I fed her. On Wednesday night when she woke up, I decided not to feed her or even pick her up. When I got back into bed, I felt like Child Protective Services was going to arrest me for starving her.


I put her in bed at 10:15 PM last night. Ellie and I both would have slept through the night, but at 5:45 AM, Lee woke me up to ask me if Ellie had slept through the night. Yes. "Well, do you think something is wrong with her?", he asked. If you never want me to sleep again, ask me that question because I immediately pictured her in her crib hanging upside down from her mobile. Then I couldn't go back to sleep, but I swore I wasn't going to go in there. At 6:30, both of us went in there and stood over her crib for a minute watching her. We couldn't tell if she was breathing so Lee put his hand on her chest and she jumped. Then she got a little ticked off that we woke her up. I don't know if this is a trend - I hope so - but at least we got one sleep-filled night!


So onto that two month appointment... she had to get her first round of immunizations today so she got THREE shots - two in one leg and one in the other. I really didn't think I was going to get upset when she got her shots because I know that getting polio is way worse than getting the vaccine for polio, but the second I put her down on the table, I started crying. For a split second I thought "well, maybe it won't hurt her that much" but once she felt the shot, she screamed and screamed until no noise was coming out of her little body. It hurts me just to write about it. She has to get the same round of shots at 4 and 6 months.


I'll end this one on a high note - As far as the rest of the appointment went, the doctor said she was spectacular. She's now 11 pounds, 12 ounces (70th percentile) and 23.5 inches (90th percentile) so she's gained 4 pounds and 2.25 inches in two months. When the nurse checks us in, I have to undress Ellie so they can weigh her. She has to stay that way until the doctor examines her which took forever since the he was running behind. It was freezing in the room and I forgot her blanket so I had to wrap her up in a big paper towel. That's the picture to the left - my poor little girl in her paper towel blanket just before her shots. It least I don't have to do this for another two months... and next time I'll remember a blanket for her and a sedative for me.

Close but no cigar

Look at her holding her head up! She's actually been doing this for about two weeks, but this is the first good picture I've gotten of it. She almost rolled over today too. She was on her stomach for some tummy time when she rolled over onto her side, but didn't know how to kick her leg over to get herself on her back. I wanted to help her, but I think rolling over is one of those skills you have to figure out for yourself.

My little dumpling has almost slept through the night for the past three nights... I say almost because she wakes up at 4:30 AM. I put her in bed at 10 PM so 6.5 hours is a pretty long time for her to sleep at once. It's a long time for me to sleep too! But I don't know what to do with her when she wakes up because by the time I feed her and put her back to bed, it's almost 5AM and then I wake her back up at 6:30 to eat again? These are all questions I need to ask the doctor on Friday.

When she got up on Sunday night, I fed her and then changed her diaper(s). I put her on her changing table, took off Diaper #1 and put on Diaper #2. She immediately pooped. Okay - that's fine. So I took off Diaper #2 and replaced it with Diaper #3. I get her all zipped up and she poops again. Even more. I was totally unamused at this point because 1) It's 4:30 in the morning and 2) I'm about to have to replace Diaper #3 with Diaper #4. I looked up at her face and are you ready? She's smiling at me. Oh you're funny alright, Miss Bright. At that point, I started laughing because she was completly tickled with herself and she looks like a little old woman who forgot her dentures when she smiles. Thank goodness grandma Connie went to Sam's Club and bought 500 diapers and 2000 wipes because I thought we were going to use all of them.

Happy Fourth!

Lee and I were very excited that it stopped raining just long enough for our neighborhood to have their annual Fourth of July Parade. Ellie was awake and alert for every single bit of it. I don't know how much she could see or if she actually enjoyed it, but she sat on my lap most of the time watching all of the entries passing by. She even had a special red, white and blue outfit for the occasion.

We took the dogs to the parade again this year. If you read last year's post about the parade, you'll remember that Morgan was so bothered by the fake machine gun fire that came from one of the army-looking vehicles rolling down the street that she hid under a car. There were no automotive fallout shelters around us this year so Morgan was forced to take cover elsewhere. Here's what she came up with:

That's right. Our 65-pound dog hid under our daughter's stroller. I am a little embarrassed for her. She could not be a bigger weenie if she tried. Then there's Lucy totally hamming it up for the camera. They couldn't be more different. That night, we grilled out hot dogs, brats, corn on the cob and enjoyed some Matanzas Creek wine.

I didn't know if she was ready for it or not, but I put Ellie in her Bumbo chair on Friday and she loved it. She much prefers being up on my shoulder looking around to lying on her back so sitting up really suits her. She was in a smiley mood so she stayed in it for a few minutes while I shook her little multi-colored elephant around for her to look at. She has her two month check-up and shots this Friday. I am not looking forward to her screaming bloody murder while they stab her in the leg. I'm going to ask the doctor about dropping the late-night feeding. Not that she's ever been hard to deal with during the 3AM wake-up, but she's getting a lot easier. I was back in bed in 25 minutes last night - that includes a diaper change and feeding. She usually goes right back to sleep which is nice, but it would be even nicer if she wouldn't wake up at all!

Ellie goes to the Nasher

We didn't really have anything big lined up for this weekend, so we decided to expose Ellie to her first taste of art at the Nasher Sculpture Center. As you can see, she was really taken by "Constructed Head No. 2", a piece by Naum Gabo.

She was equally excited by David Smith's "The Forest"...

As well as several other pieces in the outside garden.

We rounded out the afternoon by stopping at Wine-Tastic for some extra relaxation. The only time you can hit a wine bar with a baby is at 3:30 in the afternoon because nobody is there and she's asleep anyway.

I got back on the exercise train this weekend too. I've been walking for a few weeks, but this was my first time to do something other than that. On Saturday morning, I went to a spin class which went pretty well. I hadn't been to a spin class since my first trimester and my tailbone reminded me of that the next day. On Sunday, I tried to jog which did not go so well. In total, I logged 3.5 miles, but only ran 1.5 of that and about halfway through I realized my jogging shorts were too small so my butt was probably hanging out the back. You know in elementary school when they would choose teams at recess for kickball? While I was running, I felt like that girl who always got picked last for the team. You know who I'm talking about - the girl who was last in the batting order and even if your team was winning 28-0 and she actually did make it to the plate, they still told her to bunt. And when she did bunt, she could have made the best bunt in the history of kickball, but she'd still be out at first because it took her over a minute to lumber side to side down to first base and when she realized she was going to be out she walked those last 5 feet because she was totally winded by that point. That was me running. I looked like a damn lumberjack without all of the flannel.

Our goal is to run the YMCA Turkey Trot this Thanksgiving which is 8 miles. I have no clue how I'm going to do that without wheelchair assistance. I thought that working out until my 39th week would have let me just snap right back, but this is going to take some doing.

I'm so glad it's a 4 day week because that means I only have to work 4 hours from home since I'll get 8 from vacation and 8 from going in the office to work. I'm excited to take Ellie to her first Fourth of July parade too - she has a special outfit for the occasion!