Happy #31/#3!

It will not stop raining. Just as soon as it stops raining, it starts up again. If we get another 0.75 inches of rain before Saturday (which we will) this will be the wettest June on record for Dallas. I'm not that upset because I've been pretty housebound for June, but I feel bad for all of the kiddos on summer break or the ones who are totally water logged at summer camp.

We celebrated our annual "big weekend" this past weekend. I turned 31 on Sunday and we celebrated our third wedding anniversary on Tuesday. We actually celebrated both by going to dinner on Saturday night at Hibiscus, a restaurant I'd been wanting to try for a while. My mom and dad kept Ellie so this was our first childless night out in 6 weeks. They said Ellie was "fussy" so she may have put her grandparents through the wringer. We had a great time, and Lee gave me a beautiful Tag watch as a birthday/anniversary/"thanks for pushing out the baby" gift. I really needed a new one since the only watch I have right now that works is a blue Timex Ironman. Not very professional. I need to look a little more professional since we were also celebrating the fact that I just found out I was promoted. Second year in a row! My boss called me at home last weekend to tell me. I told him that I guess that sealed the deal - I'm coming back to work!

Speaking of, my six weeks of "short term disability" ran out on Tuesday, but don't think that doesn't mean that I'm still not partially disabled. Despite my best efforts, some days my 10.5 pound growth precludes me from getting out of my pajamas before noon. I went in with Ellie for two hours yesterday and then I'm going in for the whole afternoon today. My mom is going to keep Ellie on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons so I can go in part time and then do about 12 hours of work per week from home. It sounds easy, but she's been having more and more awake time every day so I'm going to have to put my nose to the grindstone when her eyes shut.

If there's one thing that makes her eyes shut, it's her swing. I'm going to move it into our office when I start working so that she can take naps in it right next to me. I took this picture to show that wherever Ellie is, Morgan isn't far behind. She's so interested in Ellie. Yesterday she was in her swing asleep and I looked up to see Morgan inches from her face - just watching her, but I knew what was about to happen. In my loudest whisper/yell I said "Morgan!! NO!!", but Morgan ignored me and licked Ellie square in the face which woke her up. Poor Morgan, she always has the best intentions.

The weight loss is going well. I just found out my friend Meg is going to have her wedding in Playa del Carmen the second weekend of November so knowing that I'll be getting into a bathing suit in 4 months gives me some extra incentive to buckle down and get it done. It four weeks I have lost... 13 pounds! This totally makes my 25 pound goal before Labor Day doable. I don't want to have to buy all new clothes before I go back to work. Plus, I don't want to look like a total fat ass. It's been hard for me to exercise #1 - because I'm tired, #2 - because it's rained almost every day this month, and #3 - I only have a small window once Lee gets home, but if I go then, I don't get to spend time with him. I'm dying to use my jogging stroller, but Ellie needs to gain some neck control before that happens.

Here's one last shot of Ellie asleep on her Daddy.

Crash. Crap.

What a wonderful Friday. That was laced with sarcasm. I had so many things to do today and I can't do anything because do you see that pile of glass of the ground? That's my back windshield laying at the end of our driveway.



So what happened? I was backing down my driveway - I looked over my right shoulder and saw my neighbor's car parked in front of their house. I looked over my left shoulder and saw a truck parked in front of our house with a long trailer attached to it. Unfortunately, I did not pick up on the fact that the a-hole was parked blocking our driveway. I took the above picture with my camera phone. That's exactly where he was parked. I guess the only good news is there's no damage to the body of my car because my windshield took the entire hit.

I'm so mad. I'm mad at myself for not doing a better job of looking down the driveway, but I'm even more mad at the total jerk who decided that it's okay to park wherever he wants. I asked him why he was parked at the end of my driveway and he just said "sorry". He's the one who is illegally parked and I'm the one who pays for it. Doesn't seem fair, but that's how it is. Stupid workers park all along the street and just don't care. I'm calling the police ever single time I see them doing something wrong from now on. Uuuhh. What a way to start a weekend.

Miss Bright, they're ready for your close-up

Ellie had her 1 month appointment today. She's over 10 pounds now! I guess she takes after her mom - she likes to eat. She now weighs 10 pounds 2 ounces (75th percentile) and is 22.5 inches long (93rd percentile). Her head is still 50th percentile, but we don't want her to have a giant noggin anyway. She flirted with her doctor by smiling at him and then holding her head up and looking around the room while on her tummy. Show off. The doctor told me we were lucky to have such a happy baby. I agree.

I had Ellie's picture taken for the first time on Friday as a gift for her daddy for Father's Day as well as gifts for her grandfathers. She was so good through the three wardrobe changes and over 90 flashes going off in her face. In some of the pictures, she wore the outfit that was my going home outfit from the hospital. Against my better judgement, I let them do some "naked baby" shots. Naked babies are cute, but she looked like a little naked old man lying there with her little wrinkly butt. Ellie let me know what she thought of the idea by going to the bathroom all over the place once her diaper was removed. I wasn't totally happy with the pictures, but there was one that I really loved so that's all I needed. That night, Ellie made her first trip to a sushi restaurant. Lee and I had our first date at Blue Fish and found our dog, Lucy, there so we decided to introduce Ellie. She likes California rolls but is a little iffy on the spicy tuna.

On Saturday, Ellie attended another Junior League funding interview with me at Gilda's Club (btw - what a fantastic program). Ellie should really be getting future meeting credit for all of this. I felt like I've been getting better at packing her up and traveling with her until a little incident on Thursday. Ellie attended another JL funding interview at Parkland Hospital with me. For those of you not familiar, Parkland is the public hospital for Dallas... Let's just say if you have a gun shot wound, that's where they're taking you. They also deliver more than 16,000 babies per year and only 14% of those parents speak English. Am I painting the picture for you? We were totally safe because all I had to do was valet park in front and run up to a conference room.

I fed Ellie, packed her up in the car, and as I was driving up to the front of the hospital, I heard a "HUUUAAHH" and turned around just in the nick of time to watch her projectile vomit 30 minutes worth of breastfeeding all over herself and her carseat. She didn't have a set of clean clothes in my diaper bag because he had pooped through her spare onsie a few days earlier and I hadn't put another one in there. So Ellie got new clothes from the gift shop and was stripped down to her diaper and redressed in the Parkland lobby. It doesn't get any classier than that. I may as well been smoking a cigarette while wearing house slippers, a Hooters tee shirt and curlers in my hair.

We didn't do much on Saturday... the usual tummy time and hanging out with Dad followed by a trip to the mall. On Sunday, Ellie made her first appearance at Mass. We sat in the insane-o kid area, but we probably won't do that again since she is pretty quiet. My aunt Kathy was visiting from Memphis so after church, we went to see my parents to celebrate her birthday and Father's Day. On Monday, mom and Kathy spent the day with me and Ellie. We've been quite busy with all of our visits and visitors!

Mysterio Predicts...

Happy 1 month birthday to Ellie! I can't believe she's been here one month already. Each day keeps getting better.


While we were on vacation in Santa Fe last November, we came across a baby boutique on Canyon Road. I found the following and had to have it:





It's like a fortune cookie, but it predicts your child's future as the bag states "on a nice tee shirt". I saved it since November and once she arrived was so excited to open it only to find out that Ellie will be...



A conspiracy nut. Nice. Please note two things here - 1) The look on her face and 2) the way "Conspiracy Nut" is stretched out across that round little tummy. She's laughing on the inside.

Ellie's Big Week

I'm a little late on getting this post out mainly because I was sidelined last Friday. More on that a little later. Ellie and I had a big week - we really hit the town. We started off the week on Monday with a trip to my office. I swore I wasn't going to go in, but I needed to go in to handle a few things and plus I wanted everyone to see my little pea pod. She did really well even if all she did was sleep. Here's a picture from Ellie's "lifting the head" workout. She's getting much better and held it all the way up and looked at me for a few seconds this morning.

We didn't have any adventures on Tuesday, but on Wednesday, we went to see Once at the "Cry Baby Matinee" at a local movie theater. They say you can enjoy a film "without worrying about breastfeeding in the dark" and they have a changing table set up so I expected that it would be all moms and kids. Wrong. There were about 6-8 kiddos there with their mothers and the rest were the general public. In fact, there was this single guy there just watching the movie by himself. Needless to say, I'm glad I made a bottle for Ellie before we went so I didn't give this guy a boob show for free. She was really good through the whole thing except for at the end when she got a little fussy, but she quickly went to sleep.

Thursday was Ellie's first trip to Grandma and Granddad's house in Arlington. We ate lunch and had a good time. I saw Trudie for the first time in a month. My parents have been keeping Trudie since Ellie was born because she's a lot of work because I have to carry her in and out to go to the bathroom. I feel like a horrible dog mom. I'm going to get her back next week. Ellie wanted to take a nap, but since my mom almost crawled in the crib with her, we went home around 3:00 so Ellie could rest.

Friday is when things went a little haywire. I had to conduct an interview for Junior League at Equest for funding for the 08-09' year. Everything went great, but while I was driving home, I had a horrible pain in my lower stomach. I thought I might be hungry so I stopped to get some lunch, but the pain persisted. I kept driving because I just wanted us to get home. When I was close to home, I realized that I wasn't going to be able to get Ellie out of the car or get up our stairs so I called Lee to help us. I was getting a little upset because the pain had been there for an hour so we went to the ER.

Long story short, they think I was just having some latent uterine contractions, but it took 7 hours, a sonogram, a CT to rule out appendicitis, and blood work to determine that. It also took three IV attempts by two people and a blown vein in my hand. They send the third guy in to try to give me an IV and I told him to go fly a kite. I could have been dying and there's no way I would have let them try again. Then I found out they didn't get enough blood for my blood work so they had to stab me a fourth time. Of course by this point, I was feeling totally better so I was just ticked off I was at the ER. I had Ellie with me the entire time because she had had to eat. Poor thing. She was so good ALL DAY. Didn't even whimper. She's such a trooper.

So that was our big week. On Saturday night, we went out to dinner with the Brights again and hit Mi Cocina for dinner. Again, Ellie was really great until the food came and then she needed to be held. Lee's dad got a new dog, Bitsy, so we were able to meet her on Saturday too. Our dogs must have a small panic attack that we're adding to our already large dog family every time a new dog enters the backyard. We didn't do a ton this weekend, but next weekend is Father's Day so that should be fun.

Like our new look?

Thanks to Nicole, I now have my own personalized title bar for the top of the screen! Very exciting. I think the analytical side of my brain crushed and killed the artistic side of my brain a long time ago so I would have never been able to make something as creative. Thanks Nicole and Happy Birthday, Wayne!

After my post on Friday, Lee wanted to take part in a walk with Ellie so we took our second outing in the stroller for the day and walked down to HP Village and got some Paciugo. Ellie is a big fan of getting outside. While Lee was inside purchasing the gelato, I got this picture of Ellie waiting for her dad.

Love that picture. After that, Ellie dozed off and when she woke up, we gave her the first big girl bath in her bath tub. I thought she would enjoy it and she did. She didn't make a peep when she hit the water and seemed to enjoy getting cleaned off. Every time I went to take a picture, Lee quickly moved his hand to assist Ellie in a modesty pose.

Then he thought a strategically placed rubber duckie would help out.

On Saturday when I was playing with Ellie, she lifted her head all the way up and looked at me from a belly down position. You would have thought she had walked on the moon based on the way I reacted to her little milestone. I almost threw her a parade. Lee wasn't here to see it, but saw her do it on Sunday morning. I can only imagine how I'm going to react to her walking or crawling. We managed to get out and about for a bit that afternoon by going to the Vespa store, Apple store, and we went to see Elizabeth at the wine bar. Do I count that as another milestone for Ellie? First visit to a bar? It's actually more of a wine tasting room. That night, Ellie had her first dinner out with the Bright Grandparents at La Paesana.

She was really good the whole meal with only a little fussing, but I think she was a little overstimulated by all of the lights, new sounds and smells.

I went to weigh in at Weight Watchers and after one week, I've lost ... (drum roll, please) FIVE pounds! I think some of that may still be fluid, but I'll take it. Giving myself some credit, I was very good last week since I'm highly motivated right now. I seriously doubt the rest of it is going to fall off as easily, but I've revamped my goal and now want to lose 25 before Labor Day. That's 5 down and 20 to go. I think I can do it.

How is it already June?

The days seemed to drag by as I was waiting for May to get here and now time won't slow down. I can't believe it's June. This week I received a notice from my company stating that I had been granted short term disability (apparently we're disabled when we have a baby) through June 25. That's only 24 days from now. I need to live in Norway or someplace where you can take off 6 months when you have a baby.

I keep on waiting for my kiddo to act up and it still hasn't happened yet. Last night she went to sleep at 11pm and woke up at 3:45am. She ate and went right back to sleep. Two nights ago, I wish I'd gotten a picture of her when I went to pick her up for her middle of the night feeding. She had on her hospital cap and had managed to pull it down over her eyes and ears all the way to her nose. She wasn't crying - she was just giving me her best "Eeeh! EEEEEEUUHHH!!" grunt and rolling around in her crib. It was the first time I'd seen her straight up ticked off and it made me laugh. I'm trying to teach her the difference between night and day so today we took our first walk.

I think she looks a little irritated because of the bumpy sidewalk. Or she may have gas. It's a toss-up. She was awake for the first 5 minutes of our 40 minute walk and then the bumpy sidewalk seemed to put her to sleep. I think I'm going to make a walk a daily routine for us. I hope the weather stays nice for a while. It was almost 80 when we walked at 11am this morning so we may have to start going earlier.

After we got back, she ate again and I put her in her crib for a few minutes while I cleaned up. I had tried to turn on her crazy-looking mobile a few days ago, but she didn't like it. Today she actually stared up at it and seemed to enjoy it. Then Grandma Beth came over and she proceeded to fall asleep from all of the activity.

Grandma Connie came over yesterday and brought my baby book. Everyone has been trying to figure out who Ellie looks like and since she doesn't seem to have many of my features, everyone defaults to saying she looks like Lee. There's a picture of me in the baby album at about 2 weeks or so and it looks exactly like Ellie. It was almost creepy - like looking at a picture of Ellie. So we'll see how she develops.