Pony Keg Time

I know, I know. It's been a while since I've blogged - but really, nothing has been going on. And I've been horrible at taking pictures. Sometimes I forget I'm the Bright yearbook editor, photographer, and copy writer. Last week, my parents entertained their friends from England so we got to visit with them. Then this past weekend our big event was going to our friend Trey's 40th birthday party. That's us above at the party. It was a surprise party, and Lee helped with the fake poker story to get Trey out of the house. We had all had a lot of fun including Ellie. She fell asleep in my arms halfway through the party and then woke up in meltdown mode about 15 minutes past her usual bedtime so we had to make our exit around 9:00. I don't know when that little girl got so heavy, but Lee and I have to take turns carrying her now. Ellie usually loves our friend, Mike, but for some reason she screamed time he got near her. Poor Mike. He was like baby kryptonite.

I think Ellie must have been tired from a full day of shopping. Since Lee had to work on Saturday, Ellie and I took a girls trip to the mall. There are so many cute little girl clothes out for fall right now. And since she's more fun to shop for than I am, we spent most of the time looking for her. It's hard to think that she'll only be able to wear the clothes I bought her for one season. I try to send her to day care in simple long sleeved onesies because every day when I go get her, she's in her back-up outfit and the outfit I brought her to school in is handed to me an a baggie.

On Sunday, we got to see another winning Cowboys game against the Bears. After Lee's soccer game he game home and I heard, " Look what I got!" He stood there holding a pony keg. "Hon, why do we need a pony keg?", I said. "It's a keg of beer!". "Yes, I know that", I said. "But why do we need 5 liters of beer?". "Ohmygosh. You are no fun sometimes. This thing is so cool and plus it was only $19.99. I would have killed to have one of these things in college!" That's great. And 17 years later, he has his wish. So... now we have a mini-keg of beer in our fridge. Because it's cool. Later that night, Lee asked me if I dared him to drink it all and I told him no. I was absolutely not going to dare him to drink his pony keg all in one night.

Ellie came down with her first cold this weekend too. Poor little thing. I have to use that blue suction thing on her nose all the time. She knows what it is when she sees it. She starts kicking her legs and then when I put it in her nose, she lies perfectly still until I finish. Then she tries to swat me away. She's almost over the cold now, but when I went to pick her up today, her teacher told me to watch her because one of the kids in her class came down with a stomach bug and had to go home. Wonderful. Maybe she's been blowing out all of these diapers as a fire drill to get me ready for the real deal. She also has a new trick - she can stand up if she's holding onto something. I stay behind her the whole time in case she falls, but she can do it. I know she's my baby so I think she super skilled, but I really wasn't expecting her to stand at 4 months. She looks around and squeals as she's standing there. I'll try to get some pictures of that this weekend. She's almost sitting up too, but now quite. She can do it if she's leaning forward but then rolls off to the side after a while. It's a start. I promise more live action shots next

post!

Ellie's Baptism

Wow - I finally found some time to blog again! After two weeks of full time working, I've decided I'm not a "working mother" - I'm a "work and then mother and then work some more and then mother again". But I wouldn't want to miss one minute of any of it! I couldn't decide on the title for this blog. It technically is all about Ellie's baptism, but an alternative title could have been "Confessions of a Breastfeeder". I'll get to that in a minute. Ellie had both of her great grandmothers and two great aunts, Kathy and Judy, in town as well as a whole host of other friends and family members to celebrate her Baptism. We started off the weekend on Friday night by going to see Mimi and Judy at Lee's parents house and then having barbecue. The big event was on Saturday at 10:30 AM.

I had called the church on Friday morning to confirm the event and to ask if there was someplace I could privately feed Ellie beforehand. They said all of the rooms were taken so I came up with it brilliant (so I thought) idea of breastfeeding her in a confessional. It's quiet, private - perfect. They said that would be fine. We got there at 9:20 AM and I scoped out the confessionals. The one to the right of the priest's door just had a kneeler inside and so did the one to the left so I decided to use the one of the middle, usually reserved for the priest, because it had a chair. I locked the door and got down to business.

I should also mention that we had a photographer that was coming at 10AM. My dress zipped up the back so I unzipped it down to the waist but then realized that if I didn't take it off that it was going to be messed up for the pictures, so I just took it off. Everything seemed to be going swimmingly as I sat in the confessional in my thong panties breastfeeding when someone started banging on the door and trying to turn the doorknob. I thought it was Lee because I told him to stand guard, but I later found out he went to Starbucks. So the knocking continues and all of the sudden I hear an elderly woman say "Father?!! Father are you in there?!!". Oh crap. "Um, hi... I'm um feeding my baby in her. I called the church and they said-" "FATHER??! FATHER ARE YOU IN THERE?!!" I looked around and realized that the confessional closet was soundproof so the eager confessor couldn't hear me.

Then the door to the "Open Confessional" side opened and I heard someone moving around. Sweet Jesus - I'm about to hear a 95 year old woman's confession. Then she exited and came over to the "Closed Confessional" side. I figured out she was one of the women there to clean the church so I said "Hi there - I'm really sorry to be a bother but -". She cut me off and I think she was deaf because she screamed "That's okay Father!! You just do what you need to do in there!!". Wonderful. Now she thinks our priest has holed himself up in the confessional. When I finally exited, another little old lady who had obviously witnessed all of this was sitting in a pew praying the rosary looking at me like I'd been in there sacrificing small animals. Could all of this been avoided if I'd just brought a bottle? Yes. But when I had this baby, she ate my brain and I can't problem solve anymore so cut me some slack.

So back to the baptism... it was really beautiful and so many friends and family there. Ellie got a little vocal toward the end of the ceremony, but didn't make a peep when they poured the water over her head. Kathy said she's a future swimmer. My dad is Ellie's godfather and Lee's sister, Elizabeth, is the godmother. Afterwards, we had a luncheon at Lee's parents house catered by Angela's. It was wonderful. Since Mimi's birthday is the 18th, we went ahead and celebrated with a dinner that night. On Sunday, we went over to my parent's house so Ellie could spend some time with her great grandmother and great aunt. Ellie had been good all weekend, but I could tell that all of the passing her around was getting to her because she was getting cranky. She slept like a rock both nights.

Ellie has been doing very well at daycare. I really like her teachers and they seem very attentive to all of the children. I think they thought I was trying to starve her because they asked me to up the amount I'm sending with her in the bottles. She's up to 6 oz. in the two bottles I send. Full Ellie = happy Ellie. I'm still going at lunch to feed her which is working out fine. Because she's wearing 6 month clothing now, she went to school in all new outfits every day this week - and had a blowout every day. I guess she's testing my stain fighting abilities. When I was feeding her on Wednesday and Thursday, she had a blowout while I was feeding her. We had a near miss on my clothing both days. I told her that I felt honored that she was so excited to see me that she crapped her pants, but we were going to have to stop meeting that way. She also wants to touch my face all the time while I'm holding her. She'll reach up and start patting my cheek or grab my lip. Very cute until she grabs and pulls my lip.

One more picture - it's four generations.

Labor Day 2007

How do you like our matching mother/daughter camo outfits?!! There's Ellie in her Brady Goat Cookoff onesie and me in my 1992 Dove Hunt tee shirt. Ellie had her official first road trip over Labor Day weekend. We took a trip to Lee's parents' ranch in west Texas for the annual dove hunt. It's normally a 3 hour drive, but the construction and all of the traffic made it more like 4 hours. Ellie was really great on the way there except for the last 30 minutes or so, but it was way past her bedtime when we got there on Friday night and she was hungry. Lee's parents were there along with Ben and his friend, Price.

Other than the fact that I had Ozzy Osbourne's "Crazy Train" stuck in my head for three days straight and I have chigger bites in unmentionable places, we had a really fun Labor Day weekend. We spent most of the time relaxing, watching football, and Lee even got a few dove. Sooooo glad it's college football time again. Ellie was cheering for her second favorite team, the Vols, but they lost to Cal. She even sported a bright orange onesie for the occasion. Lee will be excited when Ellie can finally say things like this. I found one more thing that makes Ellie laugh - the dogs. She loves to watch them play with each other and she even thinks it's funny when they bark. She had a really good time watching them retrieve tennis balls from the water.

We got back on Monday afternoon, and I immediately started working to get things together for Ellie's first day of daycare. I have to have double everything now - diapers, wipes, outfits, bottles . Everything. From the time I woke on Tuesday morning to the time I made it to work, it was 2.5 hours. Wednesday was a little better - even with massive rainstorms causing traffic lights to be out, I still got up, got ready, dropped off Ellie and was here within two hours. I'm trying to figure out ways to trim that even more. Her first day was pretty good. I took her in the class and sat her in a swing next to a little boy. He started kicking and grunting when he saw her. Already turning heads at 3.5 months. That's my girl. I didn't cry when I left her, but I felt guilty. She probably spent all day wondering where her mom was.

I've gone back at lunchtime all week to feed her, but when she saw me on Tuesday and Wednesday, she didn't want to eat - she just wanted to look at me. Today was better. When she got home on Tuesday night, she was a nightmare because she'd only slept 1.5 hours all day. I'm hoping that will get better as she gets more used to it. Maybe this will help her go to bed earlier - who knows.

I had one of my more embarrassing moments at work on Wednesday. I have to pump in the computer closet and they keep it about 60 degrees because of all of the equipment. The door is locked from the outside and I always put a sign on the door so nobody comes in. So I'm sitting there working on the laptop and I hear the key slide into the door and it opens. There stands our IT guy. "HI", I say with a glare and my best "you'd better get the hell out of here" voice. "Um, hi - I need to switch out the tape for the server". Hey knucklehead - can you see I'm a little busy??!! I was wearing a big jacket to keep warm so he couldn't see anything but still. Now I'm getting pissed because he's had the door open 10 seconds longer than he should have in the first place. "Do you see the 'Do not disturb' sign on the door?!!". "Uh, yeah.". "THEN GET OUT!!!". "I have to change the tape". Seriously, don't make me unteather myself and come out there to beat you. Because I will. "Jerry, CLOSE THE DOOR." Good God. Now I can't look at him. I told one of my co-workers and she was like "Ohmygod - were you topless?!!" No. "Well, were you naked?!?!" Yes, I was buck naked in our computer closet. NO! Whatthehell. Do my co-workers think I'm naked in there? Reason #541 to self medicate with wine - IT guy seeing me pump in the closet.

A big congrats to Jenny who got engaged this weekend. We're so happy for you! Also very happy for cousin Kyle who got engaged two weeks ago and Lee's friend, Terrance, who proposed this past weekend too. Looks like we'll have plenty of weddings to attend this spring. And the most exciting news of all... Nicole is expecting her second bambino in February. I can't wait!