The Baby Wrangler

First of all, CONGRATUATIONS to Anne Marie and Brett who had a 9 pound 5 ounce baby girl today. Caroline Elizabeth was a wonderful Valentine's Day surprise.

This is going to be long because I haven't blogged in a while. I've been in a project management training class all of this week and it's killing me because it means I've had to use 100% of my brain, and that still isn't enough. Everything has an acronym and there are all sorts of flowsheets and charts with arrows pointing up, down, and around in a circle. And every component has a subcomponent. All the while, the guy sitting behind me coughs and sneezes on my back because he came down with the bubonic plague on Monday. I can't tell if I'm getting sick or if it's all mental. I also haven't been able to go see Ellie at lunch all week, which is a real bummer. I'm so used to seeing my sweet girl every day at noon. But on the bright side, the class has also been really motivating - it has rekindled my desire to become a full time aerobics instructor. If only the pay was the same.

I knew that this weekend was going to be a little different when on Friday morning, I went into Ellie's room and she was sitting up in bed waiting for me. I fed and dressed her and put her down to play in her room when about 30 seconds later, she crawled into my bathroom, grabbed the tub, pulled herself up, and just stood there looking at me. In the short span of a week, I've gone from having a kid who sits there and looks pretty (okay... really pretty) to having the kid who wants to explore every square inch of our house. I should explain the photo - if Ellie gets tired when she's eating, she starts rubbing her eyes and usually a carrot unibrow ensues.

On Saturday, Lee wanted to take Ellie to her swimming lesson. I didn't tell him he was going to have to sing "Twinkle, Twinkle", "One Little Speckled Frog", and "The Wheels on the Bus". I think he was expecting some hard core backstroke lessons. I picked Ellie up and we headed to Northpark for the Junior League Community Volunteer Fair and then to meet Grammie at the house who delivered a baby gate to us just in the nick of time. After that, I had my picture taken for another group I volunteer with. Poor Ellie - she didn't get in much of a nap because of all of the running around. We topped off the day with a ride in her red wagon to the park. For no particular reason at all, Lee and I opened one of bottles of wine from Napa that night. It was the 2003 Syrah from Bella Vineyards.

We worked most of the day Sunday and Lee did about 8 hours of yard work. It was at about 8PM that he realized he was no longer wearing his wedding ring. There were plenty of places it could have been because he had planted a tree, trimmed some bushes and cleaned out our garage - but he decided that it was probably in the "yard waste" bag, so after work on Monday, he went through all of the clippings and found it. This is the second time he's done this. He promises he's going to wear gloves now.

We didn't really do anything for Valentine's Day because Lee is lucky enough to have a wife that believes that Valentine's Day is the creation of card companies, florists, and chocolatiers. I think it's a fun holiday if you're 8, but when you get to be an adult, all of the commercials make you feel like you're not normal unless you're in a relationship with someone and that's just not the case. I told all I wanted was a card... well, I take that back. On Wednesday night, I told him that a wonderful gift would be for him not to take a second helping of dinner so that we could have leftovers and I wouldn't have to cook on Valentine's night. What can I say? I'm a hopeless romantic.

I've got to wrap this up because it's turning into War and Peace. A little background first... When I was little, my mom and I would go to the movies in the summer a lot because she was a teacher and she was out of school. We would always pay for one movie and then sneak into another. I don't know how many times we snuck into Raiders of the Lost Ark in 1981, but it was enough to make it my all time favorite movie. Thinking back, I don't know how appropriate it was to take a 5 year old to a movie where Nazis faces are melting off, but that's neither here nor there. So you could say that when I found out they were making a fourth Indiana Jones movie, I was beside myself. It's in my Palm Pilot... May 22... I present to you - Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

Sentenced!

The jury is back and Al received two 30-year sentences to be served concurrently. From the Dallas Morning News:

"An Allen man convicted of attempting to hire someone to kill his pregnant wife received a 30-year sentence Monday .

A Collin County jury of six men and six women deliberated for about three hours before sentencing Albert Jackson Sterling II to two concurrent 30-year sentences.

Mr. Sterling on Friday was found guilty of two counts of solicitation of capital murder -- one of his wife and one for his then unborn child. The trial, which lasted about two weeks, included testimony from Mr. Sterling's wife, his girlfriend and the would-be hitman who alerted the wife to the scheme.

After the verdict was read, the sentencing hearing began. Mr. Sterling, who did not testify during the trial, took the stand during his sentencing hearing and maintained his innocence.
"Do you still maintain that you are not guilty?" asked Russell Wilson, one of Mr. Sterling's attorneys.

"One hundred percent," Mr. Sterling said, his shackled feet hidden behind the witness stand. "I felt I should give you jurors my story and the reason I was communicating with Jeffrey Thompson," the man he tried to hire. "

I guess we won't be seeing Al at the gym anytime soon.

Guilty!

For those of you who are not long-time readers of the Bright Spot, before Ellie was born, I taught aerobics at 24 Hour Fitness and had known Al Sterling for about 6 years. I talked to him every Tuesday after my class and attended his classes. Never in 6 years did he mention that he had a wife or child to anyone at the gym and he was pretty "involved" with a lot of people in his classes. I knew this guy was a b.s. artist when one day he told me he had been absent from teaching because he had been on a secret mission for the government "jumping out of airplanes". Spare me. It all caught up with him because he's going to the big house. Don't drop the soap, Al.

From the Dallas Morning News:

"A Collin County jury on Friday found a man guilty of hiring someone to kill his pregnant wife. Albert Jackson Sterling II was found guilty of two counts of solicitation of capital murder -- one for his wife and one for the unborn child. He was accused of trying to hire an ex-convict to kill his eight-month pregnant wife in Nov. 2006 at their Allen home.

The six-man, six-woman jury delivered their verdict this morning after six hours of deliberation over two days. When State District Judge Curt Henderson read the first guilty verdict, Mr. Sterling blew out a breath, closed his eyes and dropped his head.

Prosecutors said Mr. Sterling's motive was to be with his girlfriend and for the insurance money for his wife's death. They said he lived two lives -- one as a Christian family man and another as a single man who claimed to be a Navy SEAL and taught a marital arts class.

The sentencing hearing was scheduled to begin later this morning. Mr. Sterling could face up to life in prison for each first-degree felony charge."

She crawls!

She finally figured it out. When I went to visit Ellie on Tuesday afternoon, she saw me through the window, so I waved. Then she crawled right over to the door to greet me. I just stood there and stared at her. "When did she start doing this?", I asked. Tanisha told me that she had been crawling around all morning. It's not like she's racing all over the place, but she can definitely get from Point A to Point B now without any trouble. Note to self: babyproof the house this weekend. It's so fun to watch her. Lee will put her 20 feet away from a toy and make her crawl to it. It's like our child-dog has learned a new trick so we have to make her perform it all the time.

I feel like this past weekend whizzed by at lightening speed. We were busy the whole time. My mother-in-law's friend, Fran, was in town from Chattanooga so we met them, Ben, and Elizabeth at Nick and Sam's. Ellie was a sport for about 45 minutes, and then I had to take her home. Lee owes me a steak dinner since I had to leave before we ordered... After I worked out on Saturday morning, Lee played racquetball and Ellie skipped her first February swim lesson to go to a play group with some ladies from my church . We met at the Arboretum because it was so beautiful outside. It got so hot that I was only wearing short sleeves and jeans - pretty good for February 2.

After that, Lee took care of Ellie while I went to a Junior League meeting. Last week, I found out I am going to be the Assistant Community VP for 08-09 and I'm so excited. I e-mailed some of my JL friends to tell them my news and before I did, I had a Dwight Schrute moment.... wait a second - am I the Assistant Community VP or the assistant to the Community VP? I had to look it up, but I was right the first time. We're already working on getting everything arranged for next year, so the meeting on Saturday was with the Issue Area Coordinators to staff the project chairs for the community projects for next year. Very interesting. It's going to be a great year because I already know half of the ladies I'm going to be working with and the other ones I just met are so nice.

This was one of the most uneventful Super Bowls we had in a long time. We watched the game from home and I was busy cleaning and cooking that I missed most of it, but I did get to see the last 2 minutes which was the most exciting part. I was rooting for the Giants because if my man Peyton couldn't make it to the super bowl, I was going to have to root for his brother, Eli. Monday was Ben's birthday so we all met at El Fenix for the celebration. Big #28 for Ben. And I can't believe Lent is already here. I read that this is the second earliest possible start for Lent and the next time it starts this early will be in 2320 or something crazy. Ellie and I got our ashes on Wednesday, and I've decided to give up all sweets for lent. I tried to give up Perez Hilton, but that only lasted an hour. The addiction is too strong.

I got some really sad news last week. The 20 year old sister of one of the ladies who takes care of Ellie was murdered. It's been on the news here - the sister's ex-boyfriend stabbed her and then dumped her body in a field in south Dallas and lit her on fire. I saw her Umicia last week and she was crying, but I didn't know what had happened. Then Ellie's teacher told me all about it. It's so awful and makes me sad for their family. After being gone for a week, Umicia is back at work, and she still smiles more than anyone there. I don't know how she finds the strength to be happy. So if you think about it, please say a prayer for her family.

Van Halen

For those of you who though that nobody wears acid washed jeans, perms their mullet, or saves concert tee shirts from 1984... well, you'd just be wrong. You'd be totally wrong. The band - Eddie Van Halen, Alex Van Halen, and David Lee Roth - got back together for a tour this year so of course we had to go see them at the American Airlines Center on Saturday night. Interestingly, Eddie's 16 year old son, Wolfgang, took over on bass. And he did really well. Lee and I had a great time and the band sounded awesome. I didn't recognize some of the songs because they didn't play any Sammy Hagar stuff, but they did play You Really Got Me, Hot for Teacher, Panama, Eruption, Pretty Woman, Beautiful Girls (or as I like to call it, the "Schmitt's Gay" theme song), and encored with Jump. D.L.R. wore what can only be described as a matador-style outfit with an occasional top hat, Eddie wore camo pants and no shirt, and Wolfgang (who needs to join Jenny Craig with mom Valerie Bertanelli) wore all black. So much fun and great people watching. I'm now hearing that Led Zeppelin may be getting back together for a tour...

We had a big weekend because we went to the Dallas Mavericks game on Friday night. They played the Lakers so I got to watch Kobe Bryant too. Elizabeth stayed with Ellie on Friday night and then we had an actual babysitter for Saturday night. Our neighbors have a girl who is a freshman in high school so we hired her to sit for Ellie. Lee was way more bothered by the notion of a "stranger" taking care of Ellie than I was. Since Ellie had swimming lessons earlier in the day, she was pretty tired so I think that Gracie only had to really watch Ellie for 45 minutes before she put her to bed. Pretty easy babysitting gig with that one. I can remember babysitting for this stinker boy that always hit me. But then I also had the little girls down the street who loved me because I let them stay up late and watch movies with me, so it all evened out.

Ellie can best be described by one word these days - hungry. She woke up screaming at 6AM yesterday morning because she was so hungry. I took her back to the doctor to have her eye checked again (it's red but just from a cold) and she's gained almost a pound since she was last weighed 18 days ago. She's up to 17 pounds 11 ounces. I've switched her from Phase I to Phase II foods so she's eating some meat now too. Just chicken so far, but she really likes it. Her favorite veggies are sweet potatoes and carrots, but she doesn't like green beans. Who doesn't like green beans? She also has to be standing all the time. When she gets tired, she can't pull up on her Leap Frog table and oh Lord, you'd think the world was about to end. So Lee or I help her get up there to play. She also still cannot crawl. She's just scoots all over the place army man style. I caught her trying to escape out of her room into the hall this weekend. I think she may be getting a third tooth because she's been a little cranky lately, but sleeping through the night still thankfully.

Has anyone heard about this new TV show? I'm aghast. The Baby Borrowers - "Meet the teenage couples as they embark on a fast track into parenthood. Will their relationships sustain the pressure?" So let me get this straight - some parents out there willing gave their baby to NBC to let teenagers raise it as a social experiment for a TV show?!! Is this the best the networks can do now?!! The writers strike has to end ASAP.

If you get a chance, stop by Nicole's blog and help name her baby. I voted for Molly McButter. Very cute. I would have done a name poll for Ellie, but Lee and I came up with her name when I was 12 weeks pregnant after only 5 minutes of discussion. And in other baby news, Anne Marie is set to give birth any day now. She doesn't know if it's a boy or girl and I can't wait to find out! Hopefully a girl so Ellie will have another little friend. She also doesn't have a name picked out yet. Tick tock, Anne Marie.

By the way, that murder-for-hire trial for the guy I taught aerobics with at 24 Hour Fitness started on Monday. Still so strange that I knew this guy. It's been in the newspapers and on TV. I'll let you know what happens!

She's "That Kid"

Ellie has two big announcements: #1 - she is getting another tooth right next to the first one on the bottom (if you click on the picture you may be able to see it) and #2 - she figured out how to pull herself up to standing. She did it for the first time on Sunday right and we were both there for her big debut. Lee and I both cheered for her and she was so tickled to be getting applause.

When I opened Ellie's drawer at day care yesterday, I found a letter from the school nurse. It was a form letter and I assume that all the parents of all 48 infants got one yesterday. So I gave it a quick look: "Dear Concerned Parent... blah blah blah... it has come to our attention... blah blah blah... one of our infants has recently contracted pink eye." Stop. Surely they cannot be talking about my perfect, sweet Ellie?!! One of the other mothers was dropping off her little boy at the same time and read the letter. "Wow - pink eye. I think that's pretty contagious". Me laughing nervously: "Oh yeah? Um... yeah... that's what I've heard". So my little bitty 17 pound ball of joy caused the school to be canvased with "pink eye" letters leading to conjunctivitis hysteria yesterday.

Speaking of day care, there is finally another girl in Ellie's room. Until this week out of 8 babies, she had been the only girl. One boy advanced to the toddler room so a little two month old girl joined. We'll call her "Madeline Flowers" (names have been changed to protect the innocent). When I went fill out Ellie's paperwork on Monday, there was a big typed out page on the wall with the title "Madeline Flower's Typical Day" and Madeline's picture on it. Madeline's mommy had gone to the trouble of listing her schedule out minute by minute including her likes: cuddling :) and dislikes: tummy time :( as well as the optimal angle to hold the bottle when feeding her and how best to swaddle her. This made me feel a little guilty because when I dropped Ellie off the first day, all I told her teachers was to feed her if she got hungry. Somehow, she has survived. There is another little girl in the adjoining room, but she and Ellie don't have much in common. She's 2 months younger and 10 pounds heavier so the ladies call her "Pork Chop". Pork Chop can't sit up and just sort of rolls around, so Ellie spends her days with Simon, Tanner, Cooper, and Grayson. She's not going to know what to do when she graduates to the toddler room in a few months and there are little girls everywhere. She takes her "class photo" tomorrow and I can't wait to get that up on the blog.

We had a really nice weekend. On Friday night, Lee and I went to dinner with Elizabeth. We ate at one of our favorite sushi places and Ellie didn't make a peep the whole time we were there. On Saturday, Ellie had a swim lesson and then I worked out while she stayed in the kids place. I really wanted to get something to wear to Jenny's wedding shower so all of us went shopping in the afternoon. It was there that I overheard the #1 thing I don't like to hear while I'm shopping: from the woman in the dressing room next to me to the salesgirl ,"Excuse me - this size two is a little big. Could you bring me a zero?". And while you're at it, could you please bring me a tent? Seriously - they should round up all the people who wear a size zero and make them shop someplace else.

As I said, Jenny had a wedding shower on Saturday night and it was really nice. Roger Staubach was there because he's a friend of the family. Since Lee grew up in Dallas in the 1970's, he was a huge fan. Staubach was sort of a football god around here. I can't remember any athletes I idolized as a kid. I liked Mary Lou Retton because she's from my dad's hometown and I liked Troy Aikman because I thought he was cute, but that was about it. Anyway, Ol' Rog was there and Lee refused to take a picture with him. I was going to walk by and casually snap one for the blog, but was afraid I was going to get busted. Roger seems pretty nice so I doubt he would have gone all Sean Penn on me and stomped my camera, but still that may have been annoying for him. Maybe he'll be at Jenny's wedding so Lee can take his 8X10 glossy for an autograph then.



Something weird did happen at the party, however. The hostess had a buffet of Mexican food set up in the dining room. I made a plate, walked out of the room, stopped, and looked back over my shoulder to see if Lee was following me. I heard, "Oh my gosh! This looks so yummy!", and turned my head back around to see some random woman taking a taquito off my plate. I just stood there. As she went to bite it, a younger girl (found out later it was her daughter) screamed "WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!!!" The woman looked up at me, jumped as if I had scared the daylights out of her and threw the taquito back down on the plate. "Well, go ahead and take it now", I said. Then she freaked out and ran off saying "no, no, no - I'm sorry - sorry, sorry!". I can't figure out if she thought I was wait staff or what.

I hit some after Christmas sales on Sunday and got Ellie a few outfits from my favorite kids store, Janie and Jack. I got CUTE stuff for next fall and winter. It looks huge because it's for 18-24 months, but I guess that's how big she'll be. Hard to imagine.

Stay tuned for the next blog because I will have a full Van Halen report for everyone!! That's right - it's this weekend and we are e-x-c-i-t-e-d.

Cowboys Downfall

his is really making me laugh today. I don't know if any of you have seen the movie Downfall, but it's a movie about the last 48 hours of Hitler's life and it takes place in his bunker. I think it was nominated for an academy award for best foreign film. Anyway, someone got creative after the Cowboys lost to the Giants....

Click here.

Bye, Bye Pink Eye

So I've been a little off my blogging game. But I'm still trying to keep up with that New Year's resolution which was to blog at least once a week. I don't like waiting until almost the next weekend to blog because I almost forget everything that happened the weekend before. But of course I could not forget what happened last weekend because Ellie came down with pink eye. Pink eye. I mean really - what the hell else could she pick up? She's just one lice infestation and a ringworm attack away from a white trash infection trifecta. When I picked her up from day care on Thursday her eyes were all gunky and got worse on Friday. She stayed in the isolation room on Friday and went to the doctor that afternoon. Sure enough - conjunctivitis. They also weighed her and even though she is eight months now, she's still not back up to what she weighed at six months before she got sick. The doctor isn't concerned because she is gaining back the weight - it's just slow. She had to miss her swimming lesson on Saturday because the doctor said the chlorine would have irritated her eyes.

Ellie's big trick now is that she can wave bye bye. She does it all the time - in the car, to random people she sees in the grocery store, and even while she's eating. As I was putting her to bed tonight, she was still waving bye bye. And the look on her face is so funny. It's like, "Oh my gosh! My hand is moving! Look at that! I'm making it move!". Lee and I think it's the best trick ever. We never get sick of it. I think I've told everyone at work five times so they might be sick of it. She's so smart. She's still not officially crawling, but she can move. She'll dig her elbows into the ground and pull forward. She can get onto her hands and knees, but can't move out of that position.

I'm a little disappointed that I only took one picture in the last week. That's absolutely poor. But I didn't really want to take any pictures of Ellie because she looked like Dom Woganowski out of There's Something About Mary. Lee and I went to the Terps Ball and President's dinner on Saturday night while my parents babysat and that's where I took my one picture with my sister-in-law (and Ellie's godmother) Elizabeth:



We did make good on my other resolution which was to get out more. It was so beautiful this weekend that we were able to take Ellie on two long walks. It got so cold today though. I've been used to the the 70's, but I don't think it made it out of the 30's all day today. I try to keep a hat on Ellie, but she rips it right off. More pictures this weekend for sure!

My life in Dilbert

I usually stay away from work stories on the blog, but this made me laugh. In order to be more "green", my company ordered everybody in the company (over 1500 plus I'm sure a few for clients) green coffee mugs. The idea is that we'll use the coffee mug to replace the all of the styrofoam coffee cups we keep throwing into the landfills.

About 2 hours after I got mine, we received a message telling us to return the coffee mugs because the paint on them contains dangerously high levels of lead (the official word is that the printing was not as high quality as they would like, but I tried to scratch it off with a knife and it wouldn't come off so I'm saying lead). Now they're going to "recycle" all of these mugs. And yes, they are made in China.

The 2008 Resolutions

“Another year, another chance”. That was the saying I saw written on a church’s message board when I was driving last week. I thought that was a really good way to look at the new year – another chance for me to be my best and make it a great year.

Here are some of my resolutions:

1. Quit obsessing about how much weight I need to loose.
2. Loose the last 10 pounds by April 1.
DAMN IT – See #1
3. Be outside more and inside less.

4. Blog at least once a week (I would say twice, but I don't think that's going to happen).

5. Stay in better contact with friends and family members through phone calls and e-mail.

Ellie’s resolutions are:

1. Quit getting upset when mom leaves the room.
2. Learn to crawl.
3. Willfully eat solid foods.
4. Sleep through the night – every night.
5. Learn to swim…

And that’s what she did this weekend! Ellie can check off Resolution #5 because she had her first swimming lesson on Saturday and loved it. I thought she might like the water because she has so much fun splashing during her bath, and I was right. She kicked and splashed around and even stuck her face in the water by herself three times. I don’t know if she meant to do it, but she didn’t mind it. At the end of the lesson, the instructor told me she thought Ellie had done well enough for me to dunk her. So I did and she didn’t cry at all. I think she was a little shocked, but she was back to smiling in a few seconds. The best part about swimming is that Ellie went home and took a two hour nap. We’ll be continuing lessons through February. I think it's really important to introduce kids to the water early so they don't freak out later.

While Ellie napped, I boxed up all of our Christmas decorations and then I made good on my Resolution #3 by taking Ellie outside to play in the yard because the weather was so nice this weekend. She’s constantly grabbing the leaves and grass and shoving them in her mouth so I have to watch that. When Lee got home from working, we went on a long walk. She’s thisclose to crawling. She’s scooting around, but just can’t coordinate her arm and leg movement. Other big news is she’s officially cutting her first tooth. It’s on the bottom left side. She’s drooling all over herself and will chew on anything you give her. She didn’t have anything to chew on during her walk on Saturday so she took off her sock and gnawed that. It stayed really nice on Sunday so took a picnic lunch to the park.

She was getting a little spoiled (I know – spoiled? Ellie? Never) at bedtime because I was getting her to go to sleep before I put her in the crib. If she would wake up, I would pick her up and rock her back to sleep. After I did that for an hour one night, I told myself things were going to have to change. So now if she wakes up when I’m putting her down, she’s has to get herself back to sleep. Last night that took about 30 minutes. I go in and pat her and tell her it’s okay at 15 minute intervals, but I hate hearing her cry so we just turn up the TV. Just kidding. She also woke up twice last night, but got herself back to sleep both times and we didn't have to go in there. I think some of that may be her teething because I had to give her some Tylenol on Friday night to get her back to sleep. But the way... as you can see on the right, Ellie can hold her own bottle now. Holding her own bottle + drinking formula = very happy mommy.

Ellie actually is doing a little better with the solids and ate about ½ jar of peas and ½ jar of bananas on Sunday. My hope that she does continually better on her Resolution #3 and we have less faces like this when she eats:

By the way, my friend Whitney just started her own blog, so send her some love!

2007 Wrap Up

I can't believe it's the last day of 2007. I can't even remember what we did for last New Year's Eve, but I imagine that since I was pregnant it involved no alcohol and lots of sleeping. We spent this new years eve at home again... hitting the town on NYE just doesn't sound as fun as it once did (especially since you're pretty much required to stay up until midnight). For those of you who have been following along, I've been downloading all of my blog entries into a book that I'm going to have printed. So you could look at this post as the last page of my first blog book.

Christmas was a big whirlwind of activity. I'd like to say it was "fun", but I think a better way to describe it would be "hectic". And I don't like saying that. Christmas should be about Jesus, family, and friends and not be a giant headache, but there's just so much stress that it creates. Next year, I'd like to to it totally different, but it will probably be the same. Wears. Me. Out.

Our holiday weekend started off with the arrival of Mimi and Judy, Lee's grandmother and aunt, from Chattanooga. Lee and Ellie picked them up from the airport while I stayed home and wrapped gifts. We had a family Christmas dinner with Lee's family and my family on Sunday after a brief power outage that nearly sent the party packing to our house. For Christmas Eve, we went to 6:00 services with Lee's family and then went back to his parents house to open gifts. This meant that Ellie didn't get to bed until after 10:00 so she was sort of cranky on Christmas. Amidst all of this, Mimi got really, really sick (with Ellie's previous ailment) and had to be taken to the emergency room around midnight on Christmas Eve because she couldn't keep anything down. She's doing much better now. Elizabeth, Tee, and Beth all came down with it on Christmas Day. Luckily, we avoided round two of stomach bug hell.

On Christmas, we woke up, ate blueberry waffles, and then opened gifts. Lee gave me a necklace and a wallet and he got VAN HALEN tickets. Woo hoo! That's right - we're going to rock our socks off at the January 26th show. I also made him a photo book of Ellie and gave him Seasons 1 and 2 of It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia on DVD. If you haven't seen that show, it's completely ridiculous and hilarious. After the celebration at our house, we went to my parents house for more presents and Christmas dinner. That's where Ellie received her favorite gift.

Ellie got a big red wagon. I don't know how she knew it was hers, but she squealed when she saw it and was totally tickled when she got to ride around in it. You can tell by looking at the picture that she loves it. I made my parents calendars on Shutterfly, which seemed to be a big hit.

In Ellie news, she has not eaten solid food since December 12. That's when she first got sick with her sore throat and then came down with the stomach flu. It kills me, because she was really liking solid food and now we're back to square one. I try every night to get her to eat oatmeal or veggies and nothing. She sits there with her lips pursed trying to keep every bit of it out of her mouth. She can actually cry with her mouth closed now (which is what she does when she gets tired of me trying to feed her). The doctor told me to keep trying and she'll eventually like it again. However, the good news is that she takes formula now. You know what this means? Good-bye boob and no more pumping! I'm so excited. I have a little guilt about it, but it's just getting too difficult. I'm still nursing her morning, noon and night so at least she's getting some of the good stuff. Her mid-morning, mid-afternoon, and evening feedings are formula. I think that making it 7 months and 2 weeks without buying any formula is pretty good!

So that's the end of our 2007 story. I wanted to end this post by reminiscing about what I'll remember most about 2007, but after the blur of pregnancy, the only thing I can think of is Ellie. Our family was so blessed this year with the her addition that I can't imagine that anything in 2008 could top it.

Bad Hair Day

Let me just warn everyone - this whole post is TMI.

Disgust. Awe. Shock. Grossness. Those might be a few words to describe the events that transpired this weekend. Ellie was better on Friday afternoon, but just as soon as she got over the sore throat, she came down with a whole new kind of sick. I knew that Ellie was having a little tummy trouble on Saturday because she threw up once and smelled like she'd been drinking Mexican tap water. But she slept through the night on Saturday night with no problems, so on Sunday morning, we packed it up and went to breakfast at one of our usual spots. This is where things went horribly wrong.

As we were sitting waiting for our food, Lee was holding Ellie and said ," I think she's pooping". I looked up and it was coming out the back up her diaper and had gone through to her top. Not a huge problem because I always have a backup outfit with me (ever since the Parkland experience). The bathroom was the one-person kind (thank God) and had a little changing table that folded out from the wall. As I took off her pants, I realized that I was not dealing with a regular bowel movement. This was diarrhea. I opened my package of wipes and saw that I had 6. I needed 25.

I got Ellie's "southern hemisphere" cleaned up and then sat her up to pull her "Bad Hair Day" onesie over her head. So much poop had come out the back of the diaper than when I pulled the shirt over her head, it smeared all over her back, into her armpits, and all over her hair. I have one wipe left. I have a naked shit-covered baby and a wipe the size of a kleenex. I think Ellie sensed that she really was having a bad hair day because she started screaming. At this point, I just froze. Literally, my brain could not process what to do. Do I open the door to the bathroom with screaming naked shit-covered baby and yell for help?

I told myself to settle down, took her over to the sink, and started giving her a bath. She didn't like that and started screaming more. I hate hearing her cry so I picked her up and tried to comfort her when I realized that she wasn't done going to the bathroom. Evidence of this was all over me. Oh God. I took her back over the the changing area, got a diaper on her and put her in the backup outfit which I've had in the bag for 4 months so it was a three-month size and wouldn't snap between Ellie's legs. But it had to do. I cleaned myself up and walked back to the table.

"How'd it go in there?", Lee asked. "Well, let's see. She has diarrhea, I have crap on me, I only had six wipes but I needed 80, and her backup outfit is way too small". "Wow. Sounds like we came a little unprepared". Remain calm. Seriously - how do you prepare for that? HOW? I needed a fire hose and a bucket of soap. But the fun didn't stop there. I was holding her waiting for my food and handed her off to Lee only to see that the back of her outfit had poop all over it again. AGAIN. Just as much as before it that's possible. Check please.

As the adage goes, "There's more where that came from." And there was - only this time it was from me. Around 6:30 P.M., I started to feel a little uneasy in my stomach and sure enough - I was having Ellie's problem. Around 7PM, I started to feel really, really, really bad and knew that I was going to have to throw up. So I went into the bathroom, got ready and the next thing I knew, I heard Lee screaming, "I'm calling 911!! Tiffany! Tiffany!". Good Lord. What the hell is going on? I then realized that I had passed out on our bathroom floor. Out cold. I'm pretty sure I just fainted, but if you ask Lee, he'll tell you that I "slipped into a coma". That is the worst stomach flu I've ever had in my life. Ever. I couldn't even stand up in the shower. And Lee gets husband of the year for his cleanup skills.

So that was our Sunday. Just a regular old Sunday. Needless to say, I've had my hands a little full. Ellie and I stayed home on Monday and I took her to the doctor again. In 5 days, she lost one pound so she's back down to 16 pounds. We're both doing a lot better and Ellie is keeping most everything down, but is still a little queasy. The doctor said it can take 3-5 days for a baby to fully recover from a stomach virus. Poor Lee. I'm surprised that he came home from work on Monday. I think he's still shell shocked from all of the bodily fluids that he saw on Sunday.

As for the rest of the weekend, we met our friends Cooper, Stephanie, and Danny on Friday night for dinner and went to the Calyx party on Saturday night (see picture of Lee and I below that could have been so wonderful if he hadn't been sticking his tongue in my ear). I can't remember what I did the rest of the weekend because I am so scarred by the events of Sunday. I can tell you what I didn't do though - finish Christmas shopping or wrap a single gift. So it seems that I will be at the mall with the millions of other shoppers this weekend.

I probably won't post again until after Christmas, I hope everyone is filled with the Spirit and has a wonderful holiday (and if you're visiting the Bright Spot for the first time because you just received a Christmas card with our web address, I swear not all of the posts are like this). Merry Christmas!

Ellie and Santa

I was so excited when I got home last night because Ellie's pictures with Santa came in the mail! Most Santas creep me out because they've got that big, fake, white beard, but this one looked really good. Apparently Ellie thought so too. And I got 75% of my Christmas cards addressed last night. Take that back - I slapped labels on 75% of my cards last night. For those of you out there still hand addressing Christmas cards... there is an easier way and it's called Avery Labels size 8160. Just search "Labels" in Microsoft Word and it'll show you how. I know it's sort of impersonal, but it saves me like 8 hours. Anyway, getting the cards out is huge because I was seriously starting to think that people weren't going to receive them until Valentine's Day. Now I just have to finish shopping and wrap everything. Uuuuggggghhhh....

Party, Party, Party

I'm finally able to blog again because I'm home from work today with a sick kiddo. Last night, Ellie didn't have much interest in eating and was uncharacteristically cranky so I took her temperature and it was 100.8. This morning it was 101.8 so we went to the doctor as early as possible. She has a sore throat. Apparently she has some virus that is going around so the doctor told me to give her Tylenol for the pain and pedialyte if she's not eating. She's been sleeping most of the day.

Poor thing probably got sick because she had quite a busy social schedule this weekend. So of course Ellie started of the weekend with a bang - literally - by falling forward onto the floor at daycare and bopping her head. When I picked her up, she had a big purple knot just above her left eye on her forehead. So I called her "bruiser" the whole weekend. It doesn't look that bad, but I think there will be more falls in the future for her since she's getting to that point where she's trying to crawl and pull up, but she's still very clumsy. She's really fine... I just wanted my baby to be bruise free when everyone saw her this weekend.

We finally got all of the Christmas decorations on Friday night. No longer a Christmas bush, our tree is lit and fully festive. And yes, it leans. I should have leaned when I took the picture to make it look like it was straight. But then I guess the ceiling would have looked crooked. Lee is not a big fan of Christmas tunes, but he humored me and turned on the Christmas XM station while we decorated. Ellie was right there with us. This conversation occurred while trimming the tree:

Lee: Smell my finger.

Me: No.

Lee: Seriously - smell my finger.

Me. No. I don't want to smell your finger.

Lee: Don't you trust me?

Me: thinking ... this must be another one of his Jedi mind tricks.

His finger smelled of lush evergreen. Apparently Mr. Smellmyfinger had come across some sap. Who knows what it'll smell like next time.

On Saturday, the whole family headed to the Meyerson to see "Deck the Hall", a children's Christmas concert. They had a local high school symphony play and then Joe McDermott sang. He had songs about riding on elevators and roller coasters and being a cowboy so all of the kids were jumping around and dancing. Ellie was a little young to do that, but she watched the activity on the stage the whole time. She also had her picture take with Santa and loved it. She sat on his lap and smiled a huge smile while they took the pictures. They're going to send it to us within 10 days so I'll scan it when I get it and post it.

That night, Lee and I went to a party hat one of his friends was having and then out for some sushi. Beth (B.B) took care of Ellie for us and I think that Ellie was pretty good. While we were at the party, one of the ladies we met gave us her daughter's babysitting business card (she's 14 and she has a business card) so I may call her in the future if I need someone for a few hours.

Katy had her annual ladies Christmas luncheon on Sunday so Ellie attended. Her sister's son, Jaydon, was there along with Leslie's daughter, Grace. Unknown to them, they provided exceptional entertainment by sitting together on the sofa while we took their pictures. That night, we had the last of our weekend parties with the play group of our church's mother's association. All very fun. I need to get on the ball this upcoming weekend and wrap some gifts... I can't believe that Christmas is only 12 days away. Next year my plan is to get everything bought and wrapped by Dec.1 so I can make December about family instead of stressing about gifts. We'll see how that works out...

She's in print too!

Ellie made my company newsletter. Top right. But I really didn't need to point her out to you because you could just look for the best looking baby and you'd easily find her. That one right in the middle is making me laugh because he looks like a linebacker.

I hope that we'll be able to finally trim the tree tonight. No - we have to trim the tree tonight because we have four parties this weekend. We got the tree on Tuesday night and it's just been sitting there in our living room like a sad little bush. I'm so behind... we still have the "fall" decorations outside. You wouldn't think it would be hard for me to switch out wreaths and throw up some garland, but for some reason, it is. Hopefully I'll have pictures of our lit and decorated tree in next week's post.

Hope everyone has a good weekend!

While dad is away...

Ellie and I had another weekend all to ourselves while Lee hunted. Two of his friends, Ronnie and Matt, flew in from Chattanooga to hunt and I felt really bad for Lee because the day before he left, he came down with a stomach virus that lasted the entire weekend. Things got so bad that his dad had to call in a prescription. But it sounds like everyone had fun and they delivered 44 pounds of deer meat for processing on Sunday at Kuby's. He's feeling better, but now I have a cold again.


So what did Ellie and I do this weekend? Whenever Lee is gone, I take advantage of our Netflix subscription to order a girl movie. So I rented High School Musical. That's right - High School Musical. Because apparently Katy and Leslie were unavailable to go to the mall, make mix tapes, highlight each others hair, and prank call Cory Lapinski until 2AM in the morning. I had to rent to to see what all of the fuss was about. And you know what? I loved it. It was so dorky that I loved it. Not crazy about Zac Efron because I think he's a little girly so I couldn't believe he was a basketball stud, but other than that it was great.



On Saturday, Ellie and I met my parents at Southlake Town Square to shop. I had never been there before and it's very pretty all lit up for the holidays. It's still sort of a whip to shop though because even though I have like 5 pounds to loose, that equates to about 2 inches in my waist because my muscles are all stretched out. So I feel like a big cow when I shop. Anyway, I am still now where I need to be on my Christmas shopping for anyone so I really need to step up my shopping game this weekend and next.

After Southlake, we headed back to their house for dinner. I love going to their house at Christmas because it's always perfectly decorated like it was when I was growing up. All of the same ornaments and everything. That was the life - when my mom and dad would do 95% of the decorations and then I could just hang the ornaments on the tree. Because that is the best part. Now it takes us the better part of the weekend and it's work. As you can see, they had some reindeer antlers for Ellie, which I found out later were actually made for dogs, but who knows the difference.



Ellie and I made it to church on Sunday and she's getting to be quite a handful. You can't leave her in her carrier anymore, but she can't just sit there in the pew, so you have to hold her the whole time. Luckily, we had a luncheon to attend afterwards so everyone wanted to hold her there. It was tough not having my hubby around to hand her off to! As you can see, Ellie was all dressed up in a green velvet dress with plaid bow and silver bracelet. That's my fancy little girl. The dress has quite a few layers under it so she was not amused when I first put her in it. The good news is that I got our Christmas card photo made and ordered it on Sunday night. This means that everyone will get their cards before Christmas. I was debating if it should be just Ellie or all three of us. But then I figured that everyone knows what we look like and would probably rather see Ellie.

We got our tree tonight and we'll be decorating so we'll be decorating this week. I can't wait for Ellie to see it all lit up. She was interested in the decorations at the luncheon and grabbing all of the trees in the lot tonight so I'll have to keep an eye on her. In other Ellie news, she started peas this weekend and likes them quite a bit. We're starting to add sweet potatoes too. And she's rolling all over the place front to back. Last week, one of the ladies at day care said, "She's always so joyful". And I think that's the best way to describe her. Joyful.

Thanksgiving 2007

What a great Thanksgiving weekend! We got to spend time with family, watch a lot of football, and relax. It was a good time to do it since the Arctic Circle moved through the Metroplex on Wednesday afternoon. Burrr! We spent Thanksgiving Day at the Bright's house in Dallas. It's so nice that my parents are close enough so that both of our families can celebrate together. The Brights, the Rogers, and David and Lissa were all there for the feast. We had the traditional Greenburg turkey with all of the trimmings and watched the Cowboys go 10-1. While I was watching the game, I noticed it was snowing at the game and all of the sudden I realized that the Cowboys were playing a home game. I looked outside and sure enough, it was snowing. Not much, but a little. Ellie was so good all day. Even with her routine totally disrupted, she didn't cry of even get fussy once.

On Friday, Mike came over to watch his alma matter, Arkansas, beat #1 LSU and also to watch my Aggies beat Texas for the second year in a row. It got pretty rowdy at the Bright residence - partly because of all of the outstanding football and partly because a couple of wine bottles were opened. Then on Friday, Lee watched the Vols beat Kentucky in triple overtime and HP won their playoff game and my high school won their playoff game to go to the state finals. So we were very happy football fans this weekend.

I said I wasn't going go go shopping, but I wound up hitting Grapevine Mills with Beth on Saturday afternoon along with the rest of Dallas. Ellie already has two Christmas outfits, but Beth found two more party dresses that Ellie had to have. So now Ellie has four Christmas dresses. I'm going to have to find more parties to take her to so she can wear them all. We have our first party this weekend... now I just need to find something to wear! After the big shopping day, my parents baby sat so Lee and I could meet Elizabeth and Ned for dinner and watch No Country for Old Men. If you're looking for an uplifting magical holiday movie, this was pretty much the opposite of that. Lots of blood, but it was good. Javier Bardem wins the award for creepiest creepy guy.

Ellie has come a long way since last week when she adamantly opposed to the introduction of rice cereal. I fed her tonight and she actually opened her mouth every time she saw the spoon coming. I'd say she ate about 1/3 cup of cereal. I'm going to stick with the rice cereal for a few more days and then try out the peas I bought this weekend. I think all of these solid foods have done a number on her stomach because she's a little backed up right now. On the bright side, she didn't blow through an outfit at day care today. I won't go so far as to say that Ellie has said her first word, but she's started saying "ma-ma". Right now I think it's just babble but it's a start. And she so squirmy now. I really have to be careful because she jerks around to look at what a noise was or to grab something on her changing table. She's gotten very active and my prediction is that she'll be crawling by Christmas. Guess we need to start baby proofing!

Getting into the Spirit

Hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving. I'm still working on my latest blog from the long weekend. If you're a fan of Christmas music and you're stuck at a computer all day (like me), you may like the following site:

Mix 102.9 Christmas Music

It's free streaming Christmas music and they're playing some pretty good songs with no interruptions. Enjoy!

Rice Cereal and the 6 month checkup

If Ellie's first experience with rice cereal could best be expressed by one picture, it would be this:

She almost looks ticked off. As you can see, she's not a big fan of eating solid foods. We had quite the production on Saturday night. Lee was videotaping her first bites and simultaneously taking pictures while I tried to get Ellie to open her mouth so I could shove in a bite of cereal. She didn't eat that much and wound up throwing up at 4am. The next night she ate a little more, but woke up every hour. On Monday night, I switched to an organic rice cereal and she only woke up once so maybe she didn't like the Gerber. Tonight she ate the most that she's eaten so far, so we'll see what happens. She's started to figure out that after I put the food in her mouth, if she makes a raspberry sound, it'll fly out of her mouth and all over me. I can't wait until we start the green foods.

We went to the doctor today for her six month shots and Ellie received another good report card. Her growth is starting to slow a little, which is fine because for a while she was consistently in the 95th percentile for height and I thought she was going to wind up a WNBA player. Tall is good, but really tall makes you taller than all of the boys in eighth grade and nobody wants to ask you to dance because you make all of the guys feel like midgets so you're stuck dancing with that semi-tall guy from math class who who draws mythical creatures in the margins his paper all period. Not that that's ever happened to me. I'm just saying it could and I don't want it to happen to Ellie. Now Ellie is 15 pounds and 11 ounces (50th percentile) and 26.5 inches (75th percentile). She got all of the normal shots plus her flu shot. She's getting so much better when they give her the shots now. She only cried for about 10 seconds and then stopped. I only cried for about 3 seconds.

As for the rest of the weekend, my office had our annual Thanksgiving party on Friday so all of my co-workers got to see Ellie. I don't think they'd seen her since late August, so she had changed quite a bit. We went to another Highland Park game on Friday night. It was a little chilly so we had Ellie all bundled up. HP won against Frisco so they play again this weekend in Tyler. I think it must be the regional championship? We haven't decided it we'll go to that one. On Saturday, Ellie made our usual run to Target, watched the Vols almost loose to Vandy, and then hit a wine bar. Because that's how she rolls. On Sunday it was church, mall and then Cowboys game. I also finally got Ellie's closet in order.

I am SO excited that I have a four day weekend this weekend. We really don't have anything planned, but I can tell you right now, I'm not going to be at the mall. When we were there this past weekend, it wasn't that bad, but if I can do it and if I need to, I'm going to try to hit the mall after work instead of on the weekends. Christmas shopping is such a whip. I've already ordered some stuff on-line... maybe I'll get the rest there too. After all - free shipping. Who knows what the rest of the weekend holds, but I'm guessing I'll eat way too much on Thanksgiving. Last year was nice because I had my maternity pants on so there was a lot of give. Speaking of elastic waist bands... I had been slacking off on the Weight Watchers so I went back tonight. I thought I'd gained, but I had lost and I'm actually only 6 pounds away from my "WW" goal and nine pounds from my overall goal. I don't think I'm going to get there by Christmas, but I think I can get there by mid-February. I'm bringing the heat in the new year. Hope everyone has a great Turkey Day. Gobble till you wobble!

Happy six month birthday, Ellie!

Our little Ellie Belly is six months today! I can't believe it. Here she is today at daycare. It's been cold lately so I sent her to daycare in long pants and a long shirt. As you can see, she wasn't wearing that when I went to visit at lunch. She blew through that so they put her in a long-sleeved one piece outfit. But she's not wearing that either. She's in the backup backup outfit. Some days I don't even know why I put a diaper on her.