Foor family visit

We got a visit from our good friends the Foors last weekend. Andy, Michelle, Matthew and Nicolas stopped by on their way from SC to IL on Saturday. I reconnected with Andy and Michelle (friends from high school) when we first moved to Lafayette. We hung out all the time until they moved out of town at the start of 2009. But we still stay in touch, and Ellie was very excited to meet her good friends!Matthew has always been a big fan of Brian. He's just goofy enough :)

And Brian and I could not believe how much little Nic had grown. I met him when he was less than one week old... and now he's this 2-year-old bundle of energy. What a cutie.

And Michelle is so great with kids. I've relied on her for advice with Ellie. It was so great for she and Andy to finally get in a visit with our rapidly growing girl!

Chubs McGee

I can joke around and give Ellie a nickname like that right now, because she's so little and perfect. I promise I won't give her a body image problem later in life!
But I forgot to update that we learned her current weight at the doctor's appointment Monday. She's up to 16 lbs, 8 oz! Ellie has officially doubled her birth weight, she's wearing some ginormous size 3 diapers and fitting into a whole lot of 6-12 mo clothes... where is our little baby?

Of course, there are advantages to her growth. We saw one of them last night when she slept 11.5 hours straight! I woke up this morning and realized it was after 6:30 a.m. and I hadn't gotten my usual 4:30 wake-up call from Ellie. My first thought was: she's not breathing. But then Brian said he'd heard her playing with the caterpillar on the side of her crib about an hour earlier. I guess her big, full belly carried her through the whole night. What a present to get more than 8 hours of sleep in a row. Of course, she's teased us before with these long sleeping stretches... so I'm not counting on it for too long, but maybe we'll get a few more extended sleep nights on vacation next week. We'll see.

Moms night

I got some dedicated "me" time last night when I went out with my friend Lia to get pedicures. We both had gift certificates — and awesome husbands who were willing to babysit while we went in for some pampering and mom-talk! Ellie got to play with Lia and Mike's son Colin. I love these pictures Mike took. You can see in the first one that Colin is checking out his new lady friend... and then he decides to make a sly attempt at hand-holding. Ellie's already got the boys lining up :) Although Colin is almost three months younger than Ellie, so I wonder if that makes her a cougar?
I had so much fun getting out with Lia, too. We joked as we were picking out nail polish at the salon: "Hmm, what color do we want to hide under our socks for the next couple months...?" But our outing wasn't as much about giving our toenails the royal treatment as it was about having uninterrupted time to talk. There are many things that are hard for people who aren't new moms to understand. And it's great for us to realize we're dealing with similar challenges and triumphs with the kiddos.
There's no "off" switch for this motherhood gig. And while I'm happy to have Ellie consume 99.9 percent of my life, it was nice to carve our those two hours for me.

Bad to worse

Ellie is having a rough go this week.
On top of the ear infection, she's managed to put some major gauges in her cheek. I took a picture of the damage when I visited her at lunch today. Her nails/talons will be trimmed tonight! And the antibiotics she's on are giving her runny, frequent bowel movements — which seem to be causing her first diaper rash. Poor baby.
At least we figured out a way to get her medicine down. We're mixing it into small bottles (so that she finishes the whole thing and gets all her medicine). It's a little weird feeding her pink liquid twice each day. But we're calling it her "strawberry milk." And after making a weird face about it the first time, she doesn't seem to mind anymore.
I suppose one good thing in all this is that she's not acting super sick. She's happy and smiling still most of the time. (Yes, it's possible this ear infection is worrying me more than Ellie... I just hate to see so many problems thrown her way all at once.) Let's hope this whole thing stops getting worse and starts heading the other direction!

Ouchy ear

Ellie has an ear infection.
I wasn't sure if that was "good news" from the doctor, after we took her in Monday thinking she had pink eye. I'm not sure yet how child illnesses rank... but from what I've read about the contagiousness of pink eye, I'd think the day care workers would prefer she have an ear infection.

So, Ellie woke up Sunday with a whole lot of crustiness on her eye lashes. We wiped it away and didn't think too much of it that morning because Ellie was still her normal, happy self. By late afternoon, though, she was very fussy and almost nothing could make her happy. We noticed her eyes looked a little pink and started to get suspicious. When "the crust" was on her eyes again Monday morning, I called the doctor and made her an appointment.
After a quick exam the doctor said no pink eye, but found an infection in her right ear. Poor baby.

And then the three adults in the room did something that definitely should qualify us for doctor/parents-of-the-year recognition.... Ellie's doctor gave her the wooden tongue depressor to play with after her exam. We all laughed as Ellie flailed it around and then threw it. We gave it back to her, Brian jokingly warning her NOT to poke herself in the eye with it.
Can anyone guess what happened next?
I was holding her and saw her arm jerk up toward her face... and the depressor went straight into her eye! She gasped, had a long wind-up and then started crying. I'm glad the stick had rounded ends... but why were we letting her play with it?! If she didn't have pink enough eyes coming into the doctor, she sure left with one. Poor Ellie.

Her eye is fine. But now we're trying to get rid of that ear infection. Ellie has to take "the pink medicine" twice a day for the next 10 days. I was excited for her first bubble gum medicine, remembering how much I liked the stuff when I was a kid. But when the first drop of it hit her mouth yesterday, she made a disgusted face and immediately spit it back out. I waited for reinforcements and when Brian got home we tried to give her the medicine again. I'm hoping at least 80 percent of the stuff went down the hatch... but she's definitely not a fan. This morning, Brian mixed it with a small bottle and got her to take it that way. But the antibiotics must not be kicking in yet because she's cried almost all morning :( The lead teacher in her room at school finally called me and asked for permission to give her children's Tylenol. I said yes, of course. I visited her a little while ago at lunch and she seemed to be doing a little better. I hope she gets some rest, though, because she only slept about 10 minutes this morning.
I hate it when Ellie doesn't feel well. I just hope her immune system is getting all ramped up and she'll have a healthy spell soon!

5 months

We can't believe our tiny baby Ellie turned five months old today!

As you can see, she can sit in her highchair now... not that she needs to... but it's very cute and she looks so little in it! I've had a combination of sadness and excitement as Ellie hits milestones -- well, things like graduating to the next size of diapers or clothes :) I am proud as she grows and learns new things, but hate to see the baby in her fading. Good thing she'll always be our baby... sorry, one-day-will-be-16-year-old Ellie. That's just the way it is.We had such a fun, long weekend at home with Ellie. It was nice not to travel or take her to day care. We played A LOT!

Here's Ellie's top 10 list of favorite things at the ripe old age of five months:

1. Smiling, especially at daddy's silliness.

2.Drooling. Yup, she's always got the waterworks going.

3. Grabbing everything she can... Her favorites are hair and burp cloths.

4. Putting everything in her mouth, including hair and burp cloths. If she can't fit it in her mouth, she settles for licking it. Brian and I have both found this one out the hard way :)

5. Getting thrown in the air. This is a new favorite game we play with her, carefully!

6. Exersaucer!

7. Tummy time. She's doing it more than ever and even smiles sometimes. I think her rolling over is coming any day now.

8. Playing with friends at "school." She always has more fun on the floor (and on her tummy) when other kids are around for her to watch.

9. Sticking out her tongue.

10. Her THUMB!

Sorry this post is so long... But here's our last family picture from 2009! Two out of the three of us stayed up until midnight to ring in the new year with our friends Ben and Janet. We're so excited to see what Ellie has in store for us in 2010.

Congrats Nuttersons!

We're so excited that Rob and Mary Anderson, aka the Nuttersons, welcomed a 6-pound, 10-ounce daughter on New Years Day! Mom and baby were doing great when I talked Mary.
And we can't wait to meet Rosalie Martha!! I foresee a great friendship in Ellie's future :)