Hello Seven

Yeah, Ellie is pretty stunned it's been seven months already too.

She's getting better and better at sitting up.

Until she starts kicking, reaching for something, or laughing.

Ellie regularly puts her foot in her mouth. She discovered her feet a couple months ago, and diaper changes have not been the same since. Sometimes I wish that was on the list of questions they always ask about development at the doctor's office. "Now, does she regularly try to eat her toes? Good. And what about her pacifier? Can she spit it a good yard or more? Excellent."

This has become part of Brady and Ellie's daily routine. He comes home and takes Ellie for a little guitar time. She loves it. Her favorites are sea shanties.

Then I break the spell by using the flash so you can see her face.

We also took Ellie for her first visit to the farmer's market this month. I got her all dressed up in overalls and a straw hat. And everyone called her a boy.

But she quite enjoyed herself anyway.

Lately, Ellie's favorite place to be is outside on our balcony. For some reason it is very soothing to her to sit out there and watch the cars go by. Sometimes she leans forward and yells at each one as it passes, which is hilarious. It has been getting quite hot, so we set up this as her "swimming pool." Our apartment complex managers decided not to open the pool this summer (!) to keep costs down. We were so excited to take Ellie swimming because she likes to splash so much in her bath. We'll have to take her somewhere else I guess.

But here she gets all her favorite things: outside, cars to yell at, and splashing.

Lot and lots of splashing.

Less excited about wrapping up in her robe afterward, so not the photo-op I had hoped for, but you get the idea.

Things are getting a bit better with her eating now. The doctor increased the dose of medicine and her reflux seems much better. So now we are working on getting some better eating habits now that she seems to not be in so much pain with feedings. Still a bit of a struggle, but things are looking up on that front. AND she has started to sleep better again. The last two nights were the first time in several weeks that I have had four or more consecutive hours of sleep. The one time she does wake me up in the night before her morning feeding she has just needed a pacifier and we both go right back to sleep. I don't know if it's the cold she's had lately that's made her so sleepy or if the medicine is finally helping with her sleep too, but whatever it is, I'll take it.

Chatterbox

Lately Ellie has become much more vocal. Of course, it is never when we are trying to get her to talk, like on the phone or during video chats with family. But sometimes she will go on and on, sometimes really loud. I sometimes wonder if she thinks she's really talking the way we are. It makes as much sense to us as we probably do to her. I know babies don't have much self-awareness, but sometimes I wonder if she realizes she's a baby, if she wonders why we don't use pacifiers, wear bibs, or cry when someone leaves the room. Or why we don't think it's as fun as she does to just lean back and kick our feet for hours on end. Although I think she assumes we do like all the same music and books she does since we listen to and read them over and over. And it appears to her that we get as much of a thrill out of peek-a-boo as she does. So maybe she does think we're all the same.

But I digress. This is a small sampling of Ellie's chatter. This is her quiet, just woke-up-when-she-wasn't-supposed-to-yet talk. Sometimes she does this in her sleep. If she does it when she's awake, I know I have little chance of getting her back to sleep. It's a trick she likes to whip out twenty minutes into a nap or around bedtime. I think she knows it's hard to resist. The best is when she's half-awake and sort of delirious. She'll go on and on like this, but seems almost a little drunk or something. We know we should be putting her to bed, but she's too entertaining, chattering and singing.



I think the wakeful pattern has resulted from being fed in her sleep--we've had to resort to that again since she's having so much trouble eating still. (We're taking her to a specialist on Monday, so hopefully things will improve there.) It's been a lot of work keeping this baby fed and getting her enough sleep, but then we get times like this and it just makes our day.

The Mother's Day Gift that Wasn't

The following is a very sad story.

We tried. We really, really tried. Some kind friends of ours took some lovely pictures of Ellie for us. First they agreed to babysit for us for our anniversary. Then when we showed up at the end of the night, the couple told us they had taken some pictures. Some fairly professional pictures at that. (I guess he had toyed with the idea of being a professional photographer at one point--next time we ask them to babysit, Ellie might "coincidentally" be in her best dress.) So they burned a CD of the pictures and gave me a copy. I thought I might just have time to get prints made and mailed off to grandmas for Mother's Day. I went and got prints made. 5 by 7s, 4 by 6s, wallet sizes. The works. They looked awful. They were cropped wrong, the coloring and shadows were off. The pictures were so pretty on my computer. So I called the store and they told me they would do an exchange for reprints. I tried again the next day. I got the reprints--a bit better this time. The next day I went to the post office. We were really cutting it close. All this took me clear to Thursday. I thought maybe if I did priority mail, maybe I would get them out on time. The post office closed half an hour early. This was not meant to be. Looking at the reprints again, I was glad I didn't send them. They still weren't great. So until I can find a place that will print these out and do them justice, Ellie's grandmas will have to enjoy the pictures online. Plus you can just choose which ones you want now, or I can send you a copy of the CD and you can just go crazy making you very own Ellie collage or something. Knock yourself out. Happy Mother's Day.


P.S. The black and white pictures can also be in color if you want.

and-a-half

Ellie turned 6 months on Monday. She's still having some hard times with feedings, but she really seems to be enjoying herself a lot of the time.
It was quite a feat to get a picture without her hands in her mouth. She has been teething for what feels like forever now. No teeth are popping through yet, but she will clamp down--hard--on anything she can get into her mouth. I have a bruise on my hand as evidence.

It's also really hard to get a picture without her tongue hanging out. Once those teeth do come in, she might be in for a bit of a surprise. She is turning into quite the ham. Sometimes it's hard to believe she's the same baby we brought home with us six months ago. She is turning into such a little person with a mind of her own. She is developing distinct preferences in music and literature. It's very clear when she likes a song or doesn't, and the leading contender right now for favorite book is The Belly Button Book (thanks again, Wrathalls) or any of the tiny Sesame Street books with Grover in them. Not much of an Elmo fan, but we can read those others over and over again.

See? She will bite anything close to her mouth. Seriously, after all this time, we better get half a dozen teeth breaking through and just not have to deal with it again for a while.

She's also been enjoying lots of time outside. And she is getting more and more fun to dress up. She actually wears whatever hats or headbands I put on her. She even leaves the sunglasses alone, which is good for the hot, sunny days we've been having.

Lots of dress up.

Lot and lots.

Apparently, this is Daddy's idea of dress up for her while I'm gone. Not entirely sure how this all came about, but I think he was trying to get her to stay asleep.

This is a picture mostly of the two of them trying to ignore me taking a picture. Ellie was having a really hard time one night with her teeth (or lack thereof--swollen painful gums, I should say). She really loves being outside. You can't tell in the picture, but we were having quite a spectacular rainstorm that night. So Brady pulled up a stool to the balcony door and they just sat there for a really long time watching the rain. She calmed right down and was pretty peaceful the rest of the night.

This post is already getting too long, but we haven't posted videos for the grandmas in a while. Ellie really loves seeing the videos our friends and family post on their blogs, and I realized we hadn't been taking any videos for quite a while. So here are a couple of Ellie on the changing table--her happiest place on earth. The first one is her favorite pass time, kicking. It makes it tricky to change a diaper sometimes. She will do this for as long as we let her.



The next one is Brady getting her to laugh. It's not the best sample of her laughing, but you get the idea. He usually gets her ready for bed at night while I rush around trying to tidy things up and get everything ready for bedtime and the next day. This is what I overhear. It's usually too irresistible for me to keep going with dishes or whatever and I have to come in and see.



So that's what we've been up to lately. Still no job yet and things are coming down to the wire with dissertation stuff for Brady, but we're hanging in there. Ellie seems to have more personality every day and gives us a reason to smile in spite of the nerve-wracking waiting and working. Kind of hard not to smile back at this.

Utah!

WARNING: Super long post (mostly due to overabundance of pictures) below.

Earlier this month we flew to Utah because Brady had some job interviews (fingers crossed!). The interviews were pretty intense, all-day ordeals. He had to do some teaching, present research, meet with university big-wigs, etc. He was pretty spent after all of it. I also discovered that vacationing as a mom is much less restful than it used to be.
Ellie, on the other hand, had a blast (she's wearing an outfit that is way too big for her, but it was the only chance she would have to wear it since it is already turning summer here, so by time she is that size it will be too hot outside to wear it). We actually had fun too, just got pretty worn out and needed several days of recovery time. Turns out, though, that Ellie is a pretty good traveler. We were anticipating horrific moments on airplanes, but she was actually pretty good about eating and sleeping during travel. Huge relief. No one explained time zones to her, though.

We haven't heard back about the jobs yet, though we did hear from one school that their search would be delayed until at least next week due to the volcano in Iceland. (?!) I don't get it either. Maybe it's like how about 12 years ago we all blamed everything on El Nino.

Anyway, we had a lot of fun seeing family and friends while we were in town.

We just had one night with all of Brady's family in town. This is his mom holding Ellie. Somehow we didn't get any pictures with his dad this time. I guess he was taking pictures too.

Grandma trying to hold all the new grand babies born since last April. You can see Ellie is mostly interested in eating her cousin's head.

Which she did.

Then we got all the cousins together. This is of course after about 2 dozen shots of kids rolling/crawling/walking out of the frame or crying or something, which are pretty funny to scroll through, but I won't make you all look at them all now.

Then just the three newest who couldn't get away.

Ages in this photo are 3 mos., 5 mos., and almost 8 weeks. Ellie is a giant.

Uncle Sam is having a hard time adjusting to not being the baby of the family anymore.

My parents also came in town to see (let's be honest) Ellie. She was thrilled to have such constant attention.
They had some pretty serious conversations.

Ellie is learning how to give kisses (read: slobber on your cheek) after you give her a kiss.

Grandma had the magic touch.

Meeting her good friend Marian. There is about an 8-month age gap here, though you wouldn't know it from this picture. It was very exciting for Ellie to finally meet this friend. Every time we read the stories she sent us, I remind Ellie that they are from her "good friend Marian." She also loaned us quite a few baby essentials while we were in town--thanks again, Marian (and her wonderful parents).
Showing Grandma her favorite dress.

Showing Mindy her tippy toes.

Laughing with Grandpa.

And finally we had to go home again. Passing some time in the Denver airport on a long layover.

All in all, the trip was a success (other than not hearing back on jobs yet . . .). Thanks to everyone who traveled to come see us, and big thanks to Mindy for turning her house into quite the bed and breakfast while we were there. We'll keep you all posted on what we hear--barring any drops in barometric pressure over Fiji or any inclement weather in Siberia.

All Our Ducks in a Row

We finally found a good reason to put Ellie in this duck outfit we got at a baby shower. Since we didn't have regular church meetings on Easter, we didn't bother with the big frilly Easter dress.
Sorry, I couldn't pick just one picture. Ellie is a pretty good sport. We had a really nice, quiet conference weekend. Brady was around a lot and got to spend a lot of time with Ellie.

Quality time. As you can see, they will both be reviewing the Saturday afternoon session together when next month's Ensign comes out. I think it's also worth noting who has most of the space on that beanbag. Not hard to see who's really in charge around here.

Also, Ellie turned 5 months old on Saturday. She's trying to be helpful here.

Very excited to be getting older (not sure why some of the pics are sideways, I fixed them before uploading them). We are very excited about this too. We hate to rush her, but we are excited for her to hopefully outgrow her reflux soon. I had heard about babies having reflux before, but I never knew how demanding it could be. I think we may be on the downhill slope of the battle, though. Ellie seems to be more comfortable and hasn't been fighting her feedings quite as much over the past few days. I'd read that reflux symptoms peak at 4 months, and several people have told us that by 6-9 months it clears up quite a bit. Fingers crossed.
For all the trouble that the reflux has been, though, we realize that it could be much worse. This is something she will likely outgrow soon, and in the meantime she does have so many happy times. She seems to be enjoying her life so far and is pretty playful most of the time. She loves being outside, sometimes even just going out on the balcony (as long as all the neighbors aren't outside smoking--ugh, that's a different post). She's been experimenting with her voice a lot lately, finding she can get our attention without crying (though that still seems to be the preferred method at times). Fake coughing and fake laughing are some of her favorites. She loves music, particularly They Might Be Giants' Here Come the 123s album. We got the DVD from Netflix and I don't know if we'll ever give it back (This is one of her favorites that we sing to her a lot). All in all, things seem to be going pretty well* for Ellie.
*Ask me again in a couple weeks after we've spent long hours in a few airports, flown across the country a couple times, and switched time zones back and forth to see if I feel the same way. More on that later.
A couple leftover pictures. This one is St. Patrick's Day.

This is a frilly dress that she loved wearing because she could play with the top layer and put it in her mouth. I guess you have to set priorities and standards in fashion somewhere.