ONE!

It's been a week and a half since Ellie turned one.


Time seems to be going faster these days.


A while ago someone in our ward asked how old Ellie was. When I told her about 11 months, she asked, with a bit of a knowing look, "Has it gone soooo fast?"


I think I might have disappointed her when I answered, "No. Not really."


It has actually been quite a long, rough year. Well worth it, to be sure. But quite a hard year with reflux and all that goes along with it, Brady's internship, cross-country moves, etc., etc.


I worry that when I mention the difficulties we had with reflux, people might think we are complaining or that we don't like our baby or something. Just perusing these pictures, who couldn't adore this little girl? We absolutely love Ellie to pieces and would do it all over again if we had to just to have her. There are so many things that could have been more difficult than reflux. As much difficulty as she did have, she has every right to be a grumpy, cranky baby. But she is so happy and excited about life, she's just fun to be around. And thankfully, reflux is something she has outgrown. I hereby declare reflux over! This birthday was quite a milestone for all of us.


We had a small party to celebrate our mutual triumph.


Ellie caught onto the idea of presents pretty quickly.


I got this teddy bear at a consignment sale and then made a dress and bow for it. Ellie doesn't have a lot of girly toys. Being the first granddaughter on this side of the family in about ten years, Ellie has had a lot opportunity to play with dinosaurs, trains, and cars Grandma has collected over the years. So this was my attempt to give Ellie a touch of the feminine.

Mostly she just pokes the bear's eyes and nose and then goes back to the orange monster truck she was pushing around. She's not much of a cuddler.

On her birthday Brady made a pound cake and lemon curd to spread on it. Because that's what every one-year-old wants to eat. Brady is trying to refine Ellie's pallet.


Later we had a party with more family and had the traditional first birthday chocolate mess, which Ellie also loved.


And finally, here she is modeling the dress that Brady's parents sent to her. I love it. I think Ellie does to, though she hasn't said so outright.


Sometimes I am completely in awe of this little girl--that she already is becoming a little girl, her own little person with separate thoughts and personality from my own. There are moments I wish I had captured (I know, hard to believe that I missed any based on all the pictures in this post--congratulations to anyone who has made it this far; sometimes I go on a binge and take a million pictures, and sometimes I forget all about cameras and want to experience Ellie face-to-face, not through the view finder of the camcorder). I miss the little "game" she made up last summer, yelling into a little cup "ha, ha, HAAAA," then handing it to me to do the same, back and forth. Or when she would crawl up to where the sun shone through onto the carpet and try to pick up the sunbeams. It was a rough year, but lots of good moments in there too. We can't wait to see what she has waiting for us in the next year.

Berry Picking Time

I overcame my Halloween malaise of last year for Ellie's sake. For Ellie, Halloween meant so much.

It meant putting up with funny hats your parents put on you


if that's what it takes to finally get out of the house after being cooped up all week with a cough.


It meant getting to see cousins and comparing costumes.


It meant tasty treats, of which she had more than any child under the age of one should have.


It meant going out in public to parties and stores and restaurants


and letting strangers dote on her cuteness.


But mostly it meant way too many pictures. "Seriously, Mom?" I may have turned her off to the holiday too.


Poor kid.

11 Months

Last Sunday Ellie hit the 11-month mark. Here is the best shot I got from that photo shoot.



Here's a sampling of how the rest of the shoot went.











Needless to say, this kid is still always on the go. One of the big highlights of this last month was a trip to Utah to visit family and friends. For some reason, I only managed to pull the camera out once the whole trip, so I missed a lot of good photo ops. Luckily, I managed to sneak a couple good photos of the Utah cousins.





Ellie has discovered that one of the best things about traveling, other than getting to see more cousins and friends, is getting to play with other people's toys. She was not shy about this.



Other developments this month: learning "pat-a-cake," learning to stand unassisted (at times, when she doesn't realize she's doing it), and most importantly, sleeping through the night by herself! I seriously had started to think we would have to go with her to college, swaddle her at night, and sing and bounce her to sleep. I thought we'd never be able to overcome all the hard stuff reflux brought with it for sleeping time. But to Ellie's credit, she learned pretty quickly and is finally sleeping like a baby--in a good way.

Everyone's a Critic

Lately, Ellie just devours books (I took a picture of Ellie chewing on one of her books to insert here which would have made this line hilarious, but the picture didn't turn out). She definitely has her favorites, distinct tastes in which books pass for story time and which don't. She seems to prefer the subtle sophistication of Goodnight Moon over the more crass Goodnight Gorilla, though lighter fare such as Boynton's Belly Button Book! or Sesame Street's Bubbles, Bubbles is certainly not beneath her notice (given her parents' occasional ventures into pop lit, who can blame her for a little guilty pleasure reading now and then?--we never did finish that book, for the record). I'm not sure how much any of these books are really developing her intellect, though. Her basic, formalist approach to most books is both obvious and lacking depth by privileging form over social context. I find her Marxist critique of Hippos Go Berserk a bit of a stretch, claiming that it is the nine proletariat hippos who "come to work" that incite all the hippos to "go berserk," thus leading to the eventual departure of said hippos and demise of the one, leaving him, in the end, alienated and "alone once more." However, I do think her postcolonial take on Curious George is spot on. (Sometimes I miss being in school. Just sometimes.)

Turns out, as wiggly as Ellie is most of the time, the one thing she will hold still for (other than eating ice cream) is a good book. She loves when we read to her. Ever since she was tiny, this has been a soothing activity for her. Sometimes we'll do a solid half hour of reading before she wriggles down to go do something else. She loves to point at and pat the pages, and she anticipates when the good parts are coming and starts smiling and laughing a page early and trying to turn the page to get to it. Sometimes the pages of her board books are stuck together because she gives slobbery "kisses" to her favorite pages.




The best is bedtime stories with Daddy, though. She is quite a daddy's girl lately, and loves when he reads to her, especially since he does better voices than I do most of the time. Sometimes Brady will read the same book three times in a row because he want to try a different accent each time. We've discovered that Sean Connery is the best voice for "Hickory, Dickory, Dock," and that there is no one quite so reassuring to Little Bo Peep that those sheep will come home than James Earl Jones. It's probably not the most conventional way to get a kid to bed, but at this point, we'll take what we can get.

At the Zoo

Ellie took her first trip to the zoo last weekend with some of her cousins. She was very well behaved, but somehow it was hard to get a 10-month-old very excited about seeing the animals.

Kind of so-so on the "wallaby walkabout."

Pretty apathetic when it comes to lions.

A little embarrassed by Daddy at the petting zoo.

Penguins? Meh.

Cousin Jared tried to explain the exciting attributes of penguins to Ellie.

Not even Gracie could get Ellie excited about penguins, though.

Okay, giraffes are pretty cool.

And Isaac does make a good gorilla . . .

But Ellie's favorite seems to be people watching, waving to Grandma and Hannah over Daddy's shoulder.

She was definitely excited about sharing Daddy's milkshake after the zoo.

Or sharing anyone else's milkshake, for that matter.

She seems much more interested in people than animals right now and is likely going to be our little social butterfly.

She seemed to have a pretty good time, despite her lack of interest in the animals. She was so good we just might have to take her again sometime.

10 months

This month Ellie did not particularly want to hold still for her picture. Here's a little how that photo shoot went:

"Maybe if I act really cute they will let me have that sign"

"Now . . . LUNGE--grab the sign!"

"I WILL have the sign."

"What? You don't like it my way?"

"Fine. We'll do one your way. Happy?"

It went downhill from there, as did the quality and readability of the sign in the pictures. This kid does not like to hold still. Some apt descriptions we've collected from family member who have tried to hold Ellie: "It's like trying to hold a tornado," or "It's like holding a fish while you're trying to get the hook out to throw it back," and I believe I already mentioned her nickname, "Ricochet." She certainly is on the go a lot.

Here she is showing us where exactly we need to baby proof in the kitchen.

And here she is playing with her favorite toy in the family room. The walker is helpful for keeping her upright after feedings and we thought she would have fun with it. She does, but mostly climbing up to it and pushing it across the room.

Here is a video of one her favorite activities, climbing stairs. It's a good way to get her worn out right before a nap.

Incidentally, the "Floppy Dog" we keep referring to is a the stuffed dog we are encouraging her to become attached to in hopes that she will sleep better on her own at night. She's been getting better, but this whole move across the country really threw her and she hasn't quite slept the same since. So Floppy Dog does a lot with Ellie lately. I don't know how well it's going to work, though. I remember making all her toys do "tummy time" with her about five or six months ago and she didn't seem too impressed.

Other highlights this month: learning to wave, clicking her tongue, and getting a little more adventurous with food (which isn't easy with only two teeth). She hasn't really said any words besides "cracker" consistently (and sometimes she calls Brady that instead of Daddy), though now and then it sounds like she says a word. But she doesn't let lack of vocabulary stop her from giving us a running jabbering commentary of her day. I get the feeling that once she has the words, she's going to have quite a bit to tell us.

Sick and tired--and that really hurts

We are all sick, sick, sick around here. Being sick is usually not high on people's lists of "fun things to do," but after being sick with a baby, I've become almost nostalgic for those sick days of years past. Being sick with a kid is hard for two reasons; one, you have a kid to take care of while you are feeling crummy, and two, you likely have a sick kid to take care of who probably gave you the bug in the first place. At times I can't help but think how luxurious it would be to just burrow in to a big down comforter, sleep 14 hours a day, spend all the other hours reading a good book or watching good movies on the laptop and just reveling in the misery of a good head cold. But now there's this little, squirmy baby who is just as sick as I am, who needs to sleep 14 hours or more a day to get better, but can't seem to. Her baby voice is hoarse and deeper from congestion. And then there's that little cough that sounds so much worse during pre-dawn hours and that just makes your heart ache a little when you hear it. Being sick with a sick kid is terrible.

Ellie still manages to be happy most of the time, in spite of how miserable she sounds, but everything has been harder with this cold. Teething, sleeping, eating, taking a bottle. Poor kid. Sometimes it just gets too hard to cheer up enough to even eat. Sometimes, anything that can get your baby to perk up is worth it. Hence, Charlie, below. This video never fails to cheer Ellie up. I don't know if it's seeing someone else in a little pain or not, but her whole face lights up whenever we play it. Sometimes over and over again. And when she really needs it, she will settle in and finish a bottle or eat a little food. Totally worth it. It's probably one of those bad habits we will have to help her get over soon, but in the meantime, I can't help but smile too when I overhear this video playing from the other room. Hope it makes you all feel a little better too. I'll get more Ellie pics and video posted when we're better.

*I should also add, that being sick with a kid is a bit easier when you have Grandma close at hand to help out. Still sad, but easier.