Olympic Fever

It's an interesting phenomenon to me that every four years sports suddenly become very interesting to me. Normally, if I were flipping channels and came across, say, women's biathlon, I probably wouldn't linger more than a few seconds. Just long enough to get the gist; ski, ski, ski, stop, whip out a rifle, shoot at some small targets really far away, get penalized for each one you miss, then ski, ski ski some more. According to one of the commentators, men's biathlon in the Netherlands is the equivalent to the Super Bowl here. The weirdos.

Somehow, though, if it's for the Olympics, I find it all mesmerizing. I think it's the drama of it all. Every single one seems to either be the first to do something, be making some kind of record, or have some sort of huge travesty they've overcome. It's the only kind of reality TV I indulge in, and this year we are hooked.

I also find the commentators rather amusing. After awhile it seems like they run out of things to say about the event and even the athletes, but they seem conscious of the whole world tuning in and somehow have to fill the dead air. Poor guys. How much is there really to say about the ski jump? My favorite so far was during one of the qualifying ski jump events. During a lull one of the commentators spoke up, "You know, it's actually a pretty easy sport . . ." I'm sure that was pretty comforting to the guys who didn't qualify.

Brady has been teaching Ellie all kinds of important life lessons while we watch. Like how disappointed silver-medalists' parents really are in them, or that we don't cheer for Russian skater Evgeni Plushenko because "he wants to kill Harrison Ford in the movies."

He's also begun her training. We tried a little with ice skating her on the living room floor, and she shows some promise with trying to ski jump off my lap. Below is their prep for the luge. We've since added the boppy pillow as sled. On a good day of training, they get those floors pretty clean.

Three Months

Ellie hit the three month mark last Wed. I have to admit, it wasn't quite the magical day everyone assured us it would be; I was imagining that the stars would all align just right, the windchill factor would be just so, and our little Ellie would just fall into a nice little contented routine. Still lots of fussiness, though; still lots of bouncing on the exercise ball; still lots of difficult feedings. Most of it is thanks to the reflux, I think, which the doctor said she would likely outgrow by 6-9 months. In the meantime, she is actually getting herself onto a pretty good routine for eating, the medicine is helping some, and she is taking longer, if unpredictable naps. Considering how uncomfortable she is, I think she is doing really well most of the time, actually.

I was so close to catching a real smile on camera this time.

Just missed it.

This month she has been out and about more too, not just sleeping through whatever errands we run, but wanting to be up and look around at everyone and everything. Yesterday at the grocery store Brady was carrying her, strapped in the jeep carrier (like a baby bjorn). Everyone kept commenting about our little boy. I guess they ignored the purple, flowery sweater I put on her. I know everyone has stories like this, and most of the time it doesn't bother me. Today, though, I decided there would be no mistaking. Nice frilly dress for church. Tights. Shiny black shoes. The works. Shortly after the meeting started a little girl on the bench behind us pointed to Ellie and asked her mom, "Is that a girl?" I sighed and hung my head in defeat.

We thought maybe it was her baldness that was throwing everyone. So we are experimenting with some different hairstyles for her:



It is a little awkward to carry her like this all the time, though. I think I may have to cave and get her some of those huge headbands with giant bows on them. I'll teach those 5-year-old girls in our ward not to confuse the gender of my baby!

The Gift of Tongues

So church was canceled today due to the inclement weather. We got some snow this weekend, and as this city is not set up to handle the snow, the whole town pretty much shuts down. Thursday night the snow hadn't even started yet--we didn't even get any small flurries until late Friday afternoon--but they announced that all the schools in this and surrounding counties were closed for the next day. The mere mention of snow gets people skittish.

Anyway, it seemed like a good day to hang out in pajamas and cuddle up and stay warm (it has been cold, I'll give them that). I thought I would do a better post today, more about Ellie, less about all her accumulated stuff. (sigh.) She gets more and more smiley when we play with her. I was trying so hard to get a picture of her smiling. Instead, I kept getting pictures that look like this:

It's Ellie's new favorite game. For the last couple of weeks, this has been a big part of play time. She has always liked to play with her tongue. Now she does it socially. She usually initiates, sticking her tongue out at you. If you respond in kind, the game is on, back and forth sometimes for several minutes. Last weekend I asked Brady if he ever though this is how he would pass a Saturday night, sticking out his tongue at a baby over and over. She smiles really big when we copy her, though, and it's pretty hard to resist. I was glad she didn't try to play during church last week.


It's even hard to resist at 6:00 a.m., changing her diaper (for some reason the changing table is one of the best places to play). I'm secretly hoping she'll just go back to sleep, and she's just awake enough to give me one of these:

Shy, subtle, trying to pull me in. It's like refusing a little puppy. I think we need to get her set up with a mirror.

Also, not as relevant to the post, but here's another picture I took the other day. I realized that since I am usually the one with the camera, we don't have many pictures of me with Ellie. This was my attempt at a self-portrait of the two of us. Her expression in this one cracks me up.

Just Sitting Around

So the bad news is Ellie has reflux. Poor kid. Each feeding time is a bit of an adventure, to say the least. We've figured out a few tricks to help her, one of which is to keep her upright for a while after she eats. Most of the time she falls asleep while she eats, which means sitting and holding her vertical while she digests a bit (I know, apparently I am fostering all kinds of sleep disorders by letting her fall asleep with feeding and then sometimes holding her while she sleeps and she will grow up to be an emotional wreck and probably a drug dealer--according to all the expert books--but she is keeping her food down better and she can sleep without feeding or having me hold her and does so for about 7 hours a night, so take that experts). Anyway, we thought it would be helpful to keep her upright more while she is awake too, and since I can't sit and hold her all day we thought we'd look for one of those infant chairs since she seems to like sitting up.

We were going to get one of these:

But then we saw THIS:


The Deluxe Ultra Super Sonic Saucer Sitter XL 3000. Okay, that's not what it's really called, but it looks like it should have a name like that. It's actually the same price as the "bumbo" chairs with trays, and this one comes with all the toys, etc. All kinds of fun.

Ellie seems to like it, though she's still working up the neck strength to stay in it for a really long time. So I guess it's a good solution. The toys aren't annoying, no loud music or flashing lights. Seems win-win. But somehow I still can't help feeling like I've been succored every time we buy some kind of baby gear. Unless it's books or clothes, maybe some small, simple toys, I feel like we're just accumulating more stuff. We've done a good job of getting great deals. Consignment sales, craigslist, etc. Just about everything Ellie owns is second-hand (although we didn't hold back when it came to the car seat). This seat is also new, but after I called the consignment stores around here and looked for deals online, this ended up only being a few dollars more than we would have gotten used. We haven't bought anything that hasn't been really useful so far. But still, I can't help feeling like we're getting a little bogged down. How did the pioneers do it before exersaucers and Baby Einstein? (we haven't bought those yet . . .)

P.S. Don't know why this picture is sideways. it worked on my computer.

Africa Ears

The inside of Ellie's ears looks like Africa. Or at least the right one. I guess the left one is more South America-like, in the direction it faces.

I don't know what this proves, evolutionarily speaking, but I take it as a good omen. And, Mom, I promise we don't call our baby "Africa ears."

Now before I get trouble from any mortified grandparents, here is a cute Ellie picture.

A little blurry and the top of her head git cropped, but she's something of a movig target at times, especially tummy times.

Two Down . . .

Ellie turned two months old last Sunday. For those who still keep track in weeks, she is 9.75 weeks now. Not sure when we transition to just counting in months and years instead of weeks. Also for those keeping track, Brady turned 1,620 weeks today, which everyone knows is a major milestone. Not only is he sleeping through the night well now, but he's such a good napper too. We're very proud. (I realize this has pretty much turned into an Ellie blog. I need to think of stuff about us to update once in a while, though let's be honest, who are you all really coming to see here anyway?)

We had quite a difficult time getting a good picture that day. This one does not hold still, so most of the pictures turned out blurry.

This is one of her new toys, Clarence (he's an "Ellie"-phant--get it?). We named him Clarence because he plays "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" and it sounds just like the music for the angel on It's A Wonderful Life.

We have a hard time capturing any smiles on camera. The nurses at her doctors appointments always ask if she has a social smile. I think she kind of has more of an anti-social smile. She will smile really big at us and then when we get all excited and smile back or laugh, she clams up. She's very noncommittal with her smiles. (*Note: the nurses also always ask if she stare at things I dangle in her face, which always seems like a weird question to me and I want to remind them that she is a child and not a cat. I usually tell them she just bats the yarn away when I try to give it to her.) Anyway, for the grandmas, here is a clip of a bit of smiling since we can't get a still photo very well.

Some highlights of month two include meeting another grandpa:

and another grandma:

Passing inspection:

(which, of course, she did)

She also got to meet two uncles:

Out to eat with Uncle Andrew.

Bouncing with Uncle Sam.

And then there was Christmas:

Ellie was stoked to get a couple of new toys and books.

Some other fun activities this month:

Cooing and playing to get out of whatever she doesn't want to do (like finish eating).

Helping Daddy workout. I think if I could sleep through exercise, I would probably do it more often.

Then there is her own workout routine. Probably Ellie's favorite game now is to do sit-ups. Probably trying to keep that girlish figure of hers: 11 lb 6 oz now and over 21 inches. She has been doing these sit-ups since the day she was born and lately gets the biggest kick out of it. One day I was just holding her hands, trying to warm them up and she started straining to lift her head and shoulders. So with just a little help she will sit up and loves to just look around, pretty satisfied with herself. This video is after she had been doing it for about 15 minutes, so she was a little worn out, but you get the idea.

A Clean Start

Ellie has finally learned to like bath time. She stays calm even after her bath when we are getting her dried, lotioned, and dressed. A big part of that is because Brady thinks it's really funny to give her little drops of water from the filter on the sink. She loves it and starts "rooting" for it as soon as she's wrapped up in her towel.


She's pretty pleased with herself. This is the happy tongue-clicking she does.



So at least one of us got a bath and change of clothes for the new year. Since she's the only one really ready for the new year, she's the only one really setting any resolutions. Top of the list: growing some hair.

Hope everyone is having a great new year!