Happy Halloween!

WARNING: The following images contain high levels of cuteness and may not be appropriate for women of childbearing age.

When it comes down to deciding what to be for Halloween, Ellie gave it much thought...


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A pumpkin...


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Or maybe a flower...


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Perhaps a pea in a pod...


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Heck no! I'm an octopus!


What do you mean an octopus doesn't need to hold its breath? I'm under water, aren't I?


I know all about being an octopus, like I know an octopus eats fish! I'm good at that!

Black is not the new pink

I bought Ellie a cute black shirt with pink and silver flowers and butterflies on it. It's adorable, as all baby clothes are, but I chose it because I liked the fact that it wasn't your standard pink baby clothing.

I learned my lesson. Black is not meant to be worn by infants. Infants spit up much more than I ever gave them credit for. Apparently such spit up conveniently rubs into and disappears on pink clothing, but no such luck on black.

Maybe there's actually a scientific reason for pink and blue being the main colors for baby clothing... those specialists must know these things already.

Milk - it does the body good

At my dentist appointment (the first since Ellie was born) the dental hygienist was surprised to see how good I looked and commented on the weight I've lost since having the baby (other than the "well duh" weight). I proudly admitted that I am now 5 pounds less than what I was when I first got pregnant.

I've always known that breast feeding would be good for my body, but I thought it would stop at the weight.

Moving on to start the dental portion of my dental appointment, she discovered that the mysterious staining on my teeth had disappeared. Six months ago she had written that I had "moderate" staining even though we couldn't figure out why because at the time I wasn't drinking tea because of the pregnancy. Now I drink 3-5 cups of dark tea a day. Go figure.

Continuing with the fun, she says my gums are healthier too. Whoo hoo! However, I stopped flossing once the baby was born. Go figure.

So in the end she looked at me in confusion and said "well I guess my advice is keep drinking the tea and don't floss."

Maybe, just maybe* it is because I'm breast feeding. Really, you should give it a try sometime.


* Probably not

Yesterday's Lesson

Hahaha... Oh man, you guys. You have no idea how horribly sad and yet so funny yesterday was. Ellie was pooping up a storm, but it was the first time that she had big-girl poop. Every time she needed to go, she would go through the following steps:

1. Tense the entire body
2. Concentrate
3. Squinch up the face
4. Hold breath
5. Push against anything within reach
6. Turn bright red
7. Start to cry
8. Release the tension
9. Cry some more
10. Hug Mommy to recover

Today's Lesson*

Today Baby Ellie is learning about constipation. Hopefully, if all goes well, we will also learn about prunes. Fun.

This lesson has been brought to you by the number 2.

How rude!

Last Sunday Ellie found her tongue. And by that I mean she discovered that not only could she lick the inside of her mouth but she could also lick the outside of her mouth. All day long she had her tongue sticking out. When a stranger would approach her and say "oh, you're such a cutie" her response was to stick her tongue out at the newcomer. I swear my baby isn't being rude, she's just saying "look what I can do!"

As for me, I couldn't stop laughing. She seemed so incredibly proud of her tongue. She would stick it out and then when she noticed someone paying attention to her, she'd get this proud look on her face and stick it out with more confidence. She got a real kick out of it when Mommy stuck her own tongue out in response. It turned out to be a whole family adventure.

Since she spent the majority of the day with her tongue on the outside of her mouth, I couldn't quite tell if she was copying me when I did it first or not. If so, it would be the first REAL sign of her trying to immitate me.

We have a plan

Last Friday we were talking about how we should decide exactly what we're going to do for sleep training now that Ellie is 6 months old. After some discussion, we came to the following plan:

1. Continue what we're doing (feeding and soothing every time she wakes) for one week.

2. In the mean time we're going to try to feed the baby more often in hopes of making sure she gets enough food during the day.

3. Starting next Friday we will only feed her once when she wakes at 1:00 AM or later. Other than that, she needs to put herself back to sleep.

So Friday we went to bed all confident in our decision and our plan.

Friday night she slept until 1:00 AM. Then she ate and slept all the way until 7:00.

Huh. Maybe she heard us talking about the plan.

Saturday night she slept until 5:30 AM. Yes. You heard me right. 5:30 AM !!!! Then she ate and slept until 7:15.

Huh. Does she not know that we were planning on starting the sleep training next week? But way to be ahead of the game, Baby!

Can you imagine anything sadder?

I was telling a friend of mine about how heart breaking it is to see Ellie look at me when she was getting 6 month shots as though she was saying "Why Mommy? Why are they doing this to me?"

She told me about how her daughter got sick when she was young (around the time that she started talking, so I think 1ish??) and they had to draw blood from her. Apparently she was moving around so much that the nurses had to put the needle in many times. In the end, both her parents were holding her down on the table and she was crying "Mommy! Daddy! All done! All done! Bye-bye! All done!"

OH MY GOD. How horrible is that? Just the thought of Ellie going through and saying something like that brings tears to my eyes.

A Great Day

Today we went to another pumpkin patch with Ellie. This time, though, we didn't really go for the pumpkin pictures (just wait until you see how cute those are!!). We just went for the pumpkin festival. We were nervous about it because the farm is a ways away, but it ended up being a perfect day. Ellie slept the hour out there, we stayed for over 3 hours and she slept the hour back. She's one exhausted baby! All in all, it ended up being just about a perfect day for the family.

I'm posting pictures because one of the things that made today so great (besides for the wonderful weather and just all-around beautiful setting) was Ellie's hat. Let's face it, it's not your typical baby hat... but I loved it from the moment I saw it. Our friend made it for us, and I wanted her to know just how many comments we got on it. Everyone loved her hat! We were told that it was the cutest hat on the cutest baby. I love seeing how people think she's cute from afar (meaning they don't actually tell me, but I still see their reactions), and we must have had at least a dozen people actually come up to us and comment on it.

I know it's petty of me, but I love it when people think my baby is so cute! So, thanks Cheryl for helping us have a wonderful day! You should really try to do more of this stuff.

With technology these days...

Every time we go to the pediatrician I can't help but wonder why, in this day and age of over-engineered cup holders and piece-of-$#!+ vacuums, they can't come up with a better way to weigh babies. All it would take would be to have a padded scale - you could zero out the weight of the padding. Or, better yet, why not measure the weight of the parents holding the baby and then again when they're not holding her? Anything would be better than the bare piece of metal they place her on (ok, ok, they are kind of enough to place a single paper towel under her, but still)!!!

P.S. Our 6-month check-up went well. 6 MONTHS!!! Let me repeat that once more in hopes of having it sink in... 6 MONTHS. Nope. That didn't work.