My little girl

I feel like Ella is changing so much with each day. It's exciting, sad, and scary sort of all at once. Of course, it's exciting to see her growing and doing new things. Yet, it's somewhat sad that my little itty bitty baby is growing up. And definitely a little scary thinking that Ella may soon be crawling or walking around and getting into things. Right now it's pretty nice. Ella sits so well b herself with her bin of toys. She's perfectly content to play by herself and not go anywhere. :) However, lately she's been reaching for a LOT more out of her reach to the point where she ends up on her side or her tummy. So, perhaps she's no longer as content as she has been. She's also starting to pull herself to her feet when she sits in my lap! She's using her leap frog table to help pull herself up. My little girl!


Ella also continues to try new foods. I made and froze some more food for her and yesterday she tried avocado for the first time. Yes...we're having her eat things that even her mommy and daddy won't eat. :)

Grandma and grandpa M were up for the weekend and Ella just beams when she's with them. It's touching to see just how much they love her and how much she loves them as well. She even has this little shy thing going on where she giggles, smiles, and looks down when grandma M in particular, talks and plays with her. It's too cute. Ella (and the grandparents) had pretty much a permanent smile on her face all weekend long.



Who needs toys? Ella is often much more interested in my water bottle, cell phone, and camera. :)


Ella got two new books today! She couldn't wait to check them out. These are perfect for her - nice, sturdy board books - since she loves to grab the books and stick them in her mouth.

On a happier note...

We did manage to have some fun, prior to the peaches incident. I just finished the taggie blanket I worked oh so hard on for Ella last night, so I gave it to her today. (She's addicted to tags on all her stuffed animals/toys!) She spent some time sucking on the ribbons and seemed to like the pattern, so I think it was a success. She especially loved the polka dot ribbon her grandma picked out for her. Good choice grandma! Ella also had some fun playing with her leap frog musical table today, and I just love getting pictures of her backside. It's so cute, I couldn't resist!

I also began making my own babyfood tonight. Very exciting. I actually had a lot of fun as I made peaches and pears. (Wow...my life sounds so thrilling..haha. :)) Hopefully she'll love them!

Too many peaches

My poor little baby. This afternoon I packed her up to go to the hospital (I was going to get help with my breast issue..). In the elevator on the way up to meet with the LC, I looked in on her in her stroller and she had thrown up all over herself. It was horrible. The poor little thing was covered in peaches. I've never seen so much of it. Her clothes, the bundle-me, and her little elephant were all pretty soaked. The LCs were nice though, and helped me get her cleaned up and into a new change of clothes (compliments of the hospital!). Ella nursed great though after the terrible ordeal, and seemed almost back to her usual self. A nice lady in the elevator on the way up wanted to peek in on Ella. I told the lady she had gotten sick, but she looked anyway. Her response was "Oh, she's beautiful," and proceeded to talk to me about her. I thought it was very kind, considering she looked pretty gross all covered in peaches/throwup. Poor thing. The LCs really took to Ella, too. They kept saying what a pretty girl she was and were impressed with how well she nursed. They thought she was very sweet. (which of course she is!) I think, perhaps, she ate too much earlier today. :( She ate almost a whole container of peaches and 1/2 container of applesauce. I guess it was more than her little tummy could handle.

Overall, the whole peach incident was a lot harder on me than it was on Ella, I think. She didn't seem too fazed, but I was pretty upset, never having seen her throw up like that before. I worry so much about her, and seeing her covered in her own throwup just about broke my heart. I want to protect her from the bad stuff of the world, and this was just the tip of that iceberg. Though being a mommy is nowhere near easy in any sense of the word, I wouldn't trade it in for the world. Ella definitely has hold of my heart.

Here're a couple pictures from tonight, still in her hospital gown. She was tired and a bit cranky from today's ordeal, understandably.

Teething hell.

Today was somewhat of a hard day. Ella's teething is making her a bit cranky. So, here are some pictures to help me get through this! Hoping it won't last too much longer.
Giving Lucy a little lovin'.... someone's gotta! :)

Yep! She's teething!

This little face just melts my heart...

Mutual affection.

(You're my sister!?)

More prunes, please!

Ella has graduated to three meals a day as of today! She is such a great eater, I'm not completely sure where she came from. ;) She seems to like everything but green beans and peas. We'll keep working on those! This morning she had leftover peaches and pears and cereal with banana. I decided to offer her lunch a few hours later and she gobbled it up! I opened a container of prunes (or tar, as daddy calls it) planning on just giving her 1/3 or mabe 1/2 of it. Well! Ella went after the spoon with such vigor and gusto! She really couldn't get enough. She ended up finishing the whole container and was actually looking around a little for more. It was very cute. And, the prunes seem to be doing the trick as her poos are finally softening a bit. Yay for prunes! Tonight her daddy will reward her efforts with sweet potatoes (her absolute favorite!) and maybe try and get some sweet peas down her too...even if that means lacing them with sweet potatoes. :)

Ella was rubbing her eyes like crazy and getting so tired. I took her upstairs for a nap. This time I read If I Ran the Zoo. Dave and I picked up a few new Dr Seuss books over the weekend in hopes that we can get Ella to enjoy other books besides Fox in Socks and The Thinks You Can Think. We are both so totally Fox in Socked OUT! (reading it 4-5x/day was starting to make me crazy! Both Dave and I can recite most of the book by heart.) The book is like magic however. She can be all squirmy and grabby with one book, but when we start Fox in Socks she stops all the fussing! It's like a drug. She just loves it.

I'm listening to Ella on the monitor. She just fell asleep after "talking" (to her lamb, her elephant, her mobile..) for about 10 mins. Hopefully she'll get a good nap in and be well rested when she wakes.

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Ella's new car seat came the other day. Here's Ella inspecting (and tasting!) her new seat. I think she approved as a few minutes after these pics were taken she spit up on it. The seat is officially ours!!

Random thoughts

We've found another tooth pushing through! This second tooth is on the bottom right next to the other. Unfortunately there were some pretty bad biting incidents yesterday...but today was much, much better. I'm hoping it was just the fact that it was starting to push through and it's a passing thing. Ella also hasn't quite seemed herself lately, and again, I'm assuming it's the teeth coming in. So maybe she's hurting a little bit. :( My poor baby. And then last night was a little rough too as she woke at 4:30am and then again at 6:30 then again up for the day at 8:30.

On the upside of things, Ella's doing a great job standing! She's becoming so independent. We picked up a leapfrog musical table and she loves to stand and push the buttons, watch the lights flicker and listen to the music. It's hard to get her to sit down sometimes!

Yesterday I stopped at the Carter's store and bought Ella a bunch of clothes she probably doesn't need yet.. :) They had awesome sales so I couldn't pass it up. It's a bad addiction I have and the great sales didn't help me any. haha I swear she has more clothes than I do!

Here're a few pictures from today, practicing her standing!

A day of firsts!

Ella must be growing as she has been sleeping a lot lately. Last night she slept soundly from 8pm-7am then back to sleep from 7:30-8:30am. She fell asleep later in the morning nursing and is now taking an early afternoon nap. So sweet... :)

Well, we tried prunes today! It didn't go over that well. She made the most disgusted faces as if to say, "Mom, what IS this!?" She's been really constipated the last few days so I was really hoping she'd like the prunes. It was cute though. I handed her the spoon and she grabbed it and shoved it right into her mouth. She did it a few times, so maybe she just wanted to feed herself! Needless to say, she made a huge mess. Prunes were everywhere.

More news is that she finally rolled over onto her tummy this morning! She doesn't love being on her tummy so I'm not surprised this has taken as long as it has. We still practice every day. The problem was always her under arm getting stuck and not bring her top leg around to pull her self over. I help her by nudging up her under arm so it's sort of out of the way. After that she did all the work. Progress!! It was so sweet to watch her. Her face was contorted and twisted and turning pink as you could tell she was trying so very hard to get onto her tummy. She's done it now several times today already and I hardly even have to nudge her arm up. But she understands that to mean "Ok Ella time to roll onto your tummy" so it works. She doesn't stay very long though and just rolls back onto her back (she's VERY good at tummy-back now!).

Ella has loved to stand since she was around 2 months old. I had her standing today and she was holding onto her giraffe. I took my hands off her and she supported and balanced herself! That was another first. She seemed really pleased with herself too.

I can't wait until she starts crawling around, even though that'll mean more work for me. Right now though she seems just so content to sit on the floor and play with her toys, or lay on her back and play with her toys.

On another note entirely, I'm so proud of myself for making it with breastfeeding 7 months. I really hope to make it a year and I don't doubt I'll be sad to see it end. Through all the tears and mastitis and clogged ducts and just getting Ella to learn how to do it, (she got it just before she turned 4 wks old) I would do it all over again. It feels like a big accomplishment. I'm glad I didn't give up. Nursing is such a sweet and wonderful time. It melts my heart to look down at her with her eyes rolling all over. I can almost read her thoughts: "Ohhhh...this tastes sooooo goooood.." It is the sweetest thing in the world. Having her cuddled up to me is the best. In the beginning she used to nurse for an hour at a time. Now she goes 5-15 mins and it's often too quick for me.

I'm so proud of my little pumpkin. She's so wonderful. I think her daddy feels a little bad that he misses some of her firsts while he's at work. This is such an exciting and fun time. She makes us all so happy.