Saturday, April 30, 2011
Yep.
Friday, April 29, 2011
And so it Begins.
This is Elizabeth and her little buddy Lexi, sharing a little quality time with Sophie the giraffe. Originally, the two girls each had part of Sophie in their mouths, like Lady and the Tramp. Sophie really gets around. It's just cute to see them interacting. Lexi's mom Kristen and I came to our first mommy class on the same day - Ellie was 17 days old, Lexi was 27 days old. And now, they are both big sitting up girls, who babble to themselves in their own secret baby language. So fun! Technically, they are each other's oldest friend.
Tomorrow we're hosting a BBQ for all of the moms, dads and babies. Ellie can't wait to share drool with even more friends!
Thursday, April 28, 2011
Ellie Gets a Job.
We had a great afternoon out in Africa with Grandma and Grandpa. Went out to lunch, where she chewed on Sophie while the rest of us had delicious pasta, and then back to Grandpa's office to send out a few strongly worded emails.
Then we went back to Grandma and Grandpa's house to check out all of the great toys that Grandma has.
"Grandma, Sophie and I approve of your puppets. Those are great."
But we all know what she really liked
Yay big piano time!
We had such a fun, tiring time, that Ellie was asleep before I even made it on to the freeway. She's continued to sleep well at night lately, and this week has started falling asleep while having her last meal of the night AND staying asleep while being put in her crib. It used to be that Tim would snuggle and rock her for up to 30 minutes. Oh, how we've waited for this day. He's getting so much video game playing done! And me, I've read two whole books this week. Next thing you know, we'll be drinking wine and hosting chic parties or the like, with all of our free time in the evenings! Or you know, she'll go back to torturing us with her unwillingness to sleep. Such are babies.
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Monday, April 25, 2011
Monday.
We cruised the mall for a bit afterwards, then came home and took a nap and snuggled. When Tim came home we all had dinner together. Ellie totally slurped down her cereal, but when I put a spoonful of avocado in she totally gagged and spit it out. I get it kid. You don't like avocados. Fine with me - we used the rest of the avocado on our turkey sandwiches. Tomorrow, we'll try pears and see if that goes over better.
Here's what Tim and I do to entertain ourselves in the evening.
Sunday, April 24, 2011
Ellie's First Easter (in photos.)
Her daddy showed her a few tunes. He may be more excited about the piano than she is!
Then she took a two hour nap (not pictured. I should have taken a picture, because those kind of naps are a rarity.) When she got up, it was time to get dressed up!
Her vintage dress belonged to her Grams. Her ears are from the Target dollar bin.
Before we left, she needed a tiny bit more piano time. To get her practicing in, you know.
We went over to Grams and Gramps' house so they could see their little Easter bunny. Auntie Sara helped her say hey to her chicks. We also got to Skype with everyone in La Crosse, where Hailee was also rocking bunny ears!
She also got to play with some of her favorite toys on her dinoland playmat.
From there, it was off to Mike and Debbie's for Easter with the Ford Hoard. She spent most of the day with her Grandma, as expected. Here she is, taste testing her dress. She was a good girl, smiley and having fun. She did not however, take a nap while we were there, except for a few minutes in my lap while nursing.
So as you can imagine, she sacked our pretty hard on the way home. She ate and went straight to bed with no fussing. All in all, a great first Easter! Next year, she'll even be able to eat the party potatoes!
Friday, April 22, 2011
Just Pictures.
Thursday, April 21, 2011
Babbling Brook.
Someone's started to babble. And as you can hear, she's mostly saying "dadada," which means that when she wakes up at 1:30am, chatting because she's flipped on to her stomach, she CLEARLY wants Tim to get up and go help her, not me. SCORE.
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
Snoozer.
I also love when people say "just sleep when the baby sleeps." Noted. I will pull over on the freeway and go to sleep when she falls asleep in her car seat. Or maybe I'll cram myself into the stroller with her during walk time, just to get a few quick z's. The best I can currently hope for is that when she falls asleep in my lap nursing during the early afternoon, that I can get comfortable and drift off with her (because lord knows, she wakes up and screams the second I try to move her most days. It's easier to just sit and veg.)
All this to say... SHE SLEPT THROUGH THE NIGHT LAST NIGHT! There was a little fussing at 11pm, but then we didn't hear from her until almost 7. It was one of those things where we heard her over the monitor and looked at the clock and then looked at each other, like, "did she sleep? Did you get up with her last night? Did *I* get up with her last night?" And then she even napped during our walk (which to be honest, is a bigger deal to me than sleeping through the night. I can get up and feed her at night, on problem. It's when I've had a long night and then have to carry her on my walk that I want to give up on this whole deal. Mama needs a little quiet time.) I was sure that she was building up some baby karma to get back at me, but the whole day went smoothly! She didn't even poop through her diaper and on to my arm or anything! What a good little muffin.
Maybe she will do it again tonight.
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
Six Months!
Amongst other things, she has started babbling in the past few days. She's sitting up better every day, though we're not making much progress towards reliably rolling over. She's happy as a clam to hang out in her exersaucer for hours... err... minutes at a time, and can actually turn herself around in it to investigate what each of her items is up to. She's also finally gotten to a place where she'll amuse herself with her toys in the car, rather than just screaming the entire drive. Her favorite game is sticking her fingers in my mouth so that I can pretend to eat them loudly, and she's also started reaching for me. I am, of course, her favorite person in the entire universe.
We gave her some avocado to eat tonight. It went poorly. Most of it was spit out, and she looked angry at us for even insinuating that she would enjoy it. Elizabeth perplexes me. I never would have imagined that my child would turn down a meal. I am beginning to believe that maybe she's not mine. I mean, I didn't technically see them remove her from my abdomen - they just held her up over the curtain. Something to wonder about, I guess.
In Honor of Six Months Old.
“First, Lord: No tattoos. May neither Chinese symbol for truth nor Winnie-the-Pooh holding the FSU logo stain her tender haunches.
May she be Beautiful but not Damaged, for it’s the Damage that draws the creepy soccer coach’s eye, not the Beauty.
When the Crystal Meth is offered, may she remember the parents who cut her grapes in half And stick with Beer.
Guide her, protect her when crossing the street, stepping onto boats, swimming in the ocean, swimming in pools, walking near pools, standing on the subway platform, crossing 86th Street, stepping off of boats, using mall restrooms, getting on and off escalators, driving on country roads while arguing, leaning on large windows, walking in parking lots, riding Ferris wheels, roller-coasters, log flumes, or anything called “Hell Drop,” “Tower of Torture,” or “The Death Spiral Rock ‘N Zero G Roll featuring Aerosmith,” and standing on any kind of balcony ever, anywhere, at any age.
Lead her away from Acting but not all the way to Finance. Something where she can make her own hours but still feel intellectually fulfilled and get outside sometimes And not have to wear high heels. What would that be, Lord? Architecture? Midwifery? Golf course design? I’m asking You, because if I knew, I’d be doing it, Youdammit.
May she play the Drums to the fiery rhythm of her Own Heart with the sinewy strength of her Own Arms, so she need Not Lie With Drummers.
Grant her a Rough Patch from twelve to seventeen.Let her draw horses and be interested in Barbies for much too long, For childhood is short – a Tiger Flower blooming Magenta for one day – And adulthood is long and dry-humping in cars will wait.
O Lord, break the Internet forever, that she may be spared the misspelled invective of her peers And the online marketing campaign for Rape Hostel V: Girls Just Wanna Get Stabbed.
And when she one day turns on me and calls me a Bitch in front of Hollister, Give me the strength, Lord, to yank her directly into a cab in front of her friends, For I will not have that Shit. I will not have it.
And should she choose to be a Mother one day, be my eyes, Lord, that I may see her, lying on a blanket on the floor at 4:50 A.M., all-at-once exhausted, bored, and in love with the little creature whose poop is leaking up its back. “My mother did this for me once,” she will realize as she cleans feces off her baby’s neck. “My mother did this for me.” And the delayed gratitude will wash over her as it does each generation and she will make a Mental Note to call me. And she will forget. But I’ll know, because I peeped it with Your God eyes.
Amen.”
Monday, April 18, 2011
So Much To Say!
Let's start with the baby. She had her six month well baby checkup this morning. And true to form, she embarrassed me with her excrement at the doctors. You know how she is - she pees on the scale. She drops a load just as I'm about to take her diaper off to put her on the scale. And today, she blew through her outfit while in her carseat. I took her out because she was fussy, and was holding her while paying my copay, and thought to myself "how did you get drool on your back?" That's not drool Meg. That's poop. The office staff was like, "oh, do you have an outfit, do you have wipes?" Yes, I'm a mom. I have all of that. But since you can't put a poopy diaper in the trash at the doctors, I had to get a baggie so I could seal up her shame. It was an ugly, ugly mess.
Then I figured we'd only have a few minutes to wait before heading to the exam room, so I just kept her in her (new, clean) diaper. Turns out, we had to wait for a half hour, so I'm sure everyone else who came in thought I was some kind of yokel. I couldn't even afford cut off overalls for my baby!
But the visit went well. Elizabeth is 26 inches long, 17 lbs, 14.5 oz and in the 75th percentile across the board. The doctor encouraged us to start her on real solids but was impressed with her weight gain and good growth curve. I feel pretty proud that I'm part of the slim 13% of American women who are still exclusively nursing at the 6 month mark, and that she's thrived so well because nursing was a huge uphill battle through the first three months. The doc said that it wasn't surprising that Ellie wasn't rolling much - big babies are later to the party, but she's completely on track. I won't see them for another three months, so it was nice to get all of my questions answered and get a pat on the back for rearing my chillens.
We spent the rest of the day hanging out with Grams and Grandma Rosie and Gramps, doing a little relaxing, doing a little fussing, and taking a nice long nap to try to work through her vaccinations. Grandma and I also went and got matching manis while Ellie was taking a brief nap. We had a great dinner and Grandma Rosie got to give her little lady a few more hugs before we headed out.
Now. Back to yesterday. Yesterday was the reason for Grandma Rosie's whole visit. Sara was Special Olympics of Southern California's Athlete of the Year and received the Betty Award. The event was that the Disneyland Hotel, and we left Missy Moo with her Ford grandparents and escaped for a baby-free night of celebrating Sara Audrey. It was such a fun evening! Sara was part of the Parade of Olympians, and then she joined us for dinner before being introduced by Olympic Gold Medalist Rafer Johnson, who has been instrumental in bringing Special Olympics to Southern California and supporting its programs over the years. He's also a Bruin, and perhaps the sweetest man I've ever met. Part of Sara's presentation included a video about her life and her participation in Special Olympics, which you can see below.
Sara was nominated by Coach Tim for being a team player and all around awesome girl, and we were so, so proud to see her accept her award. She gave a great speech, and there wasn't a dry eye in the house when she was done.
Sara getting her award.
Sara with Rafer, and Ed, the CEO of Special Olympics, who stepped in when she got a little choked up.
Dad, mom, Coach Tim, Sara, Tim's cousin Mike who was a Green Bay Packer, and Jay, who sang "What a Wonderful World" during the show.
Rafer took about 85 pictures with our goofy family, because he is the nicest man ever.
All of the Thiels at the end of the night, proud as proud can be.
Tim and I got home around nine. Grandpa and Grandma were holding down the fort well, and didn't seem too traumatized by their evening with Ellie (who of course, refused to eat her cereal or drink much of her milk. Naughty naughty!)
No big plans for the rest of the week, but swim class fun tomorrow!
Sunday, April 17, 2011
It's a Jungle Out There.
But sometimes, even we admit that it's gotten to be too much, so yesterday while I was on a walk with the baby, Tim mowed the lawn. It took much less time than the last yard work day, mostly because he didn't have to rake up 500 pounds of leaves dropped by the neighbor's trees.
And speaking of the neighbor's trees, since we've moved in they've mentioned letting us know if the branches get too overgrown. Well, two years after moved in, it got to be too much. Some of the top branches were coming for our roof, and the low branches were touching the ground. Yesterday he sent someone over to clean it up. Since we were on our way out to Yorba Linda, we didn't stay to supervise the work. Boy, did we have a surprise when we got home:
Holy buckets! I did not expect that level of trimming. And to be fair, we knew the guy wasn't going to get the job finished yesterday. It's not like he intentionally left all of the wood chippings and ran away. I just didn't expect it'd be so much. At this rate, it'll be another two years before we have any trimming to do! Which of course, is fine with our lazy butts.
This morning, after a semi-decent night, Ellie started fussing at 7, after last being up and eating at 6. That's the worst. Tim, because he is an angel, said he would get up and entertain her so that I could sleep for another hour, until she next needed to eat. I woke up at 9... NINE! and the house was silent. I was half wondering if he'd smothered her. I got up and peeked into the nursery, and the two of them were sacked out on the queen bed. A little cosleeping never hurt anyone, and now we're all rested for a fun day of visiting with Grandma Rosie, going to the Special Olympics Gala, and being babysat by Grandma and Grandpa.
Friday, April 15, 2011
Growth.
Her schedule is still pretty hit or miss, but we're working with it and hoping that some morning, we'll wake up and it'll be 7am again and we've slept for hours on end. She's just changing all of the time though, in many ways. For instance: since she was three or four weeks old, the only way we can get her to fall asleep is for Tim to lay her down on his chest and let her suck his finger and fuss and fart until she finally passes out and can be moved to her crib. She never took a paci, so our finger was the next best thing. And since at that point, I was nursing her for two hours at a stretch, I certainly wasn't volunteering my finger for her usage. But last night, Tim got her to fall asleep by just rocking her, no finger. Same thing when she woke up at 2am tooting. And someday, we'll be able to just lay her down in her crib and have her go to sleep. Or so I keep telling myself. Or at the very least, she'll go to college and falling asleep will be her own damn problem.
Anyhow. We did some serious hanging out and mom and dad's house tonight because GRANDMA ROSIE IS IN TOWN! What a lucky baby Ellie is, to get to hang with her great grandma three times in six months. And thankfully, Ellie is much less of a crabby loser this time around. When Grandma Rosie was here last time, Ellie was still crying if anyone other than Tim or I held her, and basically crying nonstop from 6pm until bedtime. She was a real treat, and a great dinner guest. Tonight, we got stuff like this:
Plus, not pictured: Ellie sitting pretty happily on the table in her bumbo with a rattle on one foot and a ring on the other through the majority of meal time. And prior to that, plenty of happy time laying on the floor, hanging out with her toys.
She also hung with her Gramps a little too. From this view, she can still stare at her best friend ever - the ceiling fan.
Okay, enough rambling. Sleep when the baby sleeps!
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
Sunday, April 10, 2011
Baby's First Baseball Game.
So this morning we were lazing around with no real plans, and Tim's coworker Ryan and his wife Brooke texted and asked if we wanted to try to go see the Angels play today. I figured sure, why not? And because California fans are the crappiest, most fair weather, half-assed sons of bitches there are, we were able to find four seats together during the weekend of the Angels home opener, no problem. I actually could have had my PICK of seats, per Ticketmaster. I feel like we have perhaps misrepresented ourselves to Ryan and Brooke now. They think that we are incredibly spontaneous and fun and up for anything, and they have actually said that they think we have the best, most well behaved baby ever. Yeah. They've definitely been deceived.
So, baby's first baseball game. We also have tickets, more importantly, to the Twins/Angels game in September, but today was her first trip to the ballpark. She did okay! She doesn't like clapping or loud yelling in general, so we had a few rough moments. When the Angels scored on a fielding error, there was a huge roar in the crowd, and then Ellie started wailing, with tears actually streaming down her face. I felt like a real jerkwad at that point. So we went to the bathroom for a cuddle and a diaper change, and then I put her in the Bjorn and stood and rocked her until she fell asleep, and then continued to stand in the back, rocking her through a 45 minute nap.
Babies are fair weather fans.
Snuggling with her daddy. Note: he got a haircut after the game. His face rats are much smaller now.
Then she was good through the end of the game and the drive to visit Grams and Gramps.
The sad news was when we arrived at their house, Dad informed me that he will never forgive me for bringing the baby to a baseball game without him. I am Dead To Him. He did still let me stay and eat pizza, and was happy to love on his favorite girl. I'll let him take her to Lambeau someday too (right now he is shaking his head reading this and thinking, "I am not taking her to Lambeau, do you KNOW how much those tickets cost?")
Saturday, April 9, 2011
Productive!
My big fun for today was taking all of Elizabeth's 6-9month and 9 month clothes and running them through the washer. The biggest hassle is how all of the clothing items have about a million tags to cut off, and all pieces of each outfit are clipped to one another. It requires a lot of scissor work. Com'n Carters brand, don't you know that babies hate scratchy things? How am I supposed to find all of these damn taggies? I also took all of the clothes she's outgrown, which have been kind of stuffed under her bed, sorted those appropriately and put them in space bags to vacuum seal (and stuff back under her bed.) All of her new clothes are appropriately hung and folded, per my slightly neurotic tendencies. She'll be wearing a lot of dresses, that's for sure! Her next round of clothes is kind of an interesting mix - a few pieces from her cousin Hailee, a dress or two from Sara and I, and even a few from her Grams. Good thing Ellie loves vintage fashion.
Tonight we ventured out to dinner with her, and it was a pretty big success. She sat in a high chair for part of the meal, playing with her spoon, and then sat with Daddy and bounced on his knee. FINALLY. I remember when she was super tiny and people would tell us that we had to take her out to dinner while she was still small and didn't want to crawl around the restaurant and I would think to myself, "are you insane? She eats nonstop from 5-9pm. Unless she's just screaming at the top of her lungs. I can't take her out to a restaurant! I can barely stop nursing long enough to eat dinner!" But here we are, out to dinner AND getting a chance to split a dessert, even. Life is good.
Thursday, April 7, 2011
Pumpkinhead Fred.
Routine.
I was so happy to have gotten 7 hours of consecutive sleep, that even stepping directly in the cat barf could not ruin my day.
It feels so good to be back into our routine. We played for awhile, we had something to eat, and then we walked with Keri and then a little bit by myself (6.75 miles, not a shabby day.) Since then, I have gotten the baby dressed for the day, gotten myself showered and prettified, made lunch, started the dishwasher, started a load of laundry, AND petted and cleaned up after kitties. It's amazing how much I can get accomplished when I don't start my day at 5am-ish, after being awake for an hour at 3.
So, life is good. And even when a certain someone is not sleeping well or napping well, I feel so lucky that I can stay home with her every day. And I feel even luckier that we have such an amazing family around us - that there are plenty of grandparents who want to come over and hold her, or send me out to run errands so I can get a break, and that we have a husband/daddy who wants to spend time with his baby straightaway upon coming home. We are very lucky girls.
Video of what it is like to hang out with a five and a half month old!
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
Firsts.
Afterwards we had lunch with the girls, and then she slept in her stroller while we walked to the library. Auntie Sara saved the day again by pushing the sleeping baby in laps around the library so she wouldn't walk up.
Then tonight after Tim got home we had another big first - her first meal of solid food. I've been reading up about solids and thinking about solids and wondering when the right time for solids is for about the past month or so. We thought we were going to wait two more weeks until she was exactly six months, but her changes in sleep and her eating has led us to believe that it was time to start. So we got her some oatmeal cereal and mixed her up a little meal today. She did okay! Not too sure about it at the start, but by the end she was pretty happily accepting the spoon and chowing down, providing she could also have her fingers in her mouth at the same time. We're starting slow, so we'll see how it goes.
And now, a whole bunch of photos:
Swimming with Auntie Sara!
Getting her little face dunked.
Last night, Lulu helped us test out the high chair.
"Hmm... this is pretty okay, I guess."
"Daddy, does this mean we're big people together?"
Monday, April 4, 2011
Easter Bunny!
Sunday, April 3, 2011
Today's Trip to the Park
My friend Lauren came down from LA today to get some baby hugging time in. The last few times she's been here, she's had to share her love of the baby, but today we had a couple hours of just Meg, Lauren and Elizabeth time. Tim went to go see a movie with his little boyfriends, and so we hung out, made dinner and then walked to the park.
We got home to meet with Grandma and Grandpa, who came over for dinner with everyone. It was quite the party AND Grandpa got to hold Elizabeth for more than ten seconds. That's right, Grandma stepped back and let him do some baby snuggling. It was VERY cute, and he even got her to laugh a couple of times.
Ellie fell asleep during dinner so we all got to eat and talk. She was not in a good mood when she woke up, so we had to kick everyone out and get ready for bedtime.
BREAKTHROUGH: Missy rolled over for the first time in her own house, and she didn't even require one of us to jangle a toy loudly in her face. THEN we practiced a little sippy cup time, which we keep doing in hopes that someday, like Annie Sullivan pouring water into Helen Keller's hands, she will suddenly realize that her favorite food is coming from the plastic cup and start actually drinking from it. The sippy has been better than the bottle, but she still hasn't really drank from it. Until tonight. All of a sudden she was sucking back milk , until the level got too low to hit the valve of the cup. I am so excited! My little lady is getting so big so fast! I might finally get to leave her for more than three hours!
Next week at mommy class they're having a nutritionist come in and talk to all of us whose babies are getting ready to start solids. We may start next weekend - stay tuned!