Molar Monster.

We're not just getting one molar, we're getting ALL FOUR! Hooray hooray! It has resulted in utterly incessant whining and crying, boycotting of all foods except for good old "oh-gir-duh" and the inexplicable need for a binky. It seems to make her gums feel better, and right now she's actually taking a nap with the plug in her mouth, which has never happened before in her entire life (but hey, if it makes her happy and helps her nap, she can have all the binkies she wants. Lord knows I have a whole box of unused ones that she vetoed as a newly borned.)

This morning I headed out to walk with my girlfriends. Parked at the lake, popped my trunk and realized that my stroller was back in the garage, fifteen minutes away. Crappitty crap. So I did what any good hippie would do and pulled out my Ergo carrier and strapped Ellie to my back for our 4.5 mile walk. Surprisingly, it was easier and less work carrying a 24 pound baby than it was pushing the stroller. The only downside is that I'm not sure how to get her on my back without a second set of hands, and we got a little sweaty between the two of us. Plus, when she got crabby, she got crabby ON me, which is not as easy to ignore as when she gets crabby in her stroller. Not sure that I'd do it again for such a long walk, but I'd like to learn to get her on my back for trips to the mall, etc. The Ergo uses a lot of backpacking technology, so the straps are comfortable and her weight was well distributed.

Cute things that Ellie has been up to lately:
-Still obsessed with visiting the rabbits at the end of mom and dad's street, and then telling us about the hop hop hops.
-Will now grab herself and say "brrr" if you ask her if she's chilly
-In love with animal crackers
-Starting to dance more, which makes both Tim and I bust up
-Doing a pouty lip when told no
-Reading like a crazy person, and calling her books by name

Steak Sandwiches.

We have our first molar pushing through! Bottom left, with top left and bottom right looking and feeling like they'll be close behind. Ellie's just a few teeth away from some good old red meat.

She's still missing that last bottom tooth. Someday, she'll have all four across the bottom.

Morning Routine.

Hey, you want some oh-gir-duh? It's really delicious.

I love my oh-gir-duh. I cry for it any time someone opens the fridge.

Then a little time for some pony rides with Lolly, Baby, and Woof Woof. What an awesome life I lead!

Elizabeth on Elizabeth Violence.

It starts as hugging, but it turns into squishing.

And sadly, it's been going on for years now.

Okay, enough discussion about who slept where in this house. What is this, Gray's Anatomy? Here's what you're visiting this blog for - photos and videos of Itty Bitty.

She loves helping, as you can see. Here she is investigating all of Grams' tupperwares, so that she can provide the proper storage items for last night's dinner.

Oh, and here she is closing the cabinet. MAN, does she love to close cabinets and push doors shut. If she's crabby, I can always ask her to close some cabinets for me, and feeling useful cheers her right up!

Today's been pretty quiet - it's a beautiful day out, so after Ellie woke up from her early nap, we walked down to the park, where we met up with one of her baby friends and his parents. She loves her some park time. The bigger she gets, the more adventurous she gets, and it's probably only a matter of weeks until she's climbing ladders and going down fireman poles. I mean, by two I was climbing the huge apple tree in our backyard, freaking out the neighbors. She comes by her monkey-dom honestly.


Today she figured out how to climb up the stairs to the slide, sit herself down and push herself down the slide feet first. As you can see, she is very pleased with her efforts (the crying in the background is her friend Dean.)

Not Funny Haha.

Hey, so remember how I made fun of Tim for snoozing with the baby? In a not-funny-at-all twist of irony, the baby continues to get snottier and decided that last night she wanted me to put her to bed, not Tim. And then when she woke up in the middle of the night, the thought of daddy holding her and snuggling her made her sob and wail. And then of course, she would cough sadly with her little wet cough. And then go back to crying. So of course, I went in and scooped her up and sent Tim back to bed.

Poor Bug and I were up from 2am until 4:30, when she finally settled down, settled in and fell asleep in my arms. The two of us fitfully coslept until 8, when she was happy to let her daddy feed her a yogurt and take a shower with her while I curled into our bed and pretended that I was an immobile sleeping giant.

Thank goodness she's now taking naps in her bed, because if I had to hold her for naps AND then sleep with her at night, I would probably lose my mind. We had a nice time at the park after our morning nap, and then she went down like a dream, but only for 40 minutes. She wouldn't even let Grams snuggle her back down! That's how you know she's a sicky baby.

Hopefully the cold is at its apex and will get better this weekend. At the very least, Tim's home so I can slip away for a nap or two. I shouldn't even be writing this blog - I should be sleeping right now to prepare for the night ahead. It's very rewarding, but hard to be the mommy sometimes.

Snoozers.

Ellie continues to take good naps in her big girl bed for me, and I am incredibly happy with the development. You know who is the happiest though? The cats. They mob me the second I sit down on the couch.

I have discovered several keys to getting a good nap out of her. The first is, if she doesn't put her head on my shoulder the second we go into her room, she's not tired enough, and I'm better off going and reading a few books or playing with puzzles for a half hour. The second is, the tighter I spoon her, the faster she goes to sleep. It seems contradictory, because I don't want to be too entangled when trying to slip away, but she gets into a deeper sleep when I'm all cuddled around her, and then it's actually simpler to remove myself. Thirdly, having her nap on her own is awesome.

But that doesn't mean that I haven't been tempted to just lay there and take a snooze with her. We've all been under the weather the past few days, and Tim especially has been Mr. Cosleeper. Last night he fell asleep with her while doing bedtime. It's a funny thing - when a half hour's passed while he's trying to put her down, I think to myself "wow, she must really be giving him the business." When an hour has passed, I wonder if I should go in and check on them, but I'd hate to disturb her if she's on the verge of drifting off. When 90 minutes go by, I know that Tim is almost certainly out like a light. Last night was one of those nights. In fact, when I went in at 11 to tell him to come to bed, he was flat on his back with the covers up around his chin and Ellie snuggled against his shoulder, each of them trying to out-snore each other. I tapped him on his hands and got zero response, so I figured I'd let my sleeping babies lie. A half hour later, he stumbled into our room and came to bed like a normal person. I understand though - Ellie is so sweet and so snuggly, and her bed is warm and has nice sheets on it. It's easy for him to start thinking about math problems and pass out.

Even mom fell prey to Ellie's siren song last week, taking a quick nap with her little darling. That means that this family is officially a big bunch of dirty hippies.