Ella's World

Ella’s world has been full of new adventures lately. She had her 9 month check up 2 weeks ago and she weighed 17 lbs. 13 oz and was 27.5 inches long. She had to have her finger pricked to check her iron, and she handled it better than I normally do. I hate, hate, hate having my finger pricked. I’d rather have blood drawn from my arms. Anyway, instead of turning her head and squinting while breaking out in a cold sweat in anticipation (which would have been my reaction), she watched intently as the nurse stuck her and then collected two little tubes of blood from her finger. Then she worked diligently until she removed the tiny band-aid from her finger. She had two shots, and I think if she’d only had one, she wouldn’t have cried at all. The crying was a fit of anger, which she made very clear each time the nurse came into her line of vision. Once the nurse left the room, the crying stopped and she was good to go.

She is standing up on everything now. She recently learned that she can pull herself up and hang onto my legs while I’m working around the house. One day while I was standing at the sink, she did just that – so sweetly snuggling her face into the backs of my thighs. Then she bit me. Hard. With her razor sharp puppy teeth. I screamed out in surprise – louder than I normally would – and scolded her. Her little face folded up and she started to cry. Of course I picked her up and cuddled her. She hasn’t done it again, but that’s mostly because now I know to expect it when she pulls up on the back of my legs and I head it off before it happens.

We’ve determined that she is a climber. She has mastered climbing on top of the overturned clothes basket, which she then uses as a step up to the couch or whatever piece of furniture it is next to. She has fallen backward off of it once when she sat too close to the edge, but since then she’s been very careful. Last night she started using that clothes basket to walk around the living room. She accidentally discovered that she can push it and walk behind it, so then she started doing it on purpose. It has also been a table/desk to hold her things while she is working very hard in her toy basket.

Dave bought her a pool over the weekend, so we spent quite a bit of time playing outside. She loved it. I stripped her naked and let her go all over the yard. She played in the pool, examined the bits of things she could find in the grass, helped me plant flowers, ate a mouthful of mud - basically she did whatever struck her as interesting at the time. I love to just set her loose and watch her explore. She gets so excited about every little thing. It’s refreshing. She was one nasty baby when we went inside for a nap, but that’s fine with me. A dirty baby is a sign of a productive day.

We took video of her playing in the pool, but I forgot to take pictures. Here’s a recent one from Easter anyway.

Feeling Wicked

For our fifth wedding anniversary, the love of my life bought me tickets to see Wicked. Holy crap! That was a good show. We went with the assumption that we would be sitting on the fourth row. Imagine my delight when we realized that DD was the first row!! I could see everything happening in the orchestra pit; had I wanted to, I could have ruffled the conductor’s hair. That’s how close we were. It was like having my own private show. I felt completely spoiled.

The show was amazing! I was a little scared that it had been too hyped up because everyone I’ve talked to raved about it, but I was not disappointed. Dave loved it, too, and was totally upset at intermission because he knew the witch was going to melt into a puddle at the end. Afterward he said, “I didn’t think a green girl could be hot…how’d they do that?” I’m feeling a little let down now because I want to see it again! Edward Cullen hasn’t even distracted me yet.

Enough about my make believe friends. There will be an update on Ella’s World as soon as I have time.

It's Goose Hatching Time

As I left the office park on my way home from work yesterday, I was overjoyed to see that the goslings have started hatching! The hatching is an event I look forward to every year. It means that spring is really here, plus I just love to see the little fluff balls following behind their mothers, eating bugs and things. I’d like to steal just one and take it home with me, but my house is no place for anything that resembles prey.

I’ve stayed away from this blog for a while because I’ve been feeling more than a little snarky lately. Life is grinding sometimes and people really start getting on my nerves. There was a point this week when I’m pretty sure the world would have been better served if I had just locked myself in the house for a while. I’m happy to report that the baby goose sighting yesterday and the fact that today is Friday (Good Friday!) seems to have turned my attitude around a bit. Well, that and prayer. I know God put those fluffy babies in my path yesterday because I needed something to make me smile. I’m still in need of vacation. I keep thinking that this time last year I was counting down to my maternity leave. It’s a bit depressing that I won’t have a large chunk of time off this summer. Maybe we should move to Europe where everyone gets 6 weeks of vacation every year. Hmmm.

While Ella has been saying “Mamama” in her streams of babble, I finally had the moment when she saw me and called me Mamama. She always says it with three syllables, and it’s so cute. She has been chattering about everything, and the chatter is sounding more and more like words. I’ve heard her try to say “Georgia,” I think she said “dirt” the other day when she was playing in the flower pots, and the Grandmother Report tells me she tried to say “thank you” today. We have now resorted to spelling some of the key words we use around her (bath, eat, out, and puffs) because if she hears the word she expects whatever we are talking about.

I watched her think really hard about walking the other night. She was holding onto the ottoman and it would have taken 2 steps to get to the chair. She worked for a long time trying to reach the chair without letting go of the ottoman. I held my breath, waiting to see what she would do. She decided she’s not ready yet, and plopped onto the floor. She’s cruising more and more each day, getting much braver. Pulling up isn’t an issue anymore; she has definitely moved on to taking steps and trying to let go and balance herself.

Last weekend she had a play date with another baby her age. They played and played together for about 4 hours. I was thrilled; she even let my friend hold her while I ate. I couldn’t believe it. The child hasn’t let anyone outside of her immediate circle hold her in months. I think the funniest point of the day was when the babies hid behind the couch together to poop at the same time. Ella is funny about hiding to poop these days.

Sunday morning, she played in the nursery and sat next to Ms. Laurel and Mr. Johnny. I couldn’t leave the room, but she only checked in with me a couple of times. I think we are making progress with this separation/stranger anxiety. She’s having her 9 month portraits made tomorrow, and I’m really hoping she will be happy for the photographer. Surely there will be some new trouble to explore that will distract her from the stranger behind the camera.

To finish this off, here is a picture of her enjoying her first rib bone. She gnawed it clean.

Ella in Action

Grandpop sent evidence that this cheeky monkey is feeling much better. That’s the camera strap she is carrying around in her mouth (proof to my earlier point that she imitates the dogs).

The fourth tooth came in on Friday, and she has been testing them out on everything – including me. Until Saturday, she hadn’t bitten me since the day the first two teeth showed up. She bit Grandma yesterday. She is biting her clothes, particularly her socks, which she tries to remove with her teeth. She had shredded a blanket – with her teeth, while riding in the car where I couldn’t see what she was doing. The other night I gave her a piece of raw bell pepper, and she practiced biting bits off of it while I made supper.

Because it seems to be a common question, let me clarify that she does not bite my nipple while she’s nursing. She has bitten it before, when the first two teeth popped through, but she’s no fool. It didn’t take her long to connect that biting = no nursing. The mechanics of nursing aren’t really conducive to nipple biting anyway, so paying attention usually prevents it. Ella really only did it at the end of a nursing session if I tried to latch her back on when she was finished.
She attended her first kid birthday party Saturday and received a short lesson on sharing during what I like to call the Cheese Puff Conflict. She and the birthday girl, who was turning 1, were sitting in the floor eating cheese puffs. The birthday girl kept taking Ella’s out of her hand. The look on Ella’s face when this happened was priceless – a cross between confusion, hurt feelings, and anger. It happened about four times before Ella decided to take the cheese puff back. Birthday Girl had it clamped in a fist of steel, but that didn’t stop Ella from trying to pry her fingers off of it. It was cute, and I think she’s going to be a scrappy one when the need arises.

Last night I saw her take her first real steps while holding onto the furniture. Sometime over the weekend she learned that her finger fits up her nose, and she thinks it’s funny. Monday, she started trying to pick my nose, too. She is getting so much better about petting the animals with her soft touch. She loves, loves, loves Georgia – her eyes light up when you say her name, but Georgia is still keeping her distance. She has learned to sit and spin herself in a circle with her feet. This new trick resulted in a splinter in one heel and a wonky diaper situation. She spent Sunday afternoon with Dave while I helped with a bridal shower, and they had a blast together. He said he felt really proud and excited when she was reaching for him (like she does for me) while she was upset at one point. They played and played, and I think he really enjoyed the time with her. I need to make that happen more often.

Croup Cloths, Regurgitated Carrots, and Lessons from the Cat

That about sums up this week so far, and I'm happy to say that it's passing quickly. I really need a weekend so I can rest my little head.

Ella turned 9 months old yesterday and we celebrated at the doctor's office where we found out she has croup. Her watery eyes and runny nose started turning into a yucky cough on Tuesday, and then she barked like a seal all night. The doctor sent us home with a prescription for 5 days worth of steroids to reduce the inflammation in her trachea and instructions to use all the "old home remedies." To Dave's delight, this meant that she actually needed a croup cloth. (Whenever she is snotty from teething, he tells me to give her a croup cloth because that's what Nana did when he was a kid.) After her bath last night I rubbed her chest with vapor rub and put her t-shirt on her. When we came out of the bedroom, he asked where the croup cloth was. I told him that her shirt was the cloth; I had smeared Vick's on her chest. That was unacceptable. She needed a cloth. He asked me what the doctor said about a croup cloth, and I told him he said she could have a little bit of vapor rub on her chest and he didn't say anything about an actual cloth. He said, "We are changing doctors." Silly man. I've explained to him that I'm certain Nana used a cloth to keep vapor rub from getting all over the sheets, but he insists that since Nana did it that way, it must be important.

Croup is a virus that will take 5 - 7 days to go away, so now we wait. She does seem to be feeling much better today after a better night's sleep (with a tiny bit of doctor instructed cough medicine that made me a little nervous) and two doses of steroids in her system. I told her last night that she might start growing muscles and facial hair, but she doesn't care. She has been really pitiful, but when she talks in her hoarse, little froggy voice, I have to laugh. It's really funny.

Because she's been coughing so hard that she sometimes gags, it's no surprise that she threw up water and undigested bits of carrot while eating supper the other night. The coughing fits scare her a bit, so I grabbed her out of the highchair, and held her over the tray, patting her back while she caught her breath. Sincse she wasn't actually finished eating supper, she just reached down and grabbed a bite of carrot and put it in her mouth. I'm pretty sure it was a piece that had just come out of her, but she's quick and it was too late to stop her. Though it was a bit disgusting, Dave and I both couldn't help but laugh at her resourcefulness.

While it could be, eating vomit is not the lesson she learned from the cat. (At least I don't think she learned it from the cat.) My back was hurting the other night, so I was lying in the floor with my feet propped on the couch to straighten out the kinks. Ella was playing in her baskets behind me and Georgia was sitting on the ottoman with her tail hanging down beside me. Ella crawled over and touched her forehead to mine. I thought it was really cute and sweet, then she crawled over to Georgia and rubbed her head on Georgia's tail. Then she came back and touched her head to mine again. At that point, I realized that she was loving on us the way the cat loves on her. Whenever Jewel E. comes into a room where Ella is crawling around, she walks right up and rubs heads and touches noses with her.

The child is a sponge, soaking up everything around her and then imitating it later. After having her hands and face wiped, she will now take the rag and wipe your hands or face, or her toys. Reports from Grandma's house tell me she grabbed the long (safety-locked) lighter and held it to the (unlit) heater on the porch because that's how Grandpop does it. She has been seen crawling around, holding things in her mouth like the dogs. She doesn't miss a thing, and you should not assume that just because she isn't verbally communicating she doesn't understand what you are are saying or doing. I assure you that she understands way more than we think, and when she's ready, she makes herself crystal clear - even without words.

Planting Spring Flowers

Life isn't just about looking cute at Grandpop's house; he makes her work for her money. I hear it took running water and soap to get those hands clean rather than the standard wet paper towel treatment.

Amazingly, she didn't eat any of that dirt. Yes, she is one of those babies who puts everything in her mouth. Over the weekend alone I fished out a piece of leaf, a rock, a paint chip, and a bite of dog food. That doesn't include all the other things she puts in her mouth that don't require fishing, or the things I didn't catch before they went down. Now when she's about to eat something nasty, the cheeky kid looks at me sideways to see if I'm watching. When I tell her, "Don't put that in your mouth," she turns her back to me and starts kicking her legs. Then she puts it in her mouth if I don't get there fast enough.

We spent several hours on a blanket in the front yard over the weekend, and compared to me, Ella looks like she's been tanning all summer. She definitely has her father's skin tone. Of course, I knew that when she was born with a darker tan than mine at the end of June. We are both suffering this infusion of pollen in the air, and her fourth tooth still hasn't broken through the skin. She feels so yucky that she keeps laying her little head down to rest. I can relate; I'd like to lay my little head down, too.

Now that she has mastered the art of crawling, standing up is starting to look effortless, too. She is starting to hold on to things with only one hand or let go and stand by herself for a few seconds. I can see her thinking about what to do next when she gets into standing position, so it probably won't be long before she starts taking some steps. I can't believe how fast this is happening.

I don't know if teething was our issue or if she's just too busy, but she preferred her milk from a cup over the weekend. After trying unsuccessfully to nurse her for several hours, I finally gave up and pumped for her. I handed her the cup of milk, and she drank it down and belched like a man. At one point, she was crawling and dragging the cup along behind her with her foot. Apparently she needed her milk to go. I'm not sure if we are on the fast track to self-weaning, or if this was a fluke, but it was certainly a change for us. She nursed well at nap time and bed time, but she just couldn't be bothered to be still long enough otherwise. I tried all the tricks - nursing in her bedroom with no distractions, nursing while she sat upright on my lap, etc but she wiggled and squirmed and had a little fit until I let her go (this is after she asked to nurse). It is very rare for babies to self-wean before the age of one, and most don't until 18 months or later, so I'm not sure what's up. I guess we'll roll with it and she can just have milk in a cup if she insists. I have decided that even if she quits nursing, I will keep pumping for her for quite a while. The immunological benefits of breastmilk increase after the first year, plus my milk will close any nutritional gaps in her diet so I don't have to worry as much about what she eats.

One thing I do know is that she is a busy little soul. There is a whole world to explore and conquer, and she is on a mission to do just that - one bit of fuzz and blade of grass at a time.

New Pictures

Ella is one week shy of nine months old and her first two teeth are finally showing up in pictures. She's showing them off in this one.

Hats off to you!

Would you like a drink?

Building a fire with Grandpop. She loves fire. That is her very own "fire stick" she's holding. She has gnawed the bark off one end of it.

Tooth #3 and Stayed Tuned for #4

As the little monkey hung upside down in my lap yesterday evening, I got a good look at tooth number three! It had just broken through the skin on the top right side. In fact, it looked pretty jagged and painful with a nasty, little, scabby thing around it. No wonder we’ve been sleepless and snotty for three days. She hasn’t been guarding this one like she did the first two, but she has constantly had her finger in there playing with it. I can see number four just under the skin on the left side. Hopefully it will come through in the next day or two so we can have a few days respite before whatever comes next in this great adventure.

On that note, I cautiously want to report that for the past few weeks, she has slept 4 – 5 uninterrupted hours at least one night a week. *Insert Happy Dance here.* I’m really hoping this trend is about to become a consistent habit. (FYI – 5 uninterrupted hours is considered sleeping through the night, which is a milestone that every baby achieves in his or her own timeframe). The drawback of 4 hours of uninterrupted sleep is that she thinks she is recharged and ready to play – at 3:30 in the morning. That’s okay; I’ll take it. I can usually get her back to sleep pretty quickly by putting her in bed with me to nurse. Once she realizes we aren’t going to get up, she gives up the fight pretty easily. It’s funny to watch her sit up on her knees and then fall over into the pillow because she really isn’t awake enough to play, but she feels like she has to make the effort. She’s just like her father in that respect.

In addition to crawling wherever she wants to go, she has now mastered the two steps up into Grandmother’s dining room. She makes no bones about scurrying right up them. Going down is another issue entirely, and I’m sure she’ll be working on that straight away. While navigating the stairs, she realized that she can pull up and stand on her own two feet, so she’s practicing that on everything. The first night she did it, I had to undress her for her bath while she stood hanging on to the edge of the tub, watching it fill up because she couldn’t be bothered with lying in the floor.

She is now consistently telling us when she has a dirty diaper by pointing to it and fussing. She was playing in the floor this morning while I did my last minute, headless chicken run through the house. As I passed by, she was crawling after me this way and that, trying to get my attention. When I stopped to check on her, she sat down with a very serious face, muttered some gibberish, and pointed to her diaper. We changed it right away and she was good to go. I think I need to start reading up on potty training.

Speaking of gibberish, I believe we were all glad we couldn’t understand her last night when she cursed her Grandpop. He was trying to step over her as she played in the floor and she moved her head just in time to hit his foot. Oh, how it hurt her feelings, and she let us know it. I picked her up to cuddle her and she stopped crying to sternly say, “Bababababbabab!” Her point could not have been clearer if she had shaken her fist and spoken plain words. It’s not all gibberish she mutters; I’ve heard her say “Hey!” twice this week while waving.

All this baby movement has changed the dynamics of our household. Gypsy got a quick lesson in staying out of reach Saturday morning when Ella took a notion to chase her. I heard a gleeful cackle, and then the race was on. It ended when Gypsy finally decided to get on the back of the couch. Since Ella can go where she wants to go, she’s definitely testing her boundaries. An increased use of the N word (“No!”) has Georgia a little unnerved. The poor dog doesn’t like it when any person/pet gets scolded, so she’s acting very clingy right now and staying far away from that trouble-making baby.

Nursing Adventures

The older Ella gets, the more fun she is to nurse. She has cut back drastically now that she demands to eat when and what we eat, but when she does nurse I’m almost always amused. She is so busy that she often finds herself torn between wanting to nurse and wanting to play and see what’s happening in the room. In order to accommodate her in the mornings before I leave for work, one of two things has to happen: 1) Every person/animal has to leave the room so she can focus or 2) Grandma or Grandmother has to sit beside me on the couch so she can look at her while she nurses. It also helps if I wear a pretty necklace to keep those very busy hands focused.
She likes to work out with a session of leg lifts while she nurses, and this is particularly true when she is trying not to nap or go to bed. When she does decide to go to sleep, she must prop her top foot up on my shoulder. I think this is a hold over from her harness wearing days when I always propped that top leg on my arm so it wasn’t dangling uncomfortably. She has always liked to have her hands and toes kissed while nursing, so she routinely holds them in front of my face. She plays with her own toes, too.

Last night she finally accomplished something she’s been working on for a while now. She managed to nurse and suck on a finger at the same time. I’m really not sure how that worked, but it did – and amazingly she didn’t get milk everywhere. Because she is so busy, she occasionally nurses while sitting up on my leg so that she can see around her (and stay awake!). Well, she realized that it might be fun to ride the horsey too, while nursing, so now she nurses, bounces up and down on my leg, and sings the horsey song all at the same time.

We had a pretty smooth start with just a couple of small bumps along the way, and I have enjoyed nursing her since the beginning. It is even more enjoyable now that she is older and has more control of her body. I don’t need as many hands to get her latched on correctly and hold her in position; she can do all that herself now and it makes it so much easier. Her budding personality makes it fun. It will be a bittersweet time when she weans – exciting because it means she’s growing into an independent person but sad because it means she's growing into an independent person.

Fierce Killer of Snakes

In appreciation for the warm weather, we had our first Grill Meal of the season Saturday evening. Few warm weather activities are better than sitting on the front porch while supper cooks over a fire. Even Ella likes the fire. We did learn that the experience can be enhanced with the killing of a snake.

Yes, the snakes were also out enjoying the warm weather. Thanks to Jewel E. Cat, we had live entertainment for our porch sitting. Just as the evening was fading into dusk, I saw her trotting over to the neighbor’s flower bed, where she regularly provides extermination services. A few minutes later, she returned home with a gift for us. I’m sure it was an expression of, “Happy Spring! I’m glad to have you playing outside again. Oh, and here’s a snake for your enjoyment!”

It was a small snake – maybe a foot long and half the width of my pinkie finger. Not a tiny baby, but not big enough to discern what kind either. It was coiled up while she was carrying it and she dropped it belly up. Then it moved. She stood guard while Dave ran for the shovel.

The scene that followed has me erupting into a fit of giggles as I write this. As background, you should know that to say that Dave is scared of snakes is a grossly, negligent understatement of his true feelings. This is a man who left me in his dust when I told him I’d just heard a rattlesnake in our yard in Gardendale. I didn’t even get the words out of my mouth and he was no where to be found. The snapping of twigs and rustling of leaves strikes fear in his heart.

Back to Saturday evening. Intending to chop the snake in half, Dave swung the blade of the shovel in a great downward chop! He missed. The snake began slithering for his life, Jewel fled the area for fear of the shovel, and Dave chopped and chopped until sparks were flying up from the ground and there were white marks all over the pavement. The snake was still moving. Dave adopted a new approached. He lifted the shovel over his head and swung it with all his might, hitting the snake with the flat, backside of the shovel again and again. The noise was incredible! Ella’s eyes were huge and her arm was locked around mine in a death grip. The animals were scattered and unnerved. I’m not sure what the snake looked like at this point because Dave immediately started grinding the flat side of the shovel back and forth over it. When he finished, chest heaving and breath puffing, he pronounced, “I think it’s dead.”

As I am right now, I was doubled over with laughter. I went inside, laughing all the way, to turn on the flood lights so we could examine the snake to find out what kind it was. Wouldn’t you know we couldn’t tell?

He’s come a long way since that day in Gardendale. I only wish now that I had taken a picture of him proudly holding his shovel full of snake pulp so you could all celebrate his triumph over one of God’s more bone-chilling creatures.

This week I've learned..

... mac and cheese vomit is way smellier than milk vomit.

... Febreeze doesn't always get rid of the mac and cheese vomit smell.

... when babies learn to crawl, they really do wake up at all hours of the night to practice.

... if you sleep with a sick baby, you will wake up with boogers stuck to your clothes and skin.

What did you learn this week?

Snow Day Pictures

This is Jewel E. Cat grudgingly tip-toeing up the snow-free gutter to find us at the neighbor's house. She doesn't care for the snow (if you could see the look on her face, that would be clear), but she feels obliged to keep track of her family's outside activities.
The snow piglet with Daddy in our front yard. She didn't mind being out in it, but she would bury her face in our chests when the wind blew.

She did not enjoy the bundling process, and she was fussing at me in this picture.

Finally, Daddy built her two snow babies on the front porch . I'm thinking the one on the right looks a little like E.T.

She got to feel and taste the snow, but it was too cold and she made faces about it.

Farm Day

Saturday was FFA Farm Day at the high school, so we checked it out. I think Ella enjoyed it.

She really liked Betsy the cow. Note Betsy's crazy eye.


I didn't let her touch this little piggy because it was trying to bite another kid. However, when the little piggies ran out during the show, she got really excited. So did I.

On the big tractor with Daddy.

Posing on a horsey. There was no way I was getting a smile for this picture. The fact that she wasn't screaming because a strange man was holding her should be considered an accomplishment. She's very leary of "strangers" right now. I put that in quotation marks because a stranger could be someone she knows but only sees once a week.

Finally, my favorite Farm Day picture. It looks like there might be a John Deere in her future.

She also saw ponies, goats (with nursling babies), and she got to pet a baby bunny. I think the highlight for her was watching all the kids running around everywhere; she was having a hard time keeping up with them all.

After Farm Day, we went out to lunch and shopping at Target. She fed herself, and left a gigantic mess under the high chair.

Sunday we played in the snow - stay tuned for pictures of that. She played wide open all weekend. It's amazing the difference crawling has made in her life. Her level of daily frustration has dramatically decreased. I think she played in the floor for an hour or more Saturday afternoon while I read a magazine on the couch. Amazing.

Georgia is feeling much better now. There's still some coughing, but not as much snot everywhere. She was able to find the energy to catch snowballs yesterday. Jewel's wound is completely closed now, too.

The Race is On!

Ella crawled yesterday! I didn't see it. I was talking to Grandmother on my way home while she was crawling. By the time we got home from church, she was too tired. She still managed to bump her head though. Go figure.

When she saw me walk into church last night, she started waving at me! That's the first time I've gotten such a greeting, and it was really cute. We fixed our plate and she proceeded to shovel refried beans, rice, and chicken into her little piehole. For lunch today, she double-fisted mac and cheese like we hadn't fed her all week. I'm thinking she's about to sprout again; she's increased her milk and her solids intake this week. I even had to thaw some milk because she drank more than I pumped yesterday. That doesn't happen often.

This morning when Dave was about to leave for work, she looked up at him and clearly said, "Bye-bye." He got so excited, it was another 20 minutes before he actually left.

Her cuteness factor is definitely increasing daily.

Poor Georgia, she is running fever and coughing up snot balls. It's very obvious that she feels bad. I feel like I need to do something for her - maybe run the vaporizer and feed her some chicken noodle soup? That's what makes me feel better when I have a cold.

8 Months

I forgot to mention in my post below that Ella is 8 months old today!

If it's not one thing, it's the dog.

Dave says, "If it's not one thing, it's the dog," because whenever we all get settled into something, she needs to play/potty/vomit/bark in the middle of the night; you get the idea.

Jewel E. Cat's half dollar-sized wound is now only nickel-sized with no help from me. As hard as it is to stand back and do nothing, sometimes that's the best way.

On the other hand, Georgia Brown starting hacking up a lung this morning. I can't wait and do nothing for her because she caught the upper respiratory infection from my mom's dogs, which they caught from the neigbor dog, etc. She has already had a dose of Children's Triaminic (incidentally, children under 4 are no longer supposed to take the Children's Triaminic but dogs can) and an antibiotic. The vet was already aware that she was exposed, so I didn't have to take her in to get the medicine. Thank goodness. That place is a zoo. Now I just hope the cats don't get it. I'm sure they will actually have to go to the vet if they do, because unlike dogs, upper respiratory infections can be life threatening for cats. Gah. At least the skin kid is well and this illness isn't contagious across species.

Ella is now saying, "Babababa" and "Mamama," and she is generally a Chatty Cathy these days. She's actually starting to consistently say, "Bababa" when waving bye-bye so that might actually translate to "bye-bye." Else, she thinks that's Uncle Rob's name because that's who she always says it to (and he's always leaving for class). She is developing an interesting pattern of behavior where she learns something from me, but demonstrates it for everyone else. For instance, when she goes to the bathroom with me, I always hold her up while flushing the toilet so she can see (because she's become very interested in the flushing). While we watch the water go down, I wave and say, "Bye-bye." Apparently, she has started doing this at Grandma's house when Grandma lets her watch the flush. Also, when Grandma tells her she needs to wipe her hands, she holds them out for her. I've never seen her do either of these things. I haven't been teaching her to hold her hands out for cleaning, but I have a habit of using the same words during our daily routines (thanks to raising a dog), and she is soaking it up and applying it. It's pretty cool.

While she's not crawling in the traditional sense, she gets where she needs to go. This week, she needs to get the dog food bowl. I think dog food actually enticed her to crawl a very short distance. Monday night she ate the dog food before I could get it out of her hands. Yesterday, she was trying to get the dog food that Georgia dropped while Georgia was trying to get a noodle out of Ella's hand. Georgia has already learned to hover around the high chair, and she tries putting her snout up there. That is a behavior I cannot stand and don't allow (she can sit beside me at the table, but I don't want her nose in my lap or near the table), but Ella thinks it's funny to see a dog snout sticking over the edge of her tray. I foresee the two of them ganging up on me in the near future. Add Jewel E.'s handy kitten paws, and there will be no hope for me. I have no doubt that Jewel will be in the thick of things because I've turned around a couple of times to find her nose to nose with Ella and loving on her like she does the dog. Ella, of course, loves them all.

Georgia is so very good with Ella. She's still a little jealous sometimes, but now she's beginning to understand the benefits of having a baby in the house because Ella always wants to pet and scratch her. This is allowed, especially if it's the back end she's scratching. Previously, Georgia wouldn't let Ella get too close, but now she's allowed to pet her and play with her feet. Before I could stop her, she stuck her hand in Georgia's mouth the other day. The giant, pink tongue was hanging out and it was just too much for her. George never flinched. I'm so proud of her.

Self-Feeding

Dave and I dropped Ella off at Aunt Becca's Saturday afternoon so that we could go to lunch for our anniversary. We both felt weird without her. It's so much fun to take her out and about. As it turns out, she felt weird without us, too, because she screamed nearly the entire time she was with Aunt Becca. When we got back to pick her up, I found them snuggled in bed, Ella stripped to her diaper and passed out whimpering in her sleep. Becca said she cried so hard that all she could do was hold her tight until she fell asleep. Twice. Generally she loves to see and play with Aunt Becca, but I think we should have had Becca come to our house. Live and learn.

After church Sunday, she helped me in the kitchen while I prepped the meals for the week. She worked on bowls and lids and impersonated a human dust mop around the kitchen floor. She scooted and scooted all over the room, providing unnecessary proof that my floor needed sweeping.

More than once over the weekend she decided to feed herself, and she did not need my help. This led me to start thinking of more creative finger foods to feed her. She had a bit of toast for breakfast both mornings and some Veg-All for lunch after church. (I'm not a big fan of canned vegetables, but the convenience factor won out this time.) Amazingly, only 4 or 5 of the vegetable pieces didn't make it to her mouth. I chopped up and steamed some pears for her to have through the week. That was easy, so next weekend I'll just add steaming to my meal prep routine. I'm very excited about this because it means I can buy less baby food, and it's really cute to watch her feed herself. She hardly eats baby food at all when she's with me now; I just feed her what I'm eating. In fact, even if I've already fed her baby food, she insists on eating what I'm eating, too.

Happy Anniversary!

Five years ago today, Dave and I were married in our front yard in Gardendale at 2:00 in the afternoon. I was a nervous wreck all day and he ran five miles that morning just to say he could.

We joke that we like doing things out of order because we bought the house, booked the honeymoon, and then he asked me to marry him. It was a given all along, but I did prod him a bit when I booked the honeymoon and told him we'd have to get married before May because we were going to Mexico.

I was living at our house in Gardendale and he was staying with his parents until we got married. When we talked on the phone in the evenings, I would tell him about this big spider that spun it's web on the porch every night. I think he started to worry about me being there all alone, because on the morning of September 13, 2003 he brought me two kittens. One of them had my grandmother's engagement ring on her collar. He told me he wanted to make all my dreams come true, and he named the kitten Jewel. It was perfect. The most perfect way he could have dreamed of proposing to me.

We debated about planning a big wedding, thought we were going to do it in Gardendale, and then decided the stress of it was too much. He called his childhood preacher and asked if he would come to our house to marry us. We had a wedding reception in April, and took our honeymoon in May, when we were both finished with school for the semester. We had a whole season of wedding events.

Since then, we both finished school (law school for him and grad school for me), renovated our house, added a dog and another cat to our family, sold our house, moved back to Montevallo, moved again, and added a baby to the family. Right this minute, my entire family is sitting in the same room with me. Ella is playing ball with Georgia, Jewel and Gypsy are hiding under chairs, and Dave is facilitating the ball game. I've been so blessed.

Dave and I met at the grocery store where we both worked. I was still in high school then, and he was in college. A few years later, after my first year of college, he asked me on a date. We drove to Prattville to see the House of Crosses. It was the most bizarre first date I've ever been on, but it was right. Within six months, I knew that I would spend the rest of my life with him.

I asked him the other night if he could repeat a phase or time in his life, to change it or not, when would it be? He pondered it, and threw out several ideas, but he came back to those first six months we dated. My answer was the same.

Happy Anniversary, love of my life. I can't wait to see what the years to come bring.

The Daffodils are Blooming

In the last two days I’ve noticed daffodils blooming everywhere. They might be my favorite flower. I love to see their bright, smiling faces. Their appearance means spring is finally on the way and they add a welcome bit of color to the boring, yuckiness of winter. I’m usually ready for each season as it arrives (such as they are here in the South), but spring is definitely my favorite. The days get longer and warmer, the world bursts into color again, and everything just feels new and ripe with possibility. I like it. It gives me hope.

Enough of my random rambling; the real reason you are reading this blog is to find out what the Tiny Bull Rider is up to this week. I’ve told her that her legs aren’t long enough to wrap around the back of a bull yet, but she insists on practicing anyway. I’m not sure if she’s trying to crawl or sit up when she does this, but she gets on hands and knees, then stretches one leg straight out to the side and puts the corresponding hand in the air while rocking back and forth. She looks just like she’s riding a bull.

The past few days have been a flurry of activity. Since Saturday she has started bull riding, pulling up, crawling backward, feeding herself (for real, not just puffs), sitting up from lying on her stomach, and saying “Dadadadada” constantly. She has tentatively crawled three “steps” forward, but we aren’t ready to say she’s really crawling yet. The backward crawling happens in the middle of the night, but it is actual coordinated crawling – in the wrong direction. She’s really working hard at it, but she just doesn’t feel confident enough to take the plunge yet. Sunday afternoon, I watched her scoot ten feet backward on her belly, all the while yelling because she was moving away from what she was trying to reach. I think the hold up is fear of picking up her hands and losing her balance. Not that I’m complaining because once she’s moving, life as I know it is over.

The first time she tried to pull up (on something other than me), she was in the bathtub without the bath seat, of course. I caught her before she slipped face first into the water, but it was a little shocking to see her just take matters into her own hands to get out of there. Saturday night, she sat in her high chair and ate corned beef and carrots for dinner. I put bites on her tray, and if I tried to put them in her mouth, she took them from me with her tiny pincers and did it herself (Canned carrots rock as a snack food, by the way). Sunday morning, I had to do some work in the fellowship hall during church, so I planted her on a pallet with a hand full of puffs for snack and some toys. She played and played. Then I looked over there to find her sucking on the plastic baggie the puffs had been in. No, I didn’t leave it out for her. She went digging in the diaper bag, found it, and ate the rest of the puffs. Last night she was gearing up for an all-out fit at church because everyone around her had a plate of food, and she didn’t yet. Mac and cheese stopped that one in its tracks. You’d think I was starving the child; she eats like a piggy.

Another major break through of a less exciting kind – Sunday she stayed with Dave for most of the afternoon while I helped with an anniversary party at church. She did great! There was no crying at all, not even when she woke up from her nap. He brought her to the party for a little while then took her home before I was finished. I was so proud of them. When I finally got home, I found them in the kitchen having supper and she didn’t even need to jump into my arms. I’ll admit I didn’t really know what to do with myself.

For Valentine’s Day, she got a new dress from Dave and I, a bouquet of suckers from Grandma and Grandpop, and a flower and stuffed bear from Grandmother and Paw Paw (Is that how you spell it? It looks so wrong it pains me.). She loved the sucker, and had that figured out right away. She picked out her dress herself, and really enjoyed wearing it. You think I’m joking. I am not. When I held it up she was totally excited about it – bouncing and grabbing for it. When she saw it lying on the back of the couch later, she was totally excited all over again. It’s pink with red polka dots and lady bug pockets – who wouldn’t be excited? I did not get the same reaction out of the green dress I held up, so we left it at the store. The bear from Grandmother is okay, but she really liked the ribbon that came on the flower. That will go into our ever-growing collection of ribbons.

Finally, and not kid related, Jewel E. Cat came into the bathroom while I was brushing my teeth last night because she needed a snuggle. I think what she really needed was to show me the half-dollar sized, gaping wound on the side of her back leg. I don’t know how long she’s had the sore, but it looks clean and it isn’t smelly so I’m just keeping an eye on it. I did pour some peroxide on it – which thoroughly ticked her off – but that was mainly to make myself feel better; she seems to be taking good care of it herself. For days my strange intuition has been pricking at me about that cat, and now I know why.

I’m ready for the weekend.

Backward Bye-Byes

Ella has been waving for a while now, but I don’t get to see it much because she has a habit of waiting until whomever she is waving at has already left before she does it. When Dave is leaving, I will tell her to wave bye-bye and she waits until the door is closed behind him to wave. She waves backward, of course, because most babies do when they first start waving. The other night, she was sitting on the kitchen counter with Dave, and when I walked away from her she waved bye-bye. Dave called out to tell me she was waving at me, and when I walked back in the room, I found him waving backward at himself. Then he made an observation that answered one of life’s puzzling questions. Babies wave backward, with their fingers facing themselves, because that’s what it looks like when we wave to them. Makes sense to me.

I think my favorite moment of the week happened at 3:15 Wednesday morning. She had been asleep for 4 ½ hours (woohoo!) when I heard her fuss. I went into her room to find her pushed up on her hands with eyes wide and bright. When I picked her up, she leaned in and kissed me on the cheek! I think I might have melted into a puddle right there on the spot. Grandma tells me she did the same thing to her after a nap this week, too. She has also been kissing her baby doll. She started kissing several months ago, but now she’s better at it and it’s a lot more obvious.

I’ve started blowing kisses at her when I leave, and she finds this hilarious. Lots of things are hilarious in her little world. I’m glad I get to share it with her. It certainly makes the rest of life’s minutia melt away at the end of the day.