Another playdate

This has been the best week (except that we haven't been able to see Hillary and Jackson because they're sick -- feel better, guys!)! Ellie and I went to another playdate today. This one was through meetup.com and we didn't know anyone. Yikes! I was a bit nervous about going to a total stranger's house for a playdate with total strangers. Silly me -- I forgot that I was taking the best ice-breaker with me. When we walked into the room, everyone was sitting in a circle, babies in laps, quietly talking to the mom next to them. I sat down, put Ellie in my lap and before I could even introduce myself to the woman next to me, Ellie crawled off my lap into the center of the circle, looked around at everyone (all too busy chatting to notice Ellie) and promptly started squawking and laughing. That sure changed the mood in a hurry! She made friends with everyone in the room within minutes. We certainly have a social butterfly on our hands!

These pictures have nothing to do with the playdate, but I thought her outfit was just too cute, plus they show how Miss Ellie sits down after pulling up.

Ellie's first pancake breakfast

Lest you think I've already fallen off the healthy baby food wagon, let me first say that the pancakes were uber healthy! They were buckwheat pancakes (no sugar) with shredded squash and cheese in them. Even by substituting the squash and cheese for bananas and syrup, Damian and I could hardly get through them, but Ellie loved them! She is SO good with finger foods -- she loves (LOVES!) feeding herself slices of banana and grapes (peeled and quartered -- can you say high maintenance?!).

Do you think she looks just a little sleepy after her big breakfast?!

Halloween playdate

Today, Ellie attended her first costume party! Celena invited us to join her playgroup for their Halloween party, and with 10+ moms and twice as many kids, Ellie was absolutely in heaven!

How cute are these kids?!

Here are Celena's little ones, Kennedy and Luke:

And my precious little spider:

I call this one "Mama needs a haircut!"
And this one, "Mama should've finished her brownie so she could've smiled!"

Thanks for including us in the fun, Celena!

Twin envy?

I've always thought that Ellie was really meant to be a second or third child, rather than a first child. She just loves being around other kids and all of the activity that they bring with them. Now, however, I'm starting to wonder whether she was actually meant to be a twin -- her reflection is one of her favorite playmates!

And here's some more bathroom fun. Like I said, Damian makes everything fun...tonight, he transformed her adorable Halloween shirt from Auntie Jamie into an oh-so-fun hat:

Ellie's favorite person

Ellie loves weekends because she gets so much extra time with her favorite person -- Daddy! Damian gets up with her (THANK YOU, Damian!), plays with her, gives her breakfast, puts her down for naps, etc. She just adores him. He is so creative in the way he plays with her -- he finds all kinds of ways to make her toys more interesting and he always makes her laugh.

Lately, she's been LOVING this Halloween book that Hillary's mom gave me at my baby shower last year. Ellie digs it out of her basket of books and brings it over to us to read over and over (and over!) again. It has flaps on each page and Ellie knows where each one is -- she tries to open them herself. Such a smart little girl!

Happy 60th birthday, Papa! And happy anniversary, Gaga and Papa!

Ellie Ali

Ellie might have a future in boxing. She's caused her first bloody nose. Unfortunately, it was her own. She's gotten into this horrible habit of putting her fingers up her nose during mealtimes (she just takes a detour in the middle of feeding herself) and yesterday she just went a bit too far. Poor thing!

Kathy

Today, Ellie and I had lunch with Kathy, my good friend from high school. It was SO much fun to catch up with her after 12 years (agh! has it really been 12 years since I graduated?!), and of course, Ellie was thrilled to make a new friend.

Tagged!

Well, my sweet friend, Celena, "tagged" me. Having no idea what that meant, I was glad she explained the rules:

1. Link to the person who tagged you
2. Post the rules on your blog
3. Write six random thoughts about yourself
4. Tag six or so people at the end of your post
5. Let each person know he or she has been tagged
6. Let the tagger know when your entry is posted

So here are Celena's very interesting thoughts about herself.

And here are my not-so-interesting-but-hopefully-endearingly-quirky thoughts/things about myself:

1. I have to read when I'm in the bathroom. If I don't have a book or magazine, I'll read whatever is in arm's reach...the lotion bottle, the ingredients in my saline solution, the toilet paper wrapper, whatever. I'll read the same thing over, and over, and over again. Wait, does OCD qualify as something "quirky"?

2. One of my favorite past-times is making fun (out loud) of people on TV who misuse "literally" and "believe." For example, "I literally have a million things to do today." Really? A million? "She's literally the smartest person in the entire world." Wow! How did you determine that? Or "I don't believe in the death penalty." Hhm. I never thought of the death penalty being like the Easter Bunny or Santa Claus, but apparently its existence is questionable to some. I should really get out more.

3. I like to give dogs voices...and a different voice for each dog. I talk for them, which means that I often carry on both sides of a conversation:
Me: Gracie do you want to go for a walk?
Me (in a dog voice): Yes, yes, yes. Please, oh, please. Let's go, let's go, let's go. Come on, come on, come on. Hurry up, hurry up, hurry up!
Me: Oh, I don't know. Do you deserve to go on a walk, Gracie?
Me (in a dog voice): I do, I do, I do. I've been really good. I haven't done permanent damage to the house in weeks. Please, please, please, please!
[It should be noted that I actually didn't realize that this was a "quirky" thing until recently because I come for a long line of dog talkers!]

4. I get seriously grossed out by the thought of loose teeth! Damian and I have already discussed the fact that he will have to handle all of Ellie's loose teeth. I don't want to know about it and I certainly don't want to see them. In fact, Ellie might have to move out while she's loosing teeth. We'll see. One of Ellie's CDs has a song about a "wiggly" tooth that is hanging by a thread. Ugh! It gives me the heebee-geebee's just thinking about it. I have to skip that song, but unfortunately, I usually don't recognize it until I've heard the first line...then I just drive around trying desperately not to think about wiggly teeth.

5. I sort of have a phobia of salmonella. If we cook chicken or fish or if Damian makes eggs (he is totally incapable of breaking an egg without it running down the side of the bowl onto the counter), I pretty much sanitize the entire kitchen...usually before we're done cooking. Damian just loves how I chase him around the kitchen with a spray bottle of bleach.

6. I have a terrible time remembering whether I've actually said something out loud or if I've just thought about saying it, so I often start a sentence with "Did I say this out loud..." Sweet Damian just acts like it's totally normal instead of saying "you're crazy, woman -- if you stopped having conversations with the voices in your head, this wouldn't be a problem!"

And now the six people that I'm tagging (drum roll, please):
1. Jamie
2. Hillary
3. Jenna
These people don't have blogs of their own, but I thought they could post their quirky thoughts in the comments section of this post:
4. Mom/Gaga
5. Sue/Grandma Sue
6. Marjorie/MeMe

No pressure if you don't want to do this -- I just thought it would be fun to learn some quirky things about you and to have them for Ellie to read later (so only G-rated quirkiness, ladies!).

Say WHAT?!

Ellie's expression upon hearing her doctor's advice:

Ellie had her 9 month check-up today and she did not like Dr. Moore's advice! He said that Ellie should be sleeping at least 10 hours at night (really closer to 12) without eating. So he said that if she wakes up after less than 10 hours (which she almost always does), we're supposed to let her cry it out. No more going in to comfort her, no more nursing her after 8 or 9 hours -- we're not to enter her room for 10 hours. And if that wasn't bad enough, he said that Ellie should be napping for at least an hour, twice a day (really closer to 1.5 to 2 hours) and that we should leave her in her crib for at least an hour, whether she's sleeping, playing or crying. Poor Ellie is getting a lesson in tough love!

So that's the bad news. The good news is that Ellie is perfect! Her weight gain has slowed down a bit, but that was expected. She now weighs 21 lbs, 15 oz., putting her in the 90th percentile. And she's 29 inches long, which is also the 90th percentile. Her head, on the other hand, is in the 95th percentile. All the better to hold her impressive brain.

Since I haven't done a very good job of keeping a baby book for Ellie, here are all of her measurements from her past appointments:

6 months: 20 lbs, 1 oz. (95th+ percentile); 27.25 inches (95th percentile)
4 months: 16 lbs, 15 oz. (98th+ percentile); 27 inches (95th+ percentile)
2 months: 12 lbs, 3 oz. (85th percentile); 24 inches (95th percentile)
1 month: 9 lbs, 8 oz. (55th percentile); 22 inches (78th percentile)
2 weeks: 8 lbs, 4 oz. (50th percentile); 21.5 inches (85th percentile)
5 days: 7 lbs, 7 oz.; 21 inches
3 days: 7 lbs, 5 oz. (25th percentile)
birth: 7 lbs, 13 oz.; 21.75 inches

Here we go!

It's official -- Ellie can pull up and she's starting to cruise. Her technique is interesting. She gets up on her knees, holds on to something and then straightens her legs. It makes me knees hurt just watching it! In this video, she modified her technique a bit and sort of got up on one leg.

She's so pleased with her new talent! She spent the afternoon pulling up on everything -- the couch, the coffee table, her crib, the windowsill, etc. And she's such a dainty little lady when she wants to sit down -- she leans way over to one side, puts a hand out and sort of eases down onto her hip, instead of just plopping down on her tush.

So maybe it was this big milestone that was messing up her sleep (she's been waking up crying every night)?! Oh how I hope so!

Just taking a little rest. Contemplating her next move:

Pushing her nose against the baby gate:

"Hhm...I bet I could hang off the top of this gate!"

For Gaga

Gaga has been working really hard preparing for the elections, so I thought I would do a post especially for her. Gaga has a thing for overalls, so I thought she might like these pictures:

An urban hike

Today, Damian, Ellie, Gracie and I took advantage of the fantastic weather and we went for a little walk in the nearby nature preserve. Gracie had a blast running around and protecting us from pesky squirrels and Ellie really enjoyed being outside.

We spent most of the afternoon hanging out outside -- Ellie in the pack 'n play and Damian and I in lounge chairs. Ah, this is the life!

Fun with dairy

Ellie's newest food is cottage cheese and it's a huge hit. It's not exactly the easiest food for her to eat without making a mess, but she doesn't seem to mind...even when it's in her eye, her ears, her hair, etc.

Fun with the Adams family

Today, we went to our neighborhood "fun fest" with Hillary, Jay and Jackson. Most of the activities were for older kids, but Jackson and Ellie had fun checking stuff out and watching all of the action.

Hhm...does Jackson have a career in music?

Jackson loved the bounce house! He was the youngest kiddo (by far), but it didn't seem to phase him!

Awh! Looking up to Daddy!

After enjoying the fun fest, we put the kiddos to bed and the four of us had dinner and played cards -- it was SO much fun! We're so lucky that our best friends just happen to be married to each other. ;-)