What an eventful weekend! Every time we turned around, it seemed we were witnessing a first. On Saturday, after listening to Ellie play for over an hour while she was supposed to be napping, I went in to try to get her to fall asleep and when I picked her up, I felt a naked bum in my hand instead of a diaper! Miss Ellie had taken off her diaper and peed in her crib. She was absolutely wired, literally climbing the sides of the crib and running laps around it!
Later that night, Ellie watched (and loved) her first music video -- Bruce Springsteen, of course!
After rocking out for a while, I took Ellie up to bed. I brushed her teeth, got her in her jammies and then took her to the top of the stairs to say goodnight to Damian. I called "Daddy" a few times and he didn't hear me. Thinking Ellie might have more luck, I told her to call Daddy. So she yelled "Daddy!...HONEY!" So for the first time, I realized that I need to employ a little more variety in my pet names.
Then, this afternoon, I witnessed the most exciting first -- Charlie's first big, gummy smile (he had smiled a few times for Damian earlier in the day, but made me wait until this afternoon). As all the books predict, the smile came just when I was exhausted and feeling like I would spend the rest of my life cleaning poo off the walls...no, seriously, that's what I was thinking because minutes before I experienced the Great Poo Event of '09! In the middle of a diaper change, Charlie decided he wasn't satisfied with a wimpy little wet diaper and, while I had both his legs in the air, cleaning his bum, he poo'ed...everywhere! And it just kept coming. Thank goodness Damian came upstairs a few minutes later and we at least out-numbered the great pooing machine. I kid you not when I say we ended up cleaning poo off the wall, the door, the inside of a box sitting at the end of the changing table. It was incredible, but totally worth the sweet, sweet smile that I saw a few minutes later.
The last first of the weekend...Ellie's first American-cooked Sunday lunch/dinner (we did a scaled down version with just roasted chicken, potatoes, and parsnips, yorkshire puddings, and mashed carrots). Following in her cousins' footsteps, Ellie's favorite part was the yorkshire pudding. And I loved it all -- yum!
Although Ellie has another horrible cold, we took her trick-or-treating to a couple houses and she loved it! She really got into putting the candy in her bag (and amazingly, she didn't get upset when we wouldn't let her eat any of it -- of course it helps that she has no appetite right now). Mom and Dad learned an important lesson while trick-or-treating -- we have A LOT to teach Ellie about strangers -- she walked right into every house and made herself at home!
