Four Months

Another month bites the dust.

Oh Ellie.  You joyful little bundle of wonderfulness.  You're smiles are infectious.  You are so happy.

Ellie continues to be the easiest baby.  Rarely cries.  Smiles all the time.

I heard a scripture recently that reminds me of her. "For I know the plans I have for you, plans to give you hope and a future."  Jeremiah 29:11  In my darkest days when I couldn't imagine moving forward, Ellie was my light at the end of the tunnel.  Her name itself means "God's Promise."

Here's what Ellie's been up to this month:

• She weighs 14 lbs 5 oz and is 25 inches tall.  She's above average in height and weight but is perfectly proportional and perfectly perfect.
• She still wears size 1 diapers although as soon as we run out, we'll switch to size 2.
• She is wearing size 0-3 or 3-6 month shirts/onesies, 3-6 month dresses (for height purposes), and 0-3 month pants/shorts (although she can still fit into some newborn - tiny hips and waist just like daddy and sister!)
• She's fully able to roll from tummy to back but doesn't do it so much these days because she's gripping the floor so tightly that she stays put.  
• She trying to roll from back to tummy but gets stuck on her side.
• She's pretty close to sitting.  I know that sounds crazy but she's super strong.  
• She's starting to scooch around on the floor.  We put her down on her tummy in one spot and before we know it she's sideways or even turned all the way around.
• She had her first little cold this month :(
• She started school this month!  It was decided that it would be easier to just keep her there with me everyday.  I'm determined to nurse her as long as I can so this is in our best interests.  
• I wake her at about 6 am to feed her, then I pump right before leaving the house.  I pump once at work (in the restroom in the nurse's office, not very glamorous).  At lunch I head over to the daycare to feed her.  Depending on how recently she's eaten after school, I'll feed her before we leave as well.  At school she drinks anywhere from 10-15 oz.  Then at night we're back to cluster feeding, although it's becoming more of one good feed at around 5 then one last time before she goes to bed at about 7:45.  We no longer feed her at night unless she's really crying.  
• She's a very good sleeper.  Her naps haven't completely regulated themselves just yet since we're adjusting to the new schedule.  But she sleeps about 11 hours straight at night with at least 3 hour-long (ish) naps during the day.  
• She's still sleeping in our room.  She's ready to go into her own room, but we're not.  We're just not ready for this stage to be over.  She's our BABY and we'll never do this again so we're clinging to her with all that we have.  Plus (and maybe this is just a justification for us) she does sort of wake up from time to time at night and we give her back her binky.  Her room is all the way on the other side of the house which is pretty inconvenient. 
• She's totally popular at school!  JK But seriously, all the real students try to stop by the daycare to see her!  And the ones that are in there are student aides all gush over her.  They only want to care for her and not the other babies :)  I get reports all through the day about what she's doing and the one thing that EVERYONE says about her "She smiles so much!!"  Don't I know it :)

Here she is at four months old!

Three Months.

Our little Ellie is Three Months old today!!

What an amazing baby she is! Such a gift from God! It's so crazy that a couple of fools like us could be blessed with not one, but TWO precious beautiful lovely babies.  I certainly never thought our family was incomplete before having Ellie, but boy does she bring a whole new level of completion to us!  It's like she's not only me and Ken's baby, but she's Sophia's baby too.  She's our baby.

About Ellie:

• She still loves her tummy time. She looks around and giggles until she finally gets tired and then she'll lay down and usually fall asleep.  If I'm there with her, I'll let her sleep on her tummy but if I'm going to be working around the house I'll roll her over.  
• She is sleeping much less.  She likes to sleep, play, eat, play, sleep in that order. Nursing doesn't really put her to sleep at all.  She takes about 4 naps during the day, each lasting about 1-2 hours, with about 1-2 hour play times between.   At 7:45 she is ready to get to bed.  It's like clockwork.  She'll start getting super fussy and I'm thinking "What the heck is going on?"  Then I look at the clock, sure enough, 7:45.  I feed her one last time, swaddle her up, and down she goes.  
• She still wakes up once at night to eat then goes back to sleep.  Usually at 3:30 or so.  Most times, she will make noise as if she's really upset but her eyes would remain closed.  Even during the feeding she would primarily stay asleep.  When we finish up and do burpees is when she really wakes up and coos and giggles for us, making it so hard to want to put her back to bed.  She also wakes up when she breaks free of the swaddle.  
• I go back to work on the 6th so we're trying to get things more on a regular schedule.  The past few nights we have tried just giving her back her binky rather than grabbing her up to feed.  Surprise!  It totally worked a couple of nights we had to get up 2 or 3 times to give it to her and one night she just slept right on through from 7:45 to 6:30.   To be honest, I really haven't minded waking with her in the middle of the night.  Ken gets up with me and it's like our private Ellie time.  By this time with Soph, she was already sleeping in her own room for a month.  We're having a really hard time letting Ellie grow up.  She's our baby!!

• She is starting to eat less frequently and more quickly.  She eats when she wakes up around 7, then again around lunch time, then once in the afternoon and a little bit of cluster feeding in the evening although that is diminishing now too.  She's outgrown "fussy time" in the evenings so really she just eats dinner then eats again right before bed.  It takes her about 5-10 minutes (usually closer to 5) to empty the boobie.  Judging by how much I get when I pump, that's about 4-6 oz she eats at each feeding.  I pump both sides right before I go to bed (so that I don't wake up in soaking wet agony in the middle of the night), the unnursed side in the middle of the night and in the morning, and as needed during the day.  I'm storing up about 12-16 oz in the freezer every day.  
• She is completely out of Newborn clothes.  So sad.  She's growing so fast!  
• She is wearing Size 1 diapers.  We have a boatload of size ones so we're hoping she stays in them for a while.  
• She is so joyful.  She coos and jabbers on to us all.  She also YELLS to get attention.  If I don't get in there right away when she wakes from a nap, she'll yell at me.  Not crying, yelling.  Like "Hey lady!  I'm done in here!  Entertain me!"
• She has started to love to play with crunch toys.
• She's getting a little better about the binky.  She still doesn't love it quite like Soph did, but I think it's growing on her.  It might seem crazy that I'm pushing it on her so much but I really get the feeling she wants to suck her thumb.  Don't get me wrong, I think thumb sucking is totally cute but, it was so easy to take away Soph's binky when the time came and I know it would be much tougher to "take away" a thumb.  She certainly loves to suck/chew on her hands though!  And she's such a drool-fest these days!
• She rarely cries.
• When she cries, she wales!!
• She smiles.
• She smiles.
• She smiles.
• She smiles.  This one deserves four bullets because she seriously smiles all the time!! It's too adorable.
• She giggles pretty frequently too.
• She has been rolling over every now and then.  Soph didn't roll over until she was like 7 months or something because she hated being on her tummy, so this is crazy to me.  Toward the end of this month, she started rolling regularly.  She'll go from belly to back in both directions.  
• She still goes by Ellie, Elle, Elle Belle, Ellie Belly, Smiley, Snort Snort, Ellie-Roo, Ellbow, and (drumroll please) Juju.  Yes, Juju.  A few weeks ago Soph started calling her that and hasn't stopped.  We don't know.

Here she is this month!

How rude.

Hates the 4th of July!!! (???)

Sleeping Angel

Neck getting stronger and stronger!

Sophia Loves Juju

Smiley!

Um, April, I think there's a problem here.

And Stonger...

Soph took this one :)

Watching the ESPYs with Mommy!

Two Months

Another month has flown by.  

One thing is for sure.  Ken and I ROCK at making babies!!  Ellie is such a good baby.  I mean REALLY REALLY REALLY good.  She's so sweet.  You can just tell that she is going to be a sweet person.  She smiles around the clock.  She's so curious.  She only cried in the evenings.  Just wonderful.

We had her two month appointment on the 26th.  Everything was perfect.  She had to get a bunch of shots unfortunately.  One of them was supposed to be three-in-one combo shot but they were out of it.  My choices were to wait until they got more in, give her 5 (yes, 5! shots that day), or give her two that day and come back for the rest the following week.  We opted for that one.  As we were about to leave, the doc told me "We'll see you again at 4 months and we'll start talking about solids at that time."  My heart sank.  I know two months is a long time from now but these two months have flown by which means before I know it, my sweet little baby will be eating solids.  Slow down Father Time!

So here's the low down.  

At two months old, Ellie:

• Weighs 11 pounds 6 ounces (slightly above average and I was told that breast-fed babies chunk up in the beginning then thin out sooner)
• Is 22.5 inches tall (Average)
• Is out growing most of her newborn clothes.  .:tear:.  On to size 0-3.  She can also wear those tiny little baby shoes that Soph could never wear because her feet were/are so narrow.
• Has created a schedule for herself.  She goes to bed at about 7:30-7:45, wakes once during the night at around 3:30 (or sometimes 5:30 - never other times for some reason), she eats, smiles and coos making us not want to go back to bed but rather play with her for a little while longer than we should, then goes back to sleep.
• Eats about 4 times during the day then cluster feeds in the evenings.
• Seriously loves to be on her tummy.  If this were the 80s, she'd sleep through the night for sure.  Damn you SIDS!  
• Has started to giggle!  Mainly she laughs at Sophia.  Soph has the magic touch I guess.
• Is starting to grasp at things.
• Makes lots of little non-crying noises.
• Hold herself up on her arms really well.
• Is starting to support her weight on her legs.
• Was baptized on her two month birthday (post later)
• Is the light of all our lives.

Her list of nicknames continues to evolve and includes:  Elle, Elle Belle, Ellie Belly, Ellie-Roo, Smiley, Snort Snort, Ellies (plural Ellie?), Ellie Baby, Ellie Girl, and Ellbow.

Here are some highlights of Ellie's second month.