4 Months

At the corn maze and pumpkin patch with Daddy

 

Wow!  Ellie is already 4 months old.  She is learning and growing every day, and it's such a joy to watch her.  She is 12lbs, 8 oz (25th percentile), and 24 inches (40th percentile).  She also has a labial adhesion, which we're having to treat her for.  Basically, her labia is fusing together.  For the past month we've been using Calendula gel (a homeopathic treatment) to keep it slippery, not sticky, so it won't stick together.  At her four month check up they said it's gotten worse so now we're on to prescription cream to try to treat it.  She has to wear disposable diapers while using this cream, too.  Good for the washing machine, bad for our wallet (those diapers are expensive!).  But we should be able to go back to cloth diapers in a couple of weeks.  Hopefully this cream works.  If it doesn't and it continues to get worse, she may have to have surgery to open the labia back up.

The major even this month was Halloween.  The weekend before Halloween Ellie went with us to a party.  Then, on Halloween we went to my wound care doctor (yep, c-section is still not healed!  I'm hopeful that it'll just be a few more weeks of regular wound care), and afterwards Jeff and Ellie came to my office.  She went "trick-or-treating" in the office (really just going around to show off her peanut costume).  Our students were trick-or-treating too, so it was loud and busy, and I think a little overwhelming for her.  But, everyone had fun seeing her!

Is this not the cutest peanut you've ever seen?

 

She has a very regular routine.  She is an excellent sleeper; Jeff sometimes has to wake her up at 9:30 so she won't sleep the day away!  She usually goes to sleep around 9 or 10, and sleeps until 8:30 or 9:30.  She gets up, eats, plays, then takes a long nap.  She spends her afternoons alternating between eating, playing, and napping.  She loves her exer-saucer (on loan from cousin Drake), and rolling around on the floor.  She also likes to watch TV, especially if football is on.

Watching football together

Here are the milestones we reached this month:

• Rolling over (front to back, and back to front -- usually toward her left side, though)
• Learning how to grab and guide items to her mouth (she's still learning how her hands work, so this is usually an accident)
• Reaching out for things
• Desperately wanting to learn to crawl (I watched her army crawl in her sleep, halfway up her crib, but she hasn't figured out how to do it on purpose -- or while awake! -- yet)
• Sitting up (requiring a little support from us)
• Recognizing Mama and Daddy by sight (nothing makes me happier than to watch her smile as she sees me coming into a room)

Hanging out with Mama!

 

Presley sleeps in Ellie's room most nights, but in our room once or twice a week.  Both dogs love to try to play with Ellie when she's on the floor.  They give her kisses and watch over her.  Yesterday Ellie was on the bed near where Mauja was sleeping.  She reached out and tried to crawl forward, succeeding only in grabbing Mauja's tail and then her foot.  Mauj just opened her eyes, looked at Ellie, then turned her head -- not even bothered by being grabbed at by a baby at all! 

Presley is not sure about this, but Ellie likes it!

 

Next up is the holiday season!  This will be a month of firsts for Ellie (first wedding, first Thanksgiving, first trip to Disney World...). Stay tuned to learn about all of our adventures!

Baby Fest 2012

On November 10, 2011 our friend and boss, Sonnie, lost her battle with cancer.  It was a sad, sad time in my office as we grieved together.  Sonnie was a wonderful, smart, funny woman that I am fortunate to have had the opportunity to work with and learn from.  She was my mentor during two internships for my Masters degree.  I was welcomed into my job at the school and immediately made to feel like a member of a large (and loud) family.  That was Sonnie's doing.  The office and the school iteself are not the same without her.  We miss her every day.

Around the same time that Sonnie passed away, lots of new life was happening for the women in my office.  I found out that I was pregnant a week after Sonnie died.  One of my friends and colleagues heard her daughter's heartbeat for the first time on the day that Sonnie died.  All in all, seven women in my office were pregnant together.  Most of the babies were conceived shortly before or shortly after Sonnie died.  We'd all like to think that she had something to do with it.  She certainly would have loved being around all of the babies!

On Saturday a group of us got together for lunch to remember Sonnie.  We cried a little, laughed a lot, and passed babies around.  It was so much fun to see the babies all together.  Ellie and Sicily even interacted a little bit (they are about 3 weeks apart), laughing together and communicating in their baby way.  It was a bittersweet afternoon.  Sad that we were there to without Sonnie, but so much fun to have the babes together.  Sonnie would have loved every minute of it! 

Rolling, Rolling, Rolling...

Ellie is rolling over now.  She really loves to roll over, actually.  She always looks so proud of herself when she does it, and she gets so frustrated if she's unable to do it.

The first time she rolled over was a few weeks ago.  She went from her tummy to her back.  Later that day we put her down for a nap on her back, and when Jeff went to get her, she was on her tummy.  Then, nothing.  No rolling over for over a week.

On Wednesday or Thursday of last week though, she just went crazy rolling over and over.  She'll roll from her back to her tummy to her back and so on until she runs out of room.  She still gets stuck from time to time, but is getting better at rolling every time she tries!

I have a video to post with this.  I think it might be too big because I haven't been successful in uploading it.  Maybe we'll try to take a shorter video and see if I have better luck showing you how good she is at rolling over!