3.25.16

Marie and Clara spent the night and Clara was fine sleeping in the pack n play in a bedroom mostly filled with junk.  Ella wouldn't sleep in her own room so she was in bed with us.

Marie was meeting some friends at Mariposa park on her short trip to visit. We went and joined them.

I was glad that Ella and Clara remembered each other after almost 5 months apart.

 

Marie and Clara were on there way and then it was back to the routine. Except Ella didn't nap like normal so then we went to a meetup.  Ella loved painting the flower pot. Most of the other kids didn't do much and their parents had to coax them to paint. Ella was just painting away. She painted it entirely and then painted more and more.

Ella enjoyed filling the pot with dirt then putting the seeds in and pushing them down 1 inch.

Ella keeps climbing into the jumperoo.

Happy Hollow Video (5.12.16)

Ella's preschool had a field trip to Happy Hollow in May. I never did a post about it or I can't find it if I did.  I compiled the videos I took and also tacked on the video google made for me at the end.

Ella was just barely 36 inches so she got to go on the rides where you had to be 36". Most of her friends weren't tall enough yet.

Ella never looked so scared on the roller coaster. Then after she said it was so fun.

Miles 6 Month Update

Photos in stripes were taken on March 10 (his 6 month birthday) and the white onesie ones were taken on the 11th. Photo outside was taken March 9.

Stats:

• Weight: 18 lb 15.9 oz - 78th percentile 
• Height: 28" - 95th percentile
• Head Circumference: 44.5 cm - 84th percentile
• Weight/Length Percentile: 47%
• Diapers: Size 3
• Clothing: Mostly 9 month clothing. Some 6 month ones fit. He also wears 12 month onesies sometimes. His 6 month photos were taken in a Gerber 18 month white onesie.
• Shoe Size: N/A
• Teeth: 2  (I feel like his top teeth are super close to coming in.)

(stats using WHO, CDC has weight higher and other 2 lower. I never remember which ones I use each month.)
I didn't take his stats myself. I forgot. But he did go to the doctors and get them taken on his 6 month birthday. I know in the past the doctors office took measurements that were too low but oh well.  His height and head circumference are slightly less than last time I took them but I used the doctor measurements anyway.  I measured him a few days later and got 28.5".

Sleep
Sleeping has been a little bit better but now he has Benadryl a lot during the day.

He takes 3 naps a day most days.

He wakes up (far too early) and is awake 1.5-2 hours. Then he's awake 2-4 hours between the other naps and sleeps.

Eating
Sometimes he just cries and cries when I try to nurse and it's because he wanted to nurse on the other side. It's so weird. As soon as I switch, he's fine.

He's continued with purees. He's had carrots, sweet potatoes, green beans, bananas, apples, peas, and maybe more.  He also had banana puffs and toast this month.

He is still awful at nursing if he's not in his room in quiet darkness. It makes things very difficult.

Sample Schedule:
Around 7:30 PM,  he likes to start nursing to go to sleep. Lately he wakes up at least 1 time in the middle of the night. If he doesn't wake up 1 time, he's awake at 4:30 for the entire day! Throughout the day he's awake 2-4 hours between naps except the very first one of the day it's usually 1.5 hours. Also if he has a late nap he still wants to go to bed near 7:30.  Somehow he still seems to manage 3 naps a day. Sometimes he wakes up from nap and I can tell he's still tired and wants to sleep but for some reason woke up. I nurse him then and he goes back to sleep.  Mostly I try not to nurse right when he wakes up. Ella always wanted to nurse right when she woke up so it was difficult when we were out and about and she woke up from nap.  We have had a lot of longer naps this week if I let him sleep on me. There are plenty of days where he has 1-2 naps less than 15 minutes long yet he still has only 3 naps for the entire day.

Special Moments:

On February 12, he rolled over front to back a lot. He had lots of hives. I asked for a kiss and got slobbers all over my cheek. I told him we were done eating and I swear he said more and then had a death grip on the tray.  He was trying to crawl but more like shimmies.
On February 17, he discovered pulling socks off his feet.  Ella fed Miles a swedish fish. She said it was just a small piece. I had to fish it out of his mouth!
On February 18, he had a lot of coughing in his crib. Throughout the night and morning. He'd settle himself and be good.   He had his first short nap while on a run.
On February 19, he ate banana in the mesh thing to be able to feed himself.
On February 21, I noted he had been saying hi for the past couple days. It sounds more like hey.
On February 22, Dave turns over in bed (Miles and I were awake hanging out) and Miles says hi to him. Then Dave says hi back in his sleepy state.   I put laundry in and come back and he says hi to me.
On February 23, he woke up saying "dada" over and over in his crib.  On 4 occasions, he yelled "Ella" when Ella was being bad.  He said "mama" to yell at me.  This was the 2nd night I swaddled him before bed and not Dave.
On February 25, Ella woke up and said "hi Miles" and he said "hi Ella."
On February 26, at 5 AM I went in and soothed him and got him back into the crib without nursing! We attempted his first restaurant high chair but he kept sliding down so that did not work.
On February 27, he woke up with pink eye.
On February 28, Miles had his first forward facing run (in the double with Ella).  At night I heard Miles crying through the wall. I check the app but it wasn't working. But it works as I load it and Ella is in his crib with him! She was supposed to be in her room.
On March 1, I gave him a cucumber spear but he was a little confused.  I sang him to sleep!
On March 3, his pink eye was gone. He was still coughing though.
On March 4, Dave saw the magic of the ABCs. He would stop crying when he heard ABCs but other songs didn't do the magic.
On March 6, Miles had puffs for the first time.
On March 8, Dave was saying bye to Miles and he put his arms out for a hug. (So he got a hug.)  I put Miles in the swing quickly while I grabbed a paper towel and he flipped out and landed on his head. (Can't use swing anymore unless he is buckled in.)
On March 9, he had toast for the first time.

Development:
He can sit up! He can be held wrapping his legs around my side now! He seems to talk a lot. I can understand a few things.    He kisses and hugs a lot. He started grabbing his feet this month.  (He barely rolls over front to back anymore. He used to a lot. He doesn't roll over back to front. I think he has twice but nothing recently. For awhile when on his belly, he'd lift his butt up in the air, but now he doesn't do that. I feel like once he got super itchy and he started wearing the scratching sleeves, he doesn't do so much stuff. )

Other Tidbits:
Likes
He likes to be the weights in bench pressing and overhead extensions (while lying down).
He likes to be kissed.
He likes to eat!
He likes to talk or coo all the time.
He likes to go for runs in the stroller.
He likes to watch Cohh on TV (Twitch TV).
He likes to watch TV.
He likes when Dave gets home from work in the evening.
He likes Ella!
He likes to get swaddled. He gets so excited because he knows he gets to eat next. And at night he knows he gets Benadryl.
He likes to help give himself Benadryl and even suck the medicine out of the dropper.
He likes to be swaddled while sleeping.
He likes to just look at himself in the mirror on his play mat for awhile.

Dislikes
He doesn't like being itchy!
He doesn't like when we put the scratching sleeves on him.
He hates to nurse when not swaddled.
He doesn't like nursing around other people.
He doesn't like to nurse anywhere besides his room!
He especially doesn't like to nurse if I'm talking.
He doesn't like to be forward facing in strollers yet. He likes to be able to see me.

Fun Facts
Longest time sleeping: 9 hours 51 minutes  (591 minutes)
Days with a sleep greater than 5 hours: 21
Days with a sleep greater than 6 hours: 13
(According to the internet sleeping through the night is considered sleeping 5-6 straight hours.)
Days with sleep greater than 8 hours: 4 (8 last month and 11 the month before)
Diapers used (from March 1-11): 9.1 per day 
Time spent nursing (from March 1-11): 219 minutes (3:39) per day  
Time spent sleeping (from March 1-11): 13.5 hours per day
Doctor Visits: 2 (6 month well check and pink eye appointment)
Illnesses: 1 (pinkeye with runny nose and cough) 

Favorite Toys
Piano Play Mat
Giraffe teether
Keys
Key Teether
banana teether
Teethers in general

Favorite Songs
ABCs -- This song is his favorite by far!
Whatever Ella sings to him

Favorite Books
none yet (He's liked books but doesn't seem to have a favorite)

Other Tidbits
His eczema is mostly cleared up but then he has times where he gets some patches again. Lately his head has been really itchy. He sure learned how to take socks off his hands.  I learned at the doctors that our dosage for Benadryl was low since he weighs so much. 

My Recovery
I gained the 4 lbs I lost last month.  I still have almost 30 lbs still to lose. (OK according to my weight on March 10 I have exactly 30 lb to lose.)  My knee is still stiff a lot and not getting a lot better. It's not awful but it's at the same level it's been at for awhile. My longest run has been 3 miles. My groin hurts more when I'm done running than my knee. I limp almost the entire following day.  I'm still going to PT once a week for my knee.   I'm so tired!  I hurt my thumb this month and it hurt every time I had to lift Miles up. I dropped a chair on my foot and that hurt (and still hurts).

If you want to compare this to when Ella was 6 months you, you can. It will make you realize I have a ton of weight to lose and that Ella nursed for half the time that Miles does! Also she slept 13.6 hours a day and he does 13.5 and he's on Benadryl a lot. At least he has fewer diapers.

Again I think I'm forgetting a lot.

12.9.16

My phone decided to break again and some pictures disappeared, others turned gray, and some were fine.

Ella went on a field trip and saw the Nutcracker with preschool.

Divya came over and baked for the cookie exchange.  She did a good job for her first time ever baking.

I put miles in the double jogger just to see what he looked like.

We went for a walk. It started out fine.

But it quickly escalated.

It's hard to tell but this steep downhill sucked. The steep uphill wasn't so bad for my knee but was worse for my endurance.

Ella with one of her teachers at school. Ella loves Ms. Dana.

Miles doesn't always stay in his swing when I don't buckle him in.

 The floor is a mess.

Ella helped open a package with her kid scissors.  She loved being able to do it.

We got BJs for dinner. The spaghetti sauce was so spicy.

Ella Says... (January 2017)

Here are some more of Ella's little gems. 

Me: Hey get your hand out of my shirt

Ella: I'm just fixing your boob. This one is a little squished 

1/1/17

----------

Me: Ella where did you go?

Ella: I'm getting water from Ms Beth’s

1/2/17

----------

Me: Why don't you like daddy? Why are you mean to him and tell him to go away?

Ella: I like daddy a lot.

1/3/17

----------

She wanted to make a bed out of her magnetic blocks. i made one. she said "i'm making a better bed"

then said “it is difficult”

1/7/17

----------

Ella: I sharing yours and drinking mine” Referring to shakeology

----------

“I hiding your car keys”

She did this while my back was turned.

1/12

----------

Dave: Ella do you want to play Nintendo

Ella: yes with my controller (and putting her hands like she'd hold a controller)

1/13

----------

I tell Ella I need to feed Miles

She said “I can feed him”

Me: no you can't feed him because he will nurse.

Ella moved her dress : my boobs are a little bit small to feed miles. 

----------

Ella: Teaching Miles how to go potty

He watched intently      

Then randomly talks a bunch then says "I give you a ball of a sass"

1/17

----------

Me: I'll get your pull-up

Ella. That's not my pull-up that's Lottie's pull-up. 

Me: Ella why do you have Lottie's pull-up 

Ella: because I don't have anymore at school

1/18

----------

Ella turns to me. "I'm not afraid of Santa anymore "

1/20

----------

Miles whining s lot

Dave : you little s**t

Ella: yea you little s**t

1/20

----------

Ella in a timeout

Ella: I not 3

Dave: how old are you?

Ella: I 2

Dave: Are you saying you are 2 so your timeout is shorter?

Ella nods

1/22

----------

Oh boy Ella is repeating what I said earlier and she tells me "I can't handle you anymore "

1/23

----------

Miles woke up. Ella said I'm going to go tell him it'll be ok. I said ok I'll be right in. I was closing the tortilla chip container.  And then I look on monitor and she's in crib  telling him it will be ok. 

1/23

----------

Mikes is crying. Then Ella. I comfort Miles. 

Then Ella says “I crying too.” 

I ask why. 

She said “I want to hit Miles”

I took miles away to comfort him so then she cried because she couldn't hit him anymore !

1/24

----------

Ella pulls down her pants "look at my butt"

1/24

----------

Ella: I see a car mommy. Don't walk into the car. 

We were on a walk. It was a parked car

1/24

----------

Ella gets a toy from a machine

Me: when I was a kid we didn't get those. They were a waste of money

Dave nods 

Ella: When I was a kid I got 2

She did. (She got 2 last time Dave let her get some and I think she also ended up getting 2 this time.)

1/28

----------

I ask Dave what to have for dinner

Ella: I don't know mommy. Maybe a lemon.

She found a lemon on our walk. 

1/28

----------

Yesterday after Ella was running around I asked Ella if she wanted to run another race. She got so excited she told Lottie's mom about it.(who was confused what Ella was saying) then we drove home and pulling in that driveway Ella was flipping out that we forgot to go to the race. On our way home I had talked about how we can find a race coming up but I didn't know when. And asked if she wanted Gio to run the race too. 

Ella: Yea. Gio is a boy. And Gio's mommy can run too.

Me: Do you want daddy to go?

Ella: Yea. And Miles and you can baby wear Miles. Ok?

1/31

----------

On a walk

“That's a big hill mommy. You can run up it”

1/31

It sure looks like Ella had a lot of good quotes in January but I probably just documented more and she has as many good ones as she does every month. 

2.21.17 and 2.23.17 videos

When I load the pictures from my phone onto my computer, then google has the videos from the pictures differently. Then I get better google videos. Here are 2 one from February 21 and one from February 23.

These are just some random days but as you can see Google makes some nice videos. If only I looked at them. I probably load like 5 once a month or less.  I'm annoyed with the google photos app.

I just rewatched them and there were probably a few clips I would have deleted. Oh well. I don't think you can edit once you save.

12.8.16

I finally got some sleep. Still not a lot. I was awake in the middle of the night and couldn't seem to get Miles to sleep then I fell asleep in the chair for an hour. But then magically I got to sleep until almost 8 AM.

Then it was getting ready and in a rush starting then.

I had to wake Ella up. She was so tired from no nap.  She didn't want to wake up. We ended up leaving late. 1.5 hours is not enough time to get ready. Also I forgot to do some stuff on my to-do list.  We got to the MVCC at 9:45. I hoped to get there at 9:30. The Cookie Exchange started at 10 and we had to set up. Tobe was getting out all the tables and chairs when I showed up. I started putting together the photo booth.   It was a very hectic day.

We wanted Miles to look at me but he just wanted to look at Gio.

Overall the event was crazy hectic. There were 18 moms there with a ton of kids. Many moms had 2 kids but 1 had 3.  I took a lot of photos of families with my nice camera. It was super helpful because Gio held Miles for awhile.

Some people helped us clean up so it went pretty quick. During cleanup time most were gone and a few kids had so much fun running back and forth. We were just ready to leave and I was picking up canvas bags to carry them out. Ella grabbed the handle of the stroller and went to hang. Everything tipped and Miles flipped out. He was just chilling in there since he was awake and we had to clean up. He cried. Ella was so sad and distraught.

We got home and I dealt with a lot of screaming. It's a lot of trouble carrying everything in and dealing with Miles and Ella both needing stuff. But then once I got to nurse Miles he was able to go to sleep and he slept for a couple hours. That was great!  The time flew.   I was able to load all the pictures I took at the cookie exchange. I took over 250! We would have to take a lot of group shots in a row before we got kids smiling and looking at the right direction.

We got distracted and we didn't try to get her down for nap until too late. Then she was awful at going down and in her room talking and playing forever. It was probably close to 4:30 before she fell asleep.

Miles woke up and chilled and hung out a bit and we ended up waking Ella up. Even opening her door didn't cause her to wake up but when she saw Miles she was willing to wake up.

We did the same old stuff in the evening when Dave is home. He was already home all day because he worked from home so it felt more like a weekend.   We tried to get Ella to bed at normal time even though her nap was late since she has to get to school early on Friday for a field trip to see the Nutcracker.  That sort of failed. She played in her bed for ages too.

I cleaned the kitchen. She wanted me to lie in bed with her for bedtime but I said no Daddy was because I was cleaning but if I lied with her then Dave would just watch TV.  Everything is really messy. I spent awhile cleaning and only did dishes and cleaned the island.  Then I went and used my laptop.

In the evening my phone broke like it has broken twice before. Both other times it started working again sooner than it did this time. It sort of worked again a little but sometimes not and that was even after hours. Who knows if it'll totally be gone. I need to back it up! (It breaks saying there are no pictures and also apps won't work or with trying maybe 1 will load after a half hour.  Eventually pictures will show up or say they are there but a ton break and are gray instead of the actual picture. I did lost pictures but not a lot and it did start working again eventually but each time it broke, it broke worse.)

I ended up staying up entirely too late. I spent awhile trying to get my phone to work.  (It failed anyway.)

Ella Says ... (December 2016)

I document some quotes as time goes on. I definitely don't document everything awesome or funny but here's what I documented. 

Ella: Where's Goosey?

(Ella learned that Dave and I call each other Goosey.)

12/10

----------

Ella: Colleen where's Dave?

(She also knows our real names.)

12/10

----------

I can't find my keys.

Ella: I'll find them with my hard muscles.

She flexes her muscles. 

12/12

----------

Ella fell and caught herself mostly but in that process bumped the table and spilled her milkshake. She got so sad and said "Daddy isn't going to like this"  She was so sad about it.

12/13

----------

Ella tells me "lets go"

"We are going to McDonald's after I go pee pee in the little potty"

After a little and I ask if daddy can bring it home 

She keeps saying no "you and Miles and me"

I explain miles isn't good in car

"You and me. Miles can stay here"

She was pointing when she says who both times. 

----------

Eating pretzels

Me: these are salty

Ella: I like salty pretzels 

12/22

----------

Sat up a little to drink water

"You aren't leaving yet. I just got you to lay with me"

12/22 11:40 pm

----------

I told Ella bedtime in 10 min. Dave said so early?. I mentioned earlier since at school (something but I can't decipher my typos!). So then he said "ok Ella bedtime in 10 minutes.”

she said "no. 5 minutes". 

He said "bedtime in 5 minutes ". 

She said "ok"

12/23
----------

Ella has trouble going to sleep

Me: Why don't you want to go to sleep?

Ella: Because it's Christmas

11:40 12/24

----------

"Hurry home mommy I have to pee pee"

(At a red light ) go mommy go 

12/25

----------

Tried to take Ella's pic

“no! I don't like pictures “

12/27 12:50 pm

----------

Ella: I'm making  a baby for you

Me: How are you doing that Ella?"(Look over and she has 3 barrettes on a toy bed}

Ella: Doctor.

12/28

----------

Looking at her hair and touching the ponytail

“My hair is so difficult.”

12/31