Ellie Updates

Fall has arrived in our neighborhood. This is a view from our front porch. The colors are beautiful.

Sorry for so long between posts. As many of you know, I've not been feeling just up to par since returning from Kryg, but I'm hopeful that I'm on the mend. Jennifer has returned to work and is "symptom free" so I'm hopeful that I'm shortly behind her.

We've been working hard, as a family, to adjust to the addition of our newest little member. Little though she may be, she does have a strong will, powerful personality and some lungs to match. She is a strong girl. *smile* But, we love her for who she is and she will most definitely fit right in with this family.

Because of some gastro issues of hers, the doctor has told us to try switching her to soy formula. We started that process last night and hope to have good results from that. She had been having lots of gas, tummy rumbles, spitting up/throwing up her formula and some really, really messy diapers. All of her parasite tests came back negative (thank goodness), and HER doctor thinks Jennifer and I either picked up a bacterial or traveller's diarrhea. Hmmmm... seems to be lasting a long time no matter what it is.

Ellie is doing very well in her muscle development. She does a commando type crawl -- backwards -- in her crib during tummy time. She loves to stand with someone holding her fingers. Sitting is not so great yet, but she has ridden in the shopping cart with a strap and isn't falling over all floppy doll style.

We are still trying to work on adding solids. She just doesn't seem to like fruits at all. Her favorite vegetable is peas and she will tolerate a few bites of green beans and sweet potatoes. She acts like we are poisoning her when we put food in her mouth, screwing up the most horrible faced look. She'll move it around in her mouth, forcing as much of it back out as she can. She does, however, love her 2 ounces of juice each day. We continue to work on this.

She's developed a love of all things musical, so we got her a really cool musical toy that has a mirror. She'll sit in her Bumbo, kicking her feet to the music and looking at herself in the mirror. It's a riot.

She's figured out that the cats are alive and something fun to pet. She rubs and rubs on their hair. Lucy is apparently going to be "her" cat. She is pretty much still non-plussed by the dogs, not really reacting to them at all.

She is sleeping much better (sans last night when we changed her formula), taking a nap between 6-8 and then going to bed about 9:30, awakening once in the night for a bottle and then sleeping until about 5:30. Bless Kevin for taking nighttime feedings as I am still just exhausted.

It has been very warm here, so we broke out a "warm" outfit yesterday. Enjoy the pix! Hopefully next week I'll feel like taking her to mom's to get some "real" pictures made.

These are some photos of the day she went to work with Daddy: