Thursday, April 21, 2011

Just a quickie

(As a side note, have I mentioned how much I love the movie "Mr. and Mrs. Smith"? I could watch it all the time. And "Ever After".)

I finally got Eleanor smiling on camera! This is the cutest picture ever. She still has her dark blue eyes but they are starting to turn a little more gray. She is such a sweet little girl. Definitely more temperamental than Patrick was as a baby, with her own ideas on everything, but sweet as can be. She rolled over front-to-back for the first time at 5 weeks, 5 days old. I told her how impressed I was and promptly told her not to do it again--she's too young to start things like that ;-) She weighed in at 11 lb 10 oz at 6 weeks old, up from her birth weight at 8 lb 14 oz. She comes with me to teach my pharmacology class each week and either stays with my department chair or sleeps in the sling while I talk.

My baby girl is growing up way too fast, but we are loving every day of it.

Saturday, April 9, 2011

Three is even more fun than two

One of Ellie's nicknames is "Wiggle Worm". She was just introduced to the play gym two days ago and so far, she really likes it. It's about the only place that she's willing to be put down while awake without screaming her sweet little head off.

Caesar likes having Ellie down at his level.


Patrick and Kamu love Ellie to pieces. They sing songs to her when she cries, hold her hands, give her hugs and kisses, and are really gentle with her. Kamu occasionally gets a little tired of how often she eats ("You nursing the baby again?!?!?!") but other than that, his transition to big brother has been remarkably easy--much more so than I'd expected. He does take advantage of anytime I put Ellie down to cuddle with me but that's certainly to my benefit as much as his :-)



Eleanor doesn't mind tummy-time too much because it gives her easy access to slurp on her fist, which she loves. (And yes, I know she's in pink and flowers and ruffles in this picture. Some of it is kind of cute. Most of it makes me itch.)

Thursday, April 7, 2011

A little bit of Eleanor in my life

I've been told I'm not blogging enough since Ellie came.  Mind you, I would argue that having blogged twice in the last month is pretty darned good for me but apparently my mom and sister others have a different view.  I admit that it is hard to blog with a baby who refuses to be put down for more than two seconds while awake or five minutes while asleep, primarily because I can't sit close enough to the desktop to type or put the laptop on my lap.  And the fact that she nurses all the time which means, at best, I have one hand free while the other holds her.
Then again, I can't argue with wanting to see more of this sweet pea.  She is a month old today--I can hardly believe it!  It feels like she's been with us forever and yet no time at all.

Eleanor is a wonderful little girl.  (Look, I almost caught her smiling!  She's been smiling at me for about two weeks and has just started smiling at other people.)

She's always on the go with her big brothers (though no one ever sees her since she's always in the sling).

Here she is on top of Stone Mountain!
I admit that I'm having trouble getting into girl-type clothes, but there are some awfully cute ones out there that are not pink and flower-covered and ruffly.  Then again, Ellie looks cute in everything...
...dressed like a little pink teddy bear...


...sundresses...
...frogs and Spiders... (She was mad at us for not having her early enough to work on her brackets.  She rooted for Richmond, of course, though she cried through much of the Kansas game)

...and anything else she wears.  For the record, she's wearing 3-6 month sizes as of her one-month birthday.  Yikes, this girl can grow!

Eleanor is starting to get onto somewhat of a more typical newborn schedule.  She's up a little more often at night, to the detriment of my sleep, but we do often take a morning nap together.  Actually, in the last few days she has started to take a morning nap and an afternoon/evening nap, so it's a little more predictable.  She's much more alert during the day, which is lots of fun.  While she still cluster nurses, she doesn't generally do it for 3-4 hours at a time anymore...it's usually only 1.5-2 hours, which is a vast improvement.  Lately, she's decided that she won't cry when she's not hungry or overtired as long as you don't stop moving.  "Moving" involves bouncing her, swaying, and walking--all at the same time.  Sometimes it alxo involved patting her back and shushing her.  This may be why I've lost weight so quickly.

We are indeed lucky to have our baby Ellie in our family!