I guess it is time for another update... :)

I am so behind on here! Hopefully I can remember enough about the past few months to post on here. Ellie started crawling the right way when she was 8 months old. Very shortly after she started crawling she started pulling herself up onto things. I really hated it when she first started standing up. I had to be right beside her all of the time so that she wouldn't fall and hurt herself. She eventually learned a better way to get down. She would slowly put her hands on the floor then drop her knee's onto the floor. It was pretty cute. It looked like she was doing a yoga pose. She eventually got tired of doing that and started to drop onto her bottom. I wish I had updated this much sooner because there are a lot of things that I can't remember :(

During her 10th month she really started to try to talk. She will say "hi", "Buh" for bye, "MOM" mainly when she is upset and needs me to get her something, and "Dada". Ellie and I went on a short trip to Twin Falls and while at our Aunt Bitsy's house, Bitsy and her daughter got her to say "puppy" twice! I honestly couldn't believe that she said it! I haven't been able to get her to repeat it though. It would probably help if we had a puppy here. Now I will have a little buddy to help me persuade Steven to get a puppy :). She absolutely LOVES animals! When we were in Twin Falls, Ellie chased the cat at my moms how all over the place. The cat ended up trying to hide most of the time. Ellie was never able to catch her. I'm thinking that she will get the cat one of these days.

I basically NEVER get to go the the bathroom by myself. She always follows me into our bathroom. She loves trying to get the toilet paper to unroll it. She likes it even more when she actually gets to it which has happened a couple of times.

Ellie really likes to push my buttons! Seriously, every button I have that she can reach gets pushed. The buttons on the T.V., the button that turns the computer on and off, the buttons on the remote control's, the buttons on the VCR/DVD player and the buttons on the keyboard. I think that it is one of her new favorite things to do.

She really loves her toys. She pushes balls all over the apartment. She will usually pick out a certain toy or other random object during the day and will drag it with her and talk to it most of the day. It's pretty cute. I think that her favorite toys right now are her dolly, her toy remote control, and her rattles.

She also loves books. Her favorite book is The Foot Book, by Dr. Seuss. If I want her to come to me and she try's to ignore me all I have to do is start reading, or reciting in my case, that book and she'll come right to me. Her other favorite is the book Mirror Me. It's a Baby Einstein book. It makes her smile every time we read it to her. She really is happy with any book though.

She loves playing peek-a-boo games. Her favorite is when I hide in another room or behind something and say "where's Ellie". She always comes to me and when I see her she gets a big smile on her face and seems so excited that I found her. She also thinks it's pretty funny when I cover her face with a blanket and say the same thing. She will pull it down and smile, then pull it over her face again.

We have recently found that she can stand without holding on to anything. A lot of the time I don't think she notices that she is standing by herself. Usually as soon as she notices she sits down. Today she has been brave and has stood up and let go of me by herself. She has been walking along all of our furniture for a while. She can also push her little infant toy stroller around. I'm thinking that she'll be walking on her own in no time. I am a little nervous for that. She already keeps me on my toes as she is!

Ellie has really become a social butterfly. She is so happy when she see's new people, especially kids and other babies. She usually follows babies close to her age around when she can. She usually copies what they are doing and thinks that they are so great.

I'm not sure what her favorite food is right now. She will eat almost anything we give to her. She usually eats whatever we eat for dinner and lunch. It is fun to see her all messy and covered in food, I just wish it was fun to clean her up too!

Things she hates are getting her face cleaned, the dreaded nasal aspirator, getting things taken away from her (sometimes I have to do it), going for long rides in the car, public restrooms (she FREAKS out when a toilet flushes), and she doesn't seem to like getting a new diaper put on her.

It is crazy how quickly she is growing up. Next month I will be posting about her 1st birthday party. While it is exciting, it makes me sad too. This year has gone way too fast! Sorry for the super long post! I'll try to do a better job at keeping up on my blog.

Crazy mommy

After having Ellie I haven't really been myself. I knew that after having her I would have the "baby blues" for a little while, but it wasn't supposed to last this long. I am constantly worrying about Ellie. While that is normal, some of the things I worry about are just silly. A majority of the time I am just sure something bad is going to happen. Every time we leave the house I think that we will get into a car accident, or a crazy stranger will try to kidnap and harm Ellie. I have a hard time sleeping at night because I think that someone is going to break into our apartment. I am also terrified of SIDS, even though she is much older now. There are a lot of times I have mild panic attacks.

I have also been extremely sad and unmotivated. I have always struggled a little with my self esteem, but it has gotten much worse. I can't get rid of the idea that nobody wants to be around me. I have done a pretty good job at secluding myself. Every once in a while my sisters-in-law will invite me over for a get together, but other than that I stay in my apartment. During the summer I made myself get outside and walk, but now that is cold I have no desire to go anywhere. It is hard to make myself get a lot of things done. I am always feeling like I'm such a failure because I don't do all of the things that I should do. It seems like it should be so easy to do stuff, but it really isn't most of the time. I have also noticed that I have been EXTREMELY irritable. I feel like I am mad about something most of the time, which really isn't like me. My husband does a great job taking care of Ellie, but there are a lot of times I am just so angry at him.

I have been trying to handle all of my feelings by myself for a long time, but last week my husband made an appointment for me to see my doctor for depression. I had to fill out a couple of questionnaires and I scored extremely high for anxiety and depression. I have since started taking a medication. I am really hoping that it will help! I can't stand feeling the way that I have been.

If anyone reading this has any pointers on how to get out of this feel free to comment! I really hope I can get out of this slump.

More pictures just cuz she's cute!

I just wanted to post a few recent pictures!

Ellie found my sister-in-law's workout videos. Don't worry Debra, they are safe now!

My favorite facial expression Ellie makes.

So tired!

Funny expression

Almost crawling!

Last Wednesday I was sitting at the computer desk while Ellie was in the middle of the room happily playing with her toys. It was a huge surprise when I turned my head to check on her and she was slowly inching her way next to me! She really wanted to play with the exersaucer, which was next to me. Since then she has really taken off. She is getting on her hands and knee's and really trying to crawl. She does get around pretty good by scooting though.

I hope you don't mind my baby talk :). For some reason my voice gets more high pitched and my English get's really bad. I know it's supposed to be I'm sorry, not "I sorry".


Just a side note, I had moved her toy back when she got upset in the video.

Teeth!

The weekend before Christmas Ellie was extremely fussy. I thought that she may have possibly been teething, but I had been thinking that every time she got fussy for the pas 3 months! This time I was right. Her first tooth cut through her gums just a couple of days before Christmas. She was so much happier! This week her second front bottom tooth came in. I have a feeling that we are going to be seeing more soon.

6 month picture bomb!

Happy 1/2 birthday Ellie!

Weight: 17 lbs. 14 oz. 85%
Length: 26 1/4 in. 70%
Head circumference: 42 cm 45%


On November 12 Ellie turned 6 months old. I really wish time would slow down a little! There have been so many changes is such a short amount of time. She is developing quite the personality! It's so cute. She laughs and talks so much. She is really getting the hang of playing with her toys and really enjoys doing that. She is sitting up on her own now. I will put the boppy pillow around her so that she can't just fall back and hurt herself when she gets tired.She is also rolling over from her back to her belly. She started doing that a while back, I think I wrote a post about it. She's not crawling yet (thankfully :)), but I have a feeling that she will be pretty soon. We really need to get a move on baby proofing our home! She is eating more solids now. So far she really likes sweet potatoes, sweet carrots, squash and peaches. She's not too fond of rice cereal, but she will eat it if I mix in one of the veggies with it. She's also eating anywhere from 4 to 6 oz. at a time. Her favorite things to do are playing with her daddy, bouncing in the bouncer that hangs from the door frame, talking, sucking on her pacifier, and riding in the stroller. The things she HATES are once again that nasal aspirator, public restrooms and the doctors office. I think that the sound of the toilets flushing in public restrooms scares her. She is a ton of fun and cute as ever!

Real cloth diapers!

I am thinking about trying to use cloth diapers to save a little money. They are pretty expensive, so I am taking the cheaper route and making my own. I've made 2 so far. I think that my second one will work much better than my first one. I guess we will see how well they work soon!

Mommy and Ellie pictures

Today my mom took me and Ellie out and took our pictures. I didn't have any pictures of the 2 of us that I liked so this was something that absolutely needed to be done! :)

Ellie was very cranky! She didn't really want to get her pictures taken today.

So I sang to her. That makes everything better!


I even got her to smile a little bit!

My first experience with cloth diapering.

Okay, so I just have to write a blog post on what happened today. It's just too funny! Well I had to change Ellie's diaper today, like always, and I found that I only had one diaper left. I started to put it on her and she decided that that was the perfect time to start going potty. I didn't know what to do so I decided to make my own diaper. We have some of those flat cloth diapers here that we normally use as burp cloths. I put that on her, but I knew that she needed something to go over the cloth diaper so that her car seat didn't get soaked. The only thing that came to my mind was a garbage bag, so I cut one and tied it on her. Luckily she didn't go potty before we bought her diapers because I don't know how well this diaper would have worked. Below are some pictures. :)

4 months!

Ellie is 4 months old now! She's a big girl too. At her last Dr. appointment she weighed in at 15lbs 13oz which was in the 90 percentile, and her height was 24 2/3in. long. She is hitting all of her milestones right on time and is very healthy! Once again it was sad to see her get her vaccinations, but she reacted great and was back to her happy self a few hours later. She is showing more of her personality all of the time. She will just "talk" to anything for long periods of time. It's so cute. She laughs a lot more too. We are on a great schedule now! She takes all of her naps without a fight! I put her in her crib, give her her pacifier and she is out. Every once a while she will pull it out on accident so I'll have to put it back in her mouth, but that isn't a problem for me. She will usually sleep for about 45 minutes at a time. She has been going to bed earlier too. She used to go to bed at around 10:30 P.M. and would sleep for about 8-9 hours. Now she is going to bed at 7 or 8, waking up after sleeping for about 8 hours to eat, then sleeps until about 7:00 A.M. It is nice to have some time to myself in the evenings. I can get a lot of stuff around the house taken care of.

Sorry!

I'd like to apologize if I offended anyone with my last post. I wasn't trying to put down other parenting types, in fact I think they are great! I was just tired of other people putting me down for the way I am parenting my little girl.

Mommy pressure

Before having Ellie I was so excited that I wouldn't have to work (you know, the type of job where you get paid). I looked forward to making my own decisions on how take care of my baby, and I wouldn't have to worry about other people putting me down for the way I raised my baby. Now that I am a stay at home mom I have learned that it is a lot harder than I expected. Don't get me wrong, I love staying with my baby all day everyday. There is just so much more pressure. I do get to choose what to do with my cute little girl, but I have learned that everybody thinks they are baby experts. I'm just going to make a list of all of the things some people think are wrong.

Some people think it is bad to:
be induced
have an epidural
have a c-section
feed your baby formula
get you baby vaccinated
let your baby watch any amount of T.V.
use disposable diapers
let your baby cry at all
put your baby in a crib
use a swing or stroller to help your baby sleep
let your child eat any solids before the age of 6 months (including rice cereal)

I'm sure there are more things to write, but that's all I can think of right now.

So I got my labor induced, had an epidural, feed my baby formula, got her vaccinated, I let her watch some T.V., I use disposable diapers, I've had times where I couldn't get Ellie to stop crying, I don't co-sleep, sometimes I take Ellie for walks in her stroller just because I know she will fall asleep, and I will start feeding her solids as soon as her pediatrician tells us it's okay.

So as you can see, I am a terrible mom (I'm being sarcastic).

To me what really matters is that Ellie is happy and healthy! I don't neglect her in any way, and she is very loved!

Now I have vented and I am going to move on and continue enjoying my baby. Judge away!

2 & 3 month stats

So I have neglected my blog once again, due to this cute little baby that I get to play with all of the time. She has changed so much this past couple of months! She is such a cute and happy little girl!

2 months:
weight: 12 lbs 4 oz
length: 22 3/4 in.

Ellie started sleeping through the night! She hasn't stopped since then! I consider myself to be EXTREMELY lucky because I have heard that only a small percentage of babies do this at this age. If only nap time was that easy! She was and still is hard to get to sleep during the day. She seemed to get very fussy at around 4 P.M. and would continue to be fussy until bed time. One the bright side she started smiling at us. She started out just smiling at her Daddy, but did eventually start smiling at me too. There was one night I was putting her to bed and she was just looking at me and smiling. I went to close the door and she had stopped smiling for a little bit. As soon as I got back her face lit up and she started smiling again. It was so sweet. She started cooing a little as well. We packed up her bassinet in the middle of the month and started using her pack n play. I'm sure she would have done fine in her crib, but I wasn't ready to sleep in a separate room. She became a big fan of baths. She will calm right down when we put her in her little tub. She ate 2-3 oz. every 3 hours.

3 months:
weight: about 14 lbs
length: around 24 in.

Ellie is really talking a lot now! She loves when I make different sounds. She gets really excited when i say papa, click my tounge and make kissing noises. She also loves "singing". One day we were riding in the car and I heard her making her noises. When I turned the radio down she stopped, but she started right back up when I turned it up again. She will also sing with me. She started giggling. It is the best sound ever! She also rolled over for the first time 2 days before her official 3 month b-day :). I was very surprised. I wasn't expecting that to happen at all! She is still sleeping through the night with no problem, but needs extra help taking naps during the day. I have now noticed that she gets tired after being awake for about an hour. Things that help her fall asleep are rides in the stroller, and rocking her to sleep. I can't put her down though. She will wake right up and won't go back to sleep. She eats 4 oz. every 3 hours.

1 month old!

I can't believe Ellie is already 1 month old! The time has gone by pretty quickly. It has taken a while to adjust to having her here, but I think we are getting the hang of this parenting thing. Sometimes it can be tough, usually just when she is crying and I can't figure out what is wrong, but it is usually good. She has really grown! She was 7 lbs 4 oz. and 19 in. when she was born. Now she is about 9 lbs and 21 in. She still fits into most of her newborn clothes, but some are getting a little tight! She is such a sweet little baby. She is very cute, even when she cries. She loves being held, cuddled and talked to. She is also starting to like swinging in her baby swing. She hates being put down so this is a great thing! Every once in a while she will even fall asleep in it. When she is wide awake she will sit in it quietly for about 5-10 minutes before she starts crying. When she is done swinging it is pretty hard to get anything done because she thinks that she has to be held. I can tell you that I get plenty of T.V. watching in most days! Sometimes I'll have to get Steven to hold her so I can do something so I don't go crazy :). Besides being put down, some of her other dislikes are baths and the nasal aspirator. She is slowly getting better with the baths though. Hopefully soon she will like them. She sleeps very well during the night. She usually only wakes up once or twice for a diaper change and quick feeding and goes right back to sleep. This is the only time she will let us put her down in her bassinet.

Another recalled item...

Last week I had received a couple gifts for Ellie. One of these gifts was an Infantino baby sling. It was purchased at the Other Mothers store. We were excited about it and decided to put Ellie in it to try it out. I thought that we had to have put her in it wrong because it looked like she could suffocate very easily. I got online today to see if I could find the proper way to put her in it and I discovered that this type of sling was recalled in March of this year! We did put her in the right way. I guess that some other babies had suffocated while using this product! This is the second time I have had a recalled baby item that was purchased at a children's resale store. The first time we bought a stroller/car seat combo from Kidz Again. The car seat had been recalled. We took it back to them and got our money back. They were very willing to work with us and seemed very embarrassed by there mistake. I know that this was from 2 different stores, but I remember seeing this same sling at the Kidz again store not too long ago. I have decided that I will only buy clothing items from these stores from now on. If any of you shop at these stores in the future, make sure you look certain items up to see if they are safe! They say that they look every item up before putting it out, but they obviously miss certain items.

Our first church adventure!

Today we decided that Ellie and I would go to sacrament meeting. I let Steven go to all 3 meetings thinking that it wouldn't be too difficult to get Ellie ready and then to hurry and get ready myself. Well, I was pretty wrong about that! Ellie had woken up more last night than she normally does. For some reason she has only been having 1 Bowel movement a day for the past 3 days. Because of this I think that she had a tummy ache. Anyway, this morning I changed her wet diaper and got her dressed all cute for church. After changing her diaper I fed her. She was happy for a little while and then started acting hungry again. I fed her again and held her for a while. Finally I felt a little rumble and she had a small B.M.!! Who ever knew I'd be so excited to change a poopy diaper! After changing her diaper she fell asleep so I strategically put her in her car seat so that I wouldn't have to wake her up to put her in it later. I had 15 minutes to take a quick shower, get ready for church, and to get to church by then. I took a quick shower, got dressed and did my hair then Ellie woke up and started crying. I picked her up and fed her a little more. She had fallen asleep again, but I could tell that she really needed her diaper changed. She was very messy this time! I almost got her cleaned and was getting her a new diaper when she started urinating. Now there was urine all over the place so I had to do her laundry. As I was doing that she started crying again. I took her out to the rocking chair, finished feeding her and she happily fell asleep. Finally we were ready to go! I looked up at the clock and it was 11:30. Church had just ended. Maybe next week we will actually make it to church.

Elizabeth Mae

On Wednesday, May 12 at 8:11 P.M. our adorable little girl was born!!! She weighed in at 7 lbs. and 4 oz. She is such a sweet little baby!

I went in to be induced that day. I think that was a great choice for me. We were scheduled to go in at 7:00 that morning, but got a call at 6 saying to call them back later on in the morning to see if they still had room for us. We were pretty scared that we were going to have to wait to have her another day. We were already prepared to go in that day. We would have had to wait until next week if that happened. When we called them a little later, they said to come on in at 9:00. We were pretty excited about that. When we got there the nurse took us to our room and got things started! She had a hard time finding a good vein to put the IV in. She had to poke me twice. Once she did that she was able to hook me up to the pitocin. It didn't take long for that to start working. My doctor came in shortly after that and broke my water. That is a weird feeling. The nurse had to keep coming in to up the amount of pitocin because I wasn't feeling enough pain at first. My doctor said that I could start my epidural whenever I wanted to. I wanted to see how the labor contractions felt first. That didn't last too long when they really started to hurt. I was a little nervous about the epidural because I heard that the needle is really big. Getting the epidural put in was nothing compared to the contractions. It is also the best thing ever invented. After it started to work I didn't feel any pain. I actually hadn't felt that good in months. I went through that part of labor until about 7:00 P.M. when I was finally allowed to start pushing. I was determined to get my baby out and I only had to push for close to 45 minutes. The pushing part was the hardest part of labor with the epidural. It did hurt when she was almost out. Everything was better when she was completely out though. I was so happy to see her. They handed her right to me and wiped her off. She was very alert. She didn't seem to want to cry at first. I don't think she really started crying until they put her little hat on :) She still doesn't cry a lot today. Hopefully it stays that way!
Having a little baby is so wonderful, but it is both emotionally and physically draining. Ellie was very good with feeding when we were at the hospital. Everyone was so impressed. When we got home she ate twice and then she suddenly stopped. She wouldn't even open her mouth. I decided that we should at least try feeding her with a bottle. She still wasn't having it. We took her to see the pediatrician the next morning and they had a tough time figuring out what was going on. Finally the nurse put her finger in her mouth, pushed down on her tongue and Ellie started sucking. It was like she forgot how to suck. It was weird. When they weighed her she was 6 lbs and 12 oz. We have been on quite the feeding schedule since then. She had a hard time eating enough at first. We really had to work at getting her to eat 1 oz every 2 hours. The goal is 2 oz every 3-4 hours though. I got her to down 2 oz one night, but she puked that all up. She is improving though. She is even ready to be breastfed again. It was weird because she suddenly started looking for it again yesterday.

It is hard to sleep at night too. Even when she is sleeping well. I am always so nervous that something will happen to her. Hopefully I will learn to sleep a little better soon. I really need to learn to take naps during the day. It is really hard to stay awake when feeding her in the evenings.Well other than the stressful things that have happened, she has really been fun to have here. She is the prettiest and sweetest little girl ever! I am so lucky to have her as my daughter. Steven is also a great daddy! She is lucky to have him for a father.

39 week appointment!!

I went to the Dr. today. It went well. It hurt pretty bad when he checked my cervix this time. I guess I am pretty swollen. I started spotting right away. It was okay though. When the nurse took my blood pressure I was kind of nervous because it was higher than normal. My urine sample was good though. My Dr. said that at this point in pregnancy the blood pressure gets higher easier and that it is nothing to worry about.

So... Here is the best part of today's appointment. I will be induced on WEDNESDAY!! I am pretty excited about it! I will go in at 7 A.M. and they will get things started! My Dr. said that I am a good candidate for being induced since everything is going great. My baby's heartbeat is right where it is supposed to be for a full term baby. My cervix is still 2cm. dilated, but he said that it is also soft. I'm assuming that means that it has softened all of the way. He didn't give me a percentage this time. Well that is all for now!

Getting Nervous!

So it's getting close to time for me to have Ellie and there are some issues that I have thought about that are kind of making me nervous. I hope I'm not going to sound like a mean person with this post, but I was up really late worrying about this last night so here I go... Right now our apartment is very quiet and peaceful and usually Steven and I are the only ones here. We are both somewhat private people and like our peace and quiet. I really do like to have visitors occasionally, and I would probably like to have people over a little more than we do now, but I am scared that after I have our baby everybody is going to want to be here ALL OF THE TIME! The only extra person I really want here for a while is my mom. She will come and help me with things that I need help with, but I don't know if I'd like the stress of having everyone over everyday expecting me to entertain them. I especially don't want them to take my baby from me all of the time. I think I am going to be one of those mom's that wants to hold her baby a lot. I understand that she is the first grandchild and great grandchild... but nobody comes to see me now. I know that I am probably being selfish for thinking this way, but it kind of hurts a little. Hopefully it wont be all bad and everybody will know their limits. I could just be freaking out about nothing, but I can see this stuff happening. I am really glad that everyone is so excited for her to come and that she is going to be so loved. I just hope that it doesn't turn into a stressful situation. Well I don't know if what I wrote makes any sense because I am just rambling on! I just needed to get this out. Hopefully things will turn out great and I can avoid a lot of stress. I don't want to cause any problems with my family. I really want them to be a part of her life. I'm just hoping that they will respect us.