31 Weeks

Ella added "da da" to her vocabulary this week. It's more like "da da da da da..." and she doesn't associate it with her Daddy yet. We've also heard some "ba ba ba" too. The only time she says Mama is when she's fussying or crying still.

Ella and I went to visit my Mamaw this week. She gave Ella a little stuffed Bevo, which she loves. Jeff keeps hiding it though. We all went to lunch at Jason's Deli so we could see my Aunt Susie. Ella was in a good mood and was content and well behaved! She's getting to be pretty friendly with everyone, even new people. She's good about letting other people hold her too, although she likes to keep an eye on me. She's such a Mommy's girl, I love it!

It's been an interesting week for Ella's sleep. She's been swinging between her best sleep ever and some of her worst sleep. A couple of days she napped perfectly and more or less slept through the night. Other days she hardly napped at all and was up during the night, which almost never happens. I realize how lucky we are that she's always been such a good night sleeper, but I figured that was her way of making it up to me for being such a difficult napper. When she doesn't sleep well at night either, I get worn out fast. I can't imagine how people who have all around difficult sleepers cope!

30 Weeks

Ella and I went for a walk Thursday morning. I've been trying to keep her awake a little longer in the mornings, she seems to sleep better during her first nap if I do. But if we're just sitting around the house, she gets bored and fussy fairly quickly. Getting her out for a bit seems to keep her entertained. I'm sure the fresh air does her some good too.
We went to see my Mom, Mark and Maggie that day as well. Maggie went from ignoring Ella to smothering her (literally) with affection. She wanted to hold her, which mainly consisted of grabbing her around the neck. Then she wanted to have Ella sit on her lap. Ella was not really a fan of this and every time she squirmed or fussed, Maggie would put her hand over her face and say "No, stop it". After that, Ella was sitting up on the floor and Maggie gently tackled her to the ground and laid on top of her, again with "stop it" when Ella objected. Maggie also had lots of hugs and kisses for Ella, which Ella much preferred. It was all pretty hilarious and cute. Poor Maggie! She's trying, but she's just not sure how to relate to a little baby.
Ella took a two hour nap at my Mom's which was shocking and awesome. She was in a great mood when she woke up and played on the floor with all of Maggie's toys for a couple of hours. Maggie had just gotten some of the big lego type blocks and Ella loved them. Well, she loved knocking them down. As fast as Mark and I could build something up, she was knocking it down. I think we'll have to get her some of those blocks, she was very entertained.

We finally got together to celebrate my Dad's Birthday. We met Carrie, Maggie and Dad at Chuy's Friday evening. Ella had just woken up from a nap and she was a squirmy monkey. We passed her around the table for a while and then finally put her in her highchair for a few minutes. She then started pulling everything she could reach to her and throwing it on the floor. I think I picked up the silverware packets, box of crayons, napkins, burp rag, etc., about fifty times!

I guess Ella was getting her revenge for the tackling!

We gave Ella some avocados again and she did pretty well with them. I thought she was doing great, but when I picked her up out of her highchair, I realized she had spit about half of them back out. Jeff let her taste a lime and she seemed to really like it. She kept making her usual terrible face (see below), but she kept leaning back in for more. We let her hold it for a second and she put it back in her mouth herself, but she couldn't keep hold of it. Jeff tried a lemon too, but she definitely preferred the lime.

Best Day Ever!

Ella said Mama, twice! She wasn't really addressing me, she was just fussing in my general direction, but she clearly said Mama. I was starting to worry she was never going to "talk". I'm so glad that her first word (even if she didn't really say it on purpose...) was Mama!

29 Weeks

Ella has been entertained by looking in the mirror for a few months now. Usually, though, when we look in the mirror, she looks at me and smiles and laughs. She'll glance at herself for a second and then back to me. I wonder if she's thinking "Oh, look! Two Mommies!"... Anyway, she seemed to really find herself in the mirror in one of her books this week. She just kept starring at it and smiling. Then she would halfway close her eyes and lean in and rest her head on the mirror. I have no idea what she's doing, but it's so cute.

Swim lessons went great this week. Unfortunately, Ella still didn't get a good nap before we went, but she was in a great mood and did really well anyway. One of the things we missed last week was teaching the babies to hang on to our backs while we swim. Obviously this is a safety thing, but it's also pretty fun. Ella didn't really hold on, Alex had to hold her there, but she seemed amused, and if nothing else, it was a great position for pulling my hair. I kept getting in trouble for not keeping my back high enough to keep Ella out of the water, not really sure what to do about that...

We did the crawling/walking across the mat for a toy game again. This time Ella did her army crawl from one side to the other. That mat is pretty hard to get traction on, so it was a lot of effort for just a little movement, but she made it.

She really did seem to enjoy herself a lot this week, unlike the little guy next to her there. Poor thing cried the whole time.

We did two submersions this week. The first one she did her normal breath holding, sputtering thing, but she got over it quickly and didn't fuss or cry. The second one (above), she did great! She didn't hold her breath when she came up or turn red or anything. In fact, it was like she didn't even go under at all. We were very impressed.

Last Saturday I went to Carrie's house for a few hours in the evening, so Jeff and Uncle Steve were on Ella duty. They fed her sweet potatoes and said she ate a ton! They also got her to drink water out of a sippy cup. I couldn't believe it when I got home and they told me. I still really can't get her to eat much, although she's not gagging nearly as much and hasn't thrown up in a while. Monday night Jeff was making some greens we had from our CSA and I decided to let her try a little bite. Jeff makes them with garlic, onion, vinegar and chicken stock, so I was a little worried the flavor would be too strong for her, but she seemed to really like them.

Ella started pointing this last week. She's not really pointing at anything, just holding out her pointer finger and waving it around. She's starting to try to pull up too. I set her in her crib the other day after I changed her diaper and when I walked back in she had grabbed a hold of the side of the crib and was trying to pull up. As I got to her, she pulled herself up to her feet for just a second and then fell back to her knees. If I have her sitting in my lap and there's something in front of her she can grab onto, she can pull herself up very well. Also, if you help her to get a hold of something like the couch or coffee table, she can hold on and stand up for a few minutes. You never know when she might let go, or her legs give out, so we've had a few bonked heads. I guess that comes with the territory at this point.

Happy Mother's Day!

28 Weeks

Ella has been pushing herself up into the crawling position and will kind of rock back and forth, but when she's ready to move, she drops back down to her tummy and does the army crawl. She's getting around very well though. There are a few books and toys that she'll especially get going after.

Ella and her Uncle Steve.

We skipped swim lessons this week because Ella was exhausted and finally fell asleep right about the time lessons were starting. I feel bad for missing it, but she needed the nap. We moved her crib into our bedroom last Sunday so we can transition her to taking naps there. She's getting so mobile, I'm worried she'll wake up and crawl off the bed before I can get in there to her. I thought moving the crib to our room would help ease the transition since everything else is the same, but no such luck. She's getting better about it, but it's still a struggle. It's been a tough week...

Carrie let us borrow her very nice stroller and we've been taking Ella for walks. Thursday during the day I decided to take her and LaRoo for a walk by myself. I was trying to get the stroller and the dog out the front door when the cat ran out. So I pushed the stroller out onto the porch and grabbed the cat and threw her back in the house. When I turned around, the stroller had rolled off the front porch and was rolling down the lawn. I took off after it and caught it about half way to the street. It scared me so bad, but Ella didn't even notice! She seemed to enjoy the walk, right up until the end anyway. There was a guy out using a leaf blower and apparently it scared her. I've really never seen her be afraid of anything, it was so sad. I wasn't sure how I was going to get home since we had to either walk by the guy or turn around and go all the way back around. Fortunately the guy turned the leaf blower off after a few minutes and we were able to walk by.

We're still working on getting Ella to eat solids. We made her pureed sweet potatoes last week. The first time I gave them to her, she gagged and threw up a lot. So we waited a few days before we tried again. She still gags, but she hasn't thrown up again. She ate some avocados at lunch on Thursday and did pretty well with those. She still makes the most terrible face with every bite, but she leans in for more. We started getting our delivery of veggies from our CSA farm and we're eager to start making baby food with some of those things.

27 Weeks

Ella's new favorite thing is sticking out her tongue. She just started doing it the last few days and it's pretty funny. She also started laughing a kind of fake laugh. It's not her usually deep belly laugh, more of a giggle I guess. You can tell she's doing it to get a reaction from who ever she's laughing at. It works well, you can't help but laugh back at her.

Ella and Vera playing and laughing at each other at swim lessons. A new thing we did this week was to put the babies up on the side of the pool and try to get them to push off into the pool to us. Ella did really well with this. In fact, I think we're going to have to teach her to wait to jump in until we tell her. She was ready to go!

Maggie, Grandmo, and Ella playing on the floor. Ella is really getting around now. She still does the army crawl, but she's using her feet and knees more to push herself, she just hasn't figured out how to get that tummy off the ground.

Everything in the mouth still. She chewed on it so much the sides of her mouth were all red. When I finally picked her up and took her away from it, she cried until I distracted her. Silly girl!