15 Months

Ella is feeling better, but still has a runny nose and cough. Oddly enough, the cough seems to be worse during the day than at night. She hardly coughs at all at night, but she's coughed so much she threw up during the day. I'm just glad she's able to sleep pretty well. We have no new teeth. Her gums are swollen in four spots and I suspect there are some teeth trying to come through under there, but it might be a while still. She has been so grouchy lately, I'm hoping it's just that she doesn't feel well and my sweet baby will come back when she's better...

Actually, she is still really sweet. Lately when she's nursing, all of a sudden she'll wrap her arms around me and squeeze me tight and look up at me and smile. It just completely melts my heart. Also, if she does something bad and I'm using my stern voice, she will try to give me kisses and hugs. Every time she hears someone coming in the garage or the front door, she looks at me and says "Daddy?!". I heard her saying it to Erin when I came home from work the other day. I'm not sure if she was disappointed when she saw it was me.

She's really trying to expand her vocabulary. Every day she tries new words. Yesterday it was shoes and easy. I don't think she's retaining it though. She seems to understand what it means at the time and I can understand her pretty well, but if you ask her again later, she doesn't seem to remember. I guess it just takes a lot of repetition. When Erin gets a text or whatever on her phone it says "Droid" in a deep computer voice. Well Ella has picked that up and every time Erin's phone goes off she repeats the "Droid" in her high pitched squeaky voice. It is so cute and funny, we were all dying laughing.

Return of the snot-nose

Ella is working on using a spoon to feed herself. So far it's been very messy and only slightly successful, but she's getting there.

Ella loves showing her tummy, particularly her bellybutton.

My future's so bright, I gotta wear shades!

Ella's gangsta look.

We had a little play group, pizza party for the play offs last Sunday. We ended up having six girls and one boy age three and under. It was a little crazy to say the least.

Ella is sick again. I think she picked up a bug at Toddler Time last week. She has at least two and maybe four teeth coming in, so I think her immune system is a little run down. We've been giving her probiotics and of course she still breastfeeds, so we were hoping that would help keep her well, but I guess not. We've been spoiled by no illnesses in her first 14 months, but I guess we're making up for it now. She just got over that lingering cough about a week ago, and now it's all the same junk again. She was really feeling bad yesterday, but Jeff and Erin managed to get a dose of ibupofen in her and she seems to be feeling better so far today, although still very snotty. She hasn't eaten much since Monday and every time she does, she winces when she swallows, so I guess her throat hurts too. She's been nursing A LOT though, and we discovered yesterday she'll take ice chips. I'm trying to remind myself how lucky we've been with how rarely she's been sick and how minor those illnesses have been, but, still, this stuff is no fun!

biTe!

Ella at Toddler Time. We go every Tuesday and Thursday morning. She loves it so much. She gets a huge smile on her face as soon as we walk in the door.

This is what happens when Mommy and Daddy turn their backs on an open dishwasher for two second. The little monkey is climbing on everything and she has definitely figure out how to use something shorter to climb up on things she can't otherwise reach. I see lots of bonked heads in our future. Speaking of which, one of her favorite new games is to gently bang her head on something and then come running over to me holding her head saying "bonk, bonk, bonk!".

Ella trying to share her banana with her Daddy. She started saying banana, although the ba part seems to be optional. She's also saying "wawa" pretty clearly when she wants water. Her big accomplishment is learning to say t's. So now instead of "biii" when she wants a bite, it's "biiiTTTTes". Her t is a little lispy, so it's more like "bithes", but it closer. She says "uh, oh" too.

She's found her appetite for solids lately. She loves fruit, pretty much any kind- bananas, grapes, raspberries, blueberries, clementines, pears, cantaloupe, watermelon, mango. The only things she doesn't seem to be too crazy about are apples. She also likes pretty much any cheese and anything with tomato sauce. We make her a lot of whole wheat pasta with tomato sauce and mozzarella. She'll eat a little bit of chicken, but she's not really a fan. Occasionally we can get her to eat carrots or sweet potatoes and Erin said she was gobbling down some peas for her, but in general veggies are difficult. We're trying to find ways to get her to eat more vegetables, but at least she likes fruit.

Leaving for work has been a little better so far this week. Monday Ella and Erin were playing on the floor when it was time for me to leave. I was able to just give her a kiss and walk away and she was fine. I'm crossing my fingers it'll stay that way. It's been really busy at work (New Year's Resolutions....) and my scheduled break has not been happening. So I haven't been able to come home in the afternoons for the last few days and probably won't tomorrow either. I've asked them to rearrange the schedule a little bit, so hopefully next week it'll work out better. I'm not happy about this since that was a big selling point on me taking this job. Hopefully it'll all work out, we'll see.

Happy New Year!

Ella playing with some of her Christmas loot.

Getting ready for a New Year's Eve party.

Is Avery hugging Ella or choking her...? Not sure.

I can't believe the holidays have come and gone already, that was so fast! It's been a hectic few weeks, though, so I'm ready to get back to "normal". We're still trying to figure out the new routine with me working. I like my new job for the most part, but there are a lot of kinks to be worked out. It's still hard for me to leave Ella, every time. She cries pretty much every time, but I always wait out of sight for her to settle down and it never takes more than a minute or two. Jeff was off all last week, so he was home with her. Now Erin is back this week, so she's having to get used to her again. I know she likes Erin and she seems to do really well with her, which is such a huge relief.

Ella ended up going to see her pedi Dr. Sweet last week. Dr. Sweet said it looked like a head cold that had turned into an upper respiratory infection. She wanted us to start her on probiotics, which we did, and gave us a prescription for antibiotics to start last weekend if she wasn't better. She is still coughing, but she doesn't have a fever, she's playing and eating like normal, so I decided not to do the antibiotics. Jeff and I are still coughing too, but feel fine otherwise, so I think it's just some lingering congestion. I'll sure be glad when we're all 100% again!