Mobile

Audrey sleeps in our room in the bassinet feature of the Pack 'n' Play. Attached to the side of her bed is a small mobile that came with it. It has three very small teddy bears that hang from it, but the mobile doesn't have any sort of automatic way to make it spin. Despite that, Audrey loves this mobile. We'll catch her laying in her bed and laughing at them sometimes. Ellie and I found her in there today just grinning away at them!

Two months old

Audrey has changed so much in the last two months. She now gives us lots of big smiles. Sometimes it sounds like she's laughing when she does it! She has also started to coo. She loves to lay on your lap and "talk" with you. Audrey also loves to look at her big sister and often gives Ellie the biggest smiles of all. She's still getting up once or twice each night to eat, but generally goes back to sleep right away. Audrey is alert more of the day now. She's up for one to two hours after sleeping and just looks at everything around her. She's a very calm and flexible baby - we can go out for three to four hours and she will sleep the entire time, no matter how loud it is or how many times we get her in and out of the car. For those of you following along with our weight count, as of yesterday she weighs 14 pounds 6 ounces.

And of course she's absolutely adorable!

Big sister had to get in on the fun, too!

Embarassing baby moment

Yesterday the library organized a sing along for kids and families. It was my first day home alone with both girls and we were definitely looking for something to do! There were about 20-25 kids and their parents there. When the high school aged volunteers where getting started, they were asking the kids lots of questions about songs they like. You can imagine that it was pretty loud with that many kids. Right before they started, the volunteer yelled out, "OK, let's get started!". You could have heard a pin drop. I was impressed that the kids quieted down so quickly.

However, this is when Audrey decided she had to poop. In the middle of this silence, all everyone (and I do mean everyone) heard was the very loud sound of Audrey's incredibly forceful pooping. Kids and adults all turned to look at me; no one smiled or even laughed like I would have! I mean, we all have kids and we know this stuff happens at the worst moments so you have to laugh.

I had a choice then - make Ellie come with me to the bathroom and change Audrey right away, making Ellie miss the beginning and losing our good spot on the floor OR stay for the sing along and change her later. Well, even though everyone knew my baby had a diaper full of poop (and if they didn't hear it then they could definitely smell it!), I sat on the floor and let Ellie enjoy the whole sing along. As my pediatrician says, the newborn won't remember these days but your toddler will. So sorry, Audrey, about the poopy diaper, but your sister was busy belting out I'm A Little Teapot! I'm sure you'll pay us back someday.

Big Grins

And the smiles just keep getting bigger and bigger and bigger...

Just when I think I couldn't love her or her big sister one bit more, Audrey gives this grin to Ellie when Ellie talks to her and my heart grows. I think Ellie's does, too, which makes me even happier.

Floatie Freedom!

Today Ellie went swimming with her floaties for the first time and it was amazing - she could swim on her own! She had such a great time and enjoyed the freedom from having to hang on to one of us (we enjoyed it, too!). She kept yelling at whichever one of us was out of the pool with Audrey, "Look at me! I'm swimming by myself!".

Lounging poolside afterwards

Comparing these to one of last year's poolside shots, I cannot believe how much she has grown!

Audrey's party

Yesterday we had friends and family over to celebrate Audrey's arrival. We all had a great time, but I think Ellie had the most fun. She got to play with her friends and eat lots of special treats! Audrey slept through most of it :-)

Some of our good friends who joined us

Jana and Kerry checking out the food

Ellie playing with her friends

"It's my party and I'll sleep if I want to!"

The beautiful guest of honor

Ellie and Boppa enjoy a book afterwards

Our new family portrait

Lymphoma update

Tuesday I had my blood drawn so that I would have the results in time for my oncology appointment today. At a follow up visit the things they are looking for are, of course, abnormal blood counts, and what they call "B symptoms", which are fevers, night sweats, weight loss (if only). Well, I knew I was okay with the B symptoms, but I didn't know how the labs would turn out.


Uneventful.

Everything looked pretty normal. My enlarged nodes had not increased. I'm not even anemic, which most of my life I have been. So there it is. Another 3 months of glorious denial. Another 3 months to forget about this crap called cancer. Another 3 months to prepare Ellie for the 2020 olympics.


Next appt is November 14th.

A Perfect Ten!

Today Ellie went to her first gymnastics class and LOVED it! She has been excited for several days about this and I think it lived up to her (and our) expectations. It is really a pre-gymnastics class for 30 to 40 month olds and is a parent/child class, which helped Ellie feel more comfortable. They focused a lot on some basic gymnastics skills but also on stretching, balance, and coordination. The class is organized into three different circuits. Each circuit consists of several different activities that the kids move between. At the end of the class they went into the big gym where the older kids have class and bounced in the big trampoline. I think that was Ellie's favorite! Since it went so well, we enrolled Ellie in the class and will be there every Saturday morning for the next two months (and depending on how she likes it, maybe beyond!).

Ellie and Jana warming up with everyone before class

After warm-up we started with the first circuit....

Ellie walking on the balance beam

Ellie getting instruction from her teacher on tumbling

Just hanging around!

Ellie got a little coaching on the bar and learned how to do the pike position...

Rocking on the special "seesaw"

At the end of class they each got a turn on the big trampoline where the teacher was trying to teach them how to land with their legs spread out (straddle jump) and how to land on their bottoms (seat drop) and then bounce back up to their feet. Ellie got the straddle jump but was a little confused about the other one. At the end, the teacher does a cute thing - she tells them she is making popcorn, sprinkles their head with pretend salt, and then bounces them up in the air. Ellie loved this part!

The gym doesn't allow any flash photography and our camera always takes blurry pictures when the automatic flash is turned off.

7 weeks old

My goodness, how she has grown!

Birth - 9 pounds 5 ounces

7 weeks - 13 pounds 8.5 ounces

After posting this, I looked up Ellie's weight and at 7 weeks 2 days she weighed 13 pounds 9 ounces. Although Audrey weighs about the same, Ellie was born weighing 8 pounds 9 ounces, almost one pound less than Audrey!

Little Miss Fix-It

If you leave a tool laying around our house, Ellie will find and use it! It's amazing how many things need fixing :-)

Olympic Lessons

I'm sure like many people we know, Lori and I love the Olympics and most days we can be found watching the previous night's events from the DVR. This year has been especially fun since Ellie is old enough to watch and understand some of what is going on. These are some of the things we have learned about/from Ellie since the opening ceremonies on Friday night (or really Saturday morning for us early to bed folks!):

1. Ellie's favorite events are the women's gymnastics events. We have talked about enrolling her in a gymnastics class for a long time and since her love for the sport has been made obvious, her first class is now in two days! She's excited but also a little nervous I think; after watching most events, she says, "I can't do that!". We've had to explain that most people can't either!

2. There are other sports that Ellie plans to participate in. She has said that when she's older, bigger, or grown up, she'd like to do the following: fencing, diving, swimming, karate, and soccer. You may think that she is just saying that about whatever we happen to be watching but what she does not want to do is water polo and basketball. We'll try for swimming lessons next summer, karate in a couple years, and soccer starts in our township at age 4 or 5 I think. Who needs money for college - anyone want to donate to the Ellie Recreational Activity Fund?!?!

3. Ellie also wants to participate in rowing. We were watching some of the rowing events and I told Ellie that I did that all throughout college. She said that she wanted to go to college, which I agreed with her was a good idea. Then she said she wanted to go where I went and "ride in the boats with the sticks". (To my crew coach friend, Janel: I thought you'd get a kick out of that! I explained that the sticks are called oars. Now we definitely have to get up to see you for a race!)

4. Ellie has the memory of an elephant. When Michael Phelps won his first gold medal, Ellie asked who he was looking for when he was searching the stands for his mom. We explained that he was looking for his mommy because he wanted to give her a hug. When Michael Phelps was on again two days later, she asked if that was the boy who misses his mommy! (How much did you love when they won the relay race after what the French said?!?)

5. The Olympics are a wonderful time to talk with kids about goals. Even though Ellie is too little to really understand this, we have had many conversations about how hard the athletes work and how much they have to practice to achieve something like this. It has also given us the opportunity to talk about perseverance. Ellie worries when someone falls off or makes a mistake so we talk a lot about how that person made a mistake, but they got right back up and tried it again. She just says, "Try and try and try again!".

So if you're looking for us sometime during the next two weeks, you'll find us on the couch watching the primetime Olympics the next day. And be sure to watch the Olympics in 2024 to see how far Ellie makes it :-)

Happy Birthday, Aunt TT!

Today is my sister's birthday and even though she's not here, Ellie started off the celebration this morning by making her a Play Doh cake, complete with a candle. I taped Ellie singing Happy Birthday and after she watched it, she wanted to do it again...and again....and again. Here are takes 1 and 2! You can also hear Audrey sending her birthday wishes in the background :-)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, AUNT TT!

Our morning

Audrey has given me two great gifts this morning after a very long night - a little extra sleep and some big ole grins. The first video is for Audrey's cousin, Jessica, who asked for a video of her noisy sleeping in a comment on a previous post..... you'll probably have to turn up the volume to really hear all her squeaky noises!

The funny thing about this video is that the smiles I captured are nothing compared to the ones she gave me when I was watching this video and she could hear me talking on it!

Ellie the dance machine!

Tonight we discovered a new music channel on our cable called Party Favorites. We had a blast dancing to all the great old dance songs!

Audrey joined in by doing her Elton John impersonation!

Mimi and her party girls

The Rescue Squad

When Ellie was 13 months old she had a febrile seizure at my parents' house on Christmas Eve. It was so scary. We called 911 and the first group to arrive was the local Rescue Squad. They were amazing - they helped to calm me down and let me hold her on the couch while they evaluated her. Everything worked out well that morning and obviously Ellie is fine. I always appreciated what the Rescue Squad and volunteer Ambulance Corps did that day. I also always meant to send money to our local Rescue Squad when we got that yearly letter in the mail asking for donations.

But I never hoped to see them again.

Today the Rescue Squad came to our house but not for an emergency. They came because I am an idiot. I'll start at the beginning...

When I was pregnant with Ellie I didn't try to take off my wedding ring until it was too late so I ended up wearing it throughout the entire pregnancy. It was tight during the last trimester, but I really didn't want to get it cut off. And there was no other way it was going to come off.

Fast forward two years. When I was about two months pregnant with Audrey I took my wedding ring off before I even gained a pound because I was scared that I would wait too long again. I haven't worn my wedding ring since then. I have missed the weight of the ring on my finger and have simply missed wearing it for what it means. Today I thought that I would try to get it on for the first time since taking it off 8 months ago. I only weigh a few pounds more than I did when I got pregnant and far less than I did when I was 9 months pregnant with Ellie so I thought for sure that it would fit. Can you see where this is going???

When I put it on I knew that it was too small. I thought that if I could just get it past my knuckle it would be okay. I pushed it past my knuckle and knew immediately that this wasn't good. The circulation in my finger was getting cut off so I had to either take the ring off or push it all the way down. Well, it wasn't coming off so I only had one choice. As soon as I got it all the way on, I ran downstairs, yelling that I had just done something really stupid. I told Lori what I had done and we got to work right away on all the tricks - cold water, ice, dish soap, olive oil, hand soap, holding my hand over my head. I went on the Internet and learned about Windex and dental floss. WE TRIED EVERYTHING!

Stirring the green beans with my hand in a cup of cold water

Eating dinner and then nursing Audrey with my hand over my head.

Ellie was upset about all of this. When she heard us talking about getting the ring cut off, she came running in the kitchen with her little safety scissors and asked, "Mama, you want me to cut your ring off for you?", with a very sympathetic look.

By this point the ring had been on for about 2 hours and it really hurt. And of course all our efforts left my finger more and more swollen. There was no way that ring was budging.

We had talked about going to the ER when it first happened, but then I read on the Internet that most fire departments and Rescue Squads (ahhhh!) carry a tool for just such a situation. It sounded like I could just go to my local fire department and have this taken care of. As awful as the thought of cutting off my wedding ring was, it was starting to really hurt. When I called our police department they explained that the Rescue Squad would actually have to come to me to do this. How embarrassing! (The dispatcher assured me though that they've been called for much worse!)

So the Rescue Squad came to our house to cut off my ring. There were four of them, three of whom appeared to still be in high school. When I explained how embarrassed I was, they told me that it was kind of exciting for them because they hardly ever get to use this tool - oh, great! They tried to get the ring off after making one cut but couldn't. They made another cut and removed a small section from the back of my ring but still couldn't get it off and then it was cutting into my finger and hurting even worse. Eventually they made a third cut and removed practically the entire back of my ring so that it just fell off. And let me tell you, it was not a painless process!

Ellie sitting on the couch and taking it all in. She was not happy about all the commotion!

Finally off!

Thankfully the ring is off, but unfortunately it is in pieces and is hopefully fixable. Did I mention that Friday was the 6th anniversary of our commitment ceremony where we exchanged these rings? Lori said that if we believed in bad luck, then this is a big one!

So thank you Rescue Squad for saving my finger! I should have asked if they knew a good jeweler...