Growing Up Ella

I started this blog to document my life and our expanding family. My intent was to write in it several times a week, but that goal has already been pushed aside.

I was trying to write whenever Ella would go down for a nap, but within this last week or so she has decided to give up naps cold-turkey. I know that around age 3 some toddlers give-up naps all together, but Ella hasn't even reached 2 and-a-half yet. Well, technically she will by the end of October. So she is a little ahead of the curve so to speak.

I am fine with the fact that she has given up naps because there is a plus side to it. 1) She sleeps in a little longer some mornings (but not that much longer), and 2) She goes to bed earlier some nights.

Of course there is also a down-side to this Giving Up the Nap Cold-Turkey thing. She has been throwing more tantrums because she is tired and is more grouchy towards the end of the day. It's not like I can force her to take naps, though. I can put her in her little toddler bed and close her bedroom door, but she can hop right up and walk right out of there. I am sure the tantrums will smooth over once she gets adjusted to this new non-nap life of hers.

For the most part I can't complain about the tantrums because her sweet little-girl nature is just too adorable. I love watching her play make believe and she is so good at playing by herself. I think that is one of her favorite things to do. I always find her playing with her little stuffed animals set up around her or playing with her kitchen (one of her most favorite past-times). And she gives me these sideways looks sometimes that seem so adult for her, but I have to remind myself that she is growing up every day.

The Sisterhood of the Traveling Maternity Pants

My sister lent me a bag of her maternity clothes because mine were waaaay too big from my last pregnancy. I knew that her pants would not fit me at all--a size 2 just doesn't want to fit over my size 8 thighs. 


Of course I had to try on the pants though, just to make myself miserable. Remember when Tinkerbell was looking at herself in the mirror in Peter Pan and she was shocked by the size of her hips and she holds her hands up to her hips and then holds them out to see how wide they are, well that was me while trying on these pants. That is until I came to the last pair--Gap wide leg size 2 jeans that had a real waist in the back with the maternity low rise band in the front. I thought immediately they would not fit, but tried them anyway because what the heck I wasn't miserable enough. I slipped them up to my thighs thinking that's where they were going to want to stop and realized they didn't want to just stop right there, so, I kept pulling until before I knew what happened they were all the way on, AND THEY FIT!


Not only do these pants fit (thanks to the stretchiness of them) but they fit like a glove (but in this case I should say they fit like jeans). Wow, is all I can say. These are the most comfy pair of jeans I have ever worn in my entire life. If I didn't know I had put them on in the morning I would say I was wearing sweatpants. You are probably thinking that I have them stretched to the max over my thunder thighs, but NO, they actually look good, and they are even a little loose.


I am now calling this spectacular pair of jeans The Sisterhood of the Traveling Maternity Pants. Not only did my sister wear this pair throughout her pregnancy, but her sister-in-law also just got done wearing them throughout her second pregnancy and now they have been passed on to me. I tend to get in a bad mood for the day if the clothes I am wearing don't fit right and are uncomfortable. This pair of jeans are just like the jeans in the movie--they fit us all AND they just make everything better. Thanks seeester!

Nesting

All want for nesting has come and gone. As soon as I found out I was pregnant I immediately started planning Ella's move from her nursery to the obligatory larger bedroom always designated for the oldest child.

I quickly ordered bedding and asked Ella what color she wanted her new room to be. "Blue!" she stated.

I enlisted my sister and her boyfriend to help Paul move the couch out of the office/playroom that is now destined to be Ella's room and forced them to take the large bookshelf to their house, which they happily obliged to.

I then removed all non-child stuff from the room and gave Paul the daunting task of painting the room during his much deserved stay-cation he was on. It was a semi pain in the butt because we formerly painted the room a dark red which took several coats of primer to disguise.

After vacuuming and shampooing the carpet until it was starting to come undone we finally moved Ella into her new room. This room is great, it holds all her toys, unlike her former room which was half the size.

Now that Ella is properly set up on her new room my nesting instinct has diminished. I am hoping that it makes an appearance prior to the baby arriving so that we can set up the new nursery, but right now I am not concerned at all about having everything in perfect order before the baby arrives. Maybe because I know that once we have a newborn in the house things will be chaotic enough and making sure everything is prefect will be low on the list of to-dos.

Third Time is not a Charm: Disaster in the Kitchen

I have a banana bread recipe that was given to me and I am not sure where this person got the recipe from or how it turns out for them, but every time I have tried it it has come out mushy and sticky in the middle. This is the third time it has happened and I even tried altering the recipe this time around.

Today it dawned on me that I have stupidly wasted precious bananas and after the first disastrous bread I should have just looked-up a recipe online. I don't know why I didn't think of this before, I wish I was more flexible so I could kick myself in the B-U-T-T.  God, I am stupid!

Now, I am on the search for the perfect recipe. I love banana bread and I am not giving up on it. Don't worry bananas, I will do you justice--once I find the right recipe!

Baby Monitor Obession

Staring at the video monitor, I watch as Ella falls out of bed head first and contort into a weird backbend with her feet over the back of her head (think Cirque de Soleil). She is still asleep for a few seconds before she realizes she is doing a head stand and she twists her body around until she is right side up and able to crawl in bed. During these few seconds my head is racing with thoughts of "please don't wake up, just go back to bed. Hop in bed little one...". Then she miraculously gets up and crawls back into bed making little grunting noises in the process, while I am still thinking to myself "Fall back asleep, go to sleep, pleeease". And she does, but not before standing up in bed for some reason, then sitting back down, pulling her blanket so it's covering her just right and then finally falling back to sleep.

This is what I endure most nights because I have a video baby monitor which is ten times worse than just having a normal baby monitor. I can actually see what is causing all the noises in her room instead of hearing little bumps and movements. I can see that she is up and walking around then getting back in bed rather than just hearing rustling and thinking she is tossing and turning in bed. It's ten times worse because I can see that she is up and moving around and now I am praying that she will crawl back in bed so I can go back to sleep for just a few more hours.

Things that should NOT go Bump in the Night

1) Harry sleepily tumbling down his little doggie stairs from our bed at any hour of the night because he has to go to the bathroom due to refusing to eat his dinner until 10:00 PM.

2) Harry launching his body off our bed at top speed because Max our cat somehow taunted Harry into chasing him knowing that he can place all the noise blame on Harry.

3) Me trying to find the bathroom door and then the light in complete darkness for the 2nd, 3rd...4th time because a little baby is currently using my bladder as a pillow.

4) Emma (our cat, not to be confused with Ella our daughter) deciding it would be funny to stand up on her hind legs and throw her front legs onto our closet door causing the most horrific noise in the world (well at least the most horrific noise at 3:00 AM).

5) Ella waking up 3, 4, 5,...32,412 times a night now that she is in her new room. First we get a warning by hearing her stumbling around in the darkness trying to find her bedroom door (which sometimes triggers one of her toys to go off loudly, which in turn can be more obnoxious than an alarm clock depending on the time of night), then the subsequent opening and closing loudly of said door, then "MOM...I wake up" in a proud tone, only to be told by us "No, it's still nighttime" and then her breaking into the loudest tantrum you can imagine.

6) Paul trying to find his alarm clock for the 3rd time in a row...because we are all fans of hitting that snooze button at least 7 times.

7) Max galloping around downstairs thinking he is in the Kentucky Derby because that's what cats like to pretend to do in the middle of the night after their long restful sleep during the day.

8) Max then meowing between the hours of 5:00 AM until we decide to wake up because he has taken the liberty of assigning himself the Rooster's job until we decide to really get a rooster for that job.

9) Me pounding on the keyboard at 4:00 AM because one, or all, noises listed above have woken me up.

These are all noises we hear during the night, sometimes all within the same night causing me to wake up and stay awake for several hours sitting in bed waiting...waiting...waiting until I can finally fall asleep again. Yes, I know I don't have a real 9-5 job, but I do have a job that lasts at least 12 hours (sometimes more) a day called Mom, and it would be nice to not have to be walking around like a zombie because I couldn't sleep. Maybe in some weird cosmical way I am somehow getting trained to get used to the fact that I will not be getting a full night's rest in the upcoming months.