Random ramblings

Elle is making some super-cute, new sounds now - "nanananana" has been added to the "mamama," "dadadadada" and "babababa" arsenal. I feel like she's constantly mocking me, though. On the baby monitor when she was supposed to be falling asleep for a nap, I heard repeated choruses of "nanananana." Translation: "I'm totally not asleep, nananananana!" 

Other cute sounds? Hearing little sighs of sleep when she nods off while nursing in bed in the morning. She just started the sound about two weeks ago, and sometimes I just lie there and listen to her. It's like she's exhaling the word "content" with every breath, and I just want to respond "I completely agree."

Valentine's Day family photo!

And her "nom nom nom-ing" when she eats? Hilarious. She gets so enthusiastic and shoves the bagel/pear/plum/banana/etc. in her mouth, chomping with her gums and mashing the food in to her mouth with her messy hands.

We celebrated Elle's first Valentine's Day with dinner at our favorite local restaurant. Elle was a hit with the wait staff and enjoyed trying some new foods. After dinner, we walked out on the beach and took some photos. 

It is a painful lesson to learn when you accidentally leave your breast pump at home and your commute/work shift keeps you from nursing or pumping for 11 hours.

Elle Belle is on the move! I thought I caught her doing a quick army crawl across the bed to get a toy on Thursday. On Friday, I was playing around with my camera and decided to try and entice her to move. I put the remote on the other side of the bed, and E pulled herself across the bed, twice.

Video proof:



I think Elle has officially decided to reside in the "two naps a day" camp. Typically, her first nap is shorter than the second, but her awake time has definitely started to stretch in the last 2-3 weeks. We've been extremely happy with Baby Girl's night time sleep, too, although I have to admit, she's alert even when she's sleeping. We had a childcare situation this week (more on that later, when my blood pressure lowers), and two sitters ended up filling in to cover the three days we needed. Since they aren't familiar with her current bedtime routine, we checked on her after I got off work each night to make sure the light and fan were on, the musical seahorse out of the crib, etc. Both nights the little bugger popped her head straight up when the door opened - and she peered around, waiting to catch a glimpse of whoever her visitor was, leaving us to duck down quickly and pray that she wouldn't see/hear us. She fell back asleep rather quickly, but she's definitely ready for a mid-night party should her parents decide to throw one.  

After a disastrous month involving a serious jelly bean addiction, I am giving up candy again in March. At this rate, I'll spend half of the year over-indulging and half of the year in withdrawal. Awesome sauce.

I've mentioned before that my sister and I are running a half-marathon relay next month. (You know, in like 15 days. The weekend we lose an hour of sleep. Cuz we're rockstars like that.) But a friend of mine registered for her first 5K, which is being run in May, and since having a race to train for has really kept me motivated, I signed up for that, too. It will likely be the last event I run for a few months - the weather just gets too hot, and usually the registration fees keep me from most of the runs. But this run is cheap, it will be fun to run with friends, and I've done that distance a few times, so I know if I stay in shape, it should be manageable and good motivation to keep running. Maybe I'll even focus on trying to improve my snail's-pace speed :)

I love Gap baby clothing. It hit me this week as I was looking through some photos of Elle and realized how soft, stretchy and long-lasting her (mostly hand-me-down or consigned items) Gap clothing has been. It's cute, it fits well and I love it.

Elle hates the vacuum cleaner. And hates might be putting it lightly. She used to be mystified, even calmed by it. Now? Not so much.

She's excited about family day.

Tim and I have an unusual day off together tomorrow, so we're taking a family day and going to our first spring training game of the year. Then I think we might picnic and play at the park. We have a million and two things we should do with the rare time off together, but I'm excited to ignore it all and enjoy the day.

Before yesterday, we only had a million and one things to do, but I was brainstorming and decided that for multiple reasons, we need to get rid of the bookshelves currently in our hallway. There are also some issues I have with our storage unit, so now the challenge is to make my sister help me when she's visiting next month find time to get rid of a few things and do some serious reorganization, but I'm very much looking forward to the end result.

Never a dull moment!