Raindrops on Roses and Whiskers on Kittens

Ella has never seen a rose or a kitten, but her 2 favorite things are: 1) sitting in her swing and 2) looking at herself in the mirror. In the swing she watches TV, waves her arms and talks to us. When she looks at herself in the mirror she smiles and talks to that cute baby looking back at her. I’ve tried a million times to get a picture of her looking at herself and smiling, but I always catch the tail end of the smile.

Ella has officially made the transition from 0-3 month clothes to 3-6 month clothes. She is getting to be such a big girl! Of course I had to go to Babies R Us and Target to make sure she has plenty of things to wear for the next 3 months. I made a big effort to get things other than pink, or clothes that have pink but also have another color. It’s hard! When you love pink as much as I do, having a little girl to dress in pink is a dream come true! I’ve already explained to Ella that pink is going to be her favorite color, but I still feel like I should at least give her the chance to see other colors. Unfortunately life consists of more colors than just “blush and bashful.” Now if I can just teach Joe to put her clothes on the right way. He tends to get confused and when I come home Ella's clothes are on backward.

Ella is also outgrowing her bassinet. During the night sometimes we will hear a thud when Ella is stretching out her arms and hits the side of the bassinet. And she often will wriggle herself all the way up to the top so that she can’t move her head. The problem is that I’m not ready to move her into her own room yet! I want her right next to me during the night. (I still check her all the time to make sure she’s breathing) We are discussing plan B, and right now I think we are going to move the pack n play into our bedroom.

We had a great weekend with the New Family Advocate from Debra, who visited us this past weekend. She was very helpful in answering our questions about how to handle Ella’s EB, especially once she starts to crawl, how to give her a bath, tips on improving our wrapping skills, and much more. We really appreciated her taking the time to come visit us.

On Sunday we went out to lunch with a family from church, the Moutray’s. They have a little girl named Charlotte who is 2 years old. The funniest thing was Charlotte would stand on a chair right next to Ella’s car seat and get an inch from Ella face to look at her. It was so cute! I don’t think Ella knew what was going on. She would look at Charlotte then look at me, then look back at Charlotte . Kids are funny.

It’s my 3rd week back at work and Joe’s 4th week back in school. We are getting into a routine. I go to work all day and come home, only to watch him walk right out the door to class. Finally at 10pm we are able to hang out and have family time. We just keep reminding ourselves that this is temporary and in a few short years he will be out of school and our lives will be semi-normal.

It's bedtime, but Ella just woke up from a long 3 1/2 hour nap, so I don't think she's going back to sleep anytime soon. Since I have to go to work tomorrow, Daddy gets to stay up and keep her occupied.

Katie