UNsupermommy mini-me

everyone who knows me well enough, knows that my maternal instinct was not exactly natural before (and sometimes after) ella made her debut. ella might inherit this. mimi gave her a babydoll for her birthday. when we were pushing ella around in her car, we put the babydoll in the cab with her. as you can see, she decided there wasn't enough room for the two of them, so she tossed the babydoll out of the car.

so i'm still working out the kinks in mommyhood but i promise, el, i'll never throw you out of the car; i spent almost an hour walking up and down the aisles of buy buy baby trying to decide on your next car seat. sorry roger. and jill who was baby-sitting.

ONE!! part two - let me eat cake

oh ella. i can't believe she's a whole year old! we've definitely had a lot going on this past year, but it's absolutely flown by. and it's been absolutely amazing to watch her go from an infant who couldn't hold her head up to a little girl who feeds herself, pulls herself up, crawls all over the place, and has her own personality. ella - you're so sweet and there's nothing but love and gratitude for you. :-)

i'm so glad i'm done with the birthday parties though. two parties and a move in less than a week was exhausting. we skipped the eggless cake this time in lieu of a bonbonerie cupcake which she loved.

ONE!! part one

i am way way too tired to do an actual post right now but wanted to do a quick shout out - happy first birthday to my little ella bean!! we love you so much. :-)

is "homeless-stay-at-home-mom" an oxymoron??

so, after 6 months on the market, 2 realtors, 2 months in contract, a new furnace, a break-in and resulting pipe burst, and a semi-tearful good-bye, our house finally closed today.

even with all of the crap that we've gone through, it was still our first home. literally every square inch of that house has been re-done by us - we painted every room (some rooms several times over thanks to my indecisiveness), we replaced all of the trim, gutted and remodeled 2 bathrooms, refinished the kitchen cabinets and did a bunch of other little projects. growing up at my parents' house, i didn't know where they kept the garbage cans. with roger, i learned how to paint (kind of), how to use a nail gun and how to put up a tile backsplash.

it was a fabulous home. i'll miss it.

in ella news: she crawled all the way up to the top of the stairs twice yesterday!! and she has been standing on her own for a few seconds at a time. :-)

all that glitters

yay! we're back online. thanks roger!

so the past few days have been absolutely crazy. we spent all day friday and saturday morning moving out of our house. and because we are apparently incapable of going back to the house and not paying a repairman to come by, our refrigerator needed to be fixed. again.

dear roger,

in regards to any and all future moves, either we throw out all of our crap and start fresh in the new house or we hire movers. i am a short, little woman who sucks at moving large, heavy pieces of furniture like boxsprings and dressers, regardless of how ambitious you are.

thank you.

as soon as we had the truck loaded, it was off to my parents' house for ella's first first birthday party!!! since the invitations that i found at the last minute had hot pink glitter all over them, that became the theme and pretty much every surface in my parents house was dusted with hot pink glitter. in honor of our move, the food was an ode to chicago eats: italian beef sandwiches, deep dish pizza, goose island beer and lemonheads and redhots. ella ate a good portion of her cake; she was slowed only by the gluey frosting (sorry it was so gross, el). thank you to everyone who helped celebrate!

at 6 a.m. on sunday, it was back on the road to ohio. on the 5+ hour drive back, physically and emotionally exhausted, i somehow came up with the fabulous idea that i needed to throw another party on ella's real birthday. hi, 4 days notice. so i'm calling to invite people, planning the menu, etc. here we go again...

a temporary excused absence

hey guys...sorry. i am without internet for what will hopefully be a very brief time. i will try to keep a log then post it when i am able.

luck o' the (1/12th) irish

happy first saint patrick's day ella!!!

she's continuing to work on climbing up the stairs. she got up 7 steps today!

p.s. my apologies again to amanda. after monday, maia was asking where ella was. after yesterday, maia was not happy with ella. maia was pointing out ella's eyes, nose, and when she got to ella's mouth, she stuck her finger in her mouth and ella bit down. sorry maia - we love you!

hot chicks

today, after gymboree, my mom and i took ella to the kohl's children's museum in glenview, illinois. they have so much to do for kids. ella played in their little grocery store, vet office, sandwich shop, and play house. she played in their water works area and the music center. her favorite part was the chick hatchery. there were a few baby chicks cuddling in the incubator and ella just stared at them, fascinated.

it's crazy how much things can change in a few days. she has another tooth coming in (the other top middle one finally!), she "walks" holding onto furniture and she's beginning to climb up stairs (her record is 2 steps and she had the added challenge of a skirt today). go ella!

welcome to sharyn's daycare

today, ella and i spent the afternoon playing with her friend, maia. it was soo cute to watch them sharing toys and playing in maia's little house.

and my apologies to amanda - neither of them would take a nap. they watched sesame street. a lot.

best buddies

here are ella and george on our trip back to chicago. george leaned over so that ella could pet him. awww...

in the swing of things

i had two goals for today: clean the house and pack. i started my day at 6:45 a.m. and it's 10:45 p.m. and i've just finished. between 2 high maintenance dogs and a fussy baby who refused to nap, i couldn't get anything done. :-(

love, love this outfit that mimi bought for ella. of course, when mimi gave it to me, it was perfectly pressed. i was absolutely horrified to show up at mimi's today with ella who had wrinkled the crap out of her dress and smushed bananas into her tights.

after chasing ella around all day, we went to an indoor playground (and her 1st time on a swing!) to play with her cousins, jack and julia. on the way home, finally, finally, ella fell asleep. i probably should have kept on schedule and woken her up to feed her dinner. instead, i quietly moved her carrier into the house, put away a few loads of laundry while she continued to sleep in her carrier, then quietly moved her back into the car, went to dinner with roger and let her stay asleep next to us through our wine (NOT chardonnay) and salads. and thank you thank you to our fabulous waiter - ella hated the baby food i bought her, so the waiter brought a grilled chicken breast for ella and she ate the whole thing!!

no - i didn't use hair gel on my baby. that's banana...

it's been a pretty uneventful week - we've been going to all of our normal yoga and gymboree classes.

ella has started sharing her food. she will pick it up off the tray and hold it up until you lean forward and then she puts it in your mouth. if you don't play, then she feeds the dogs. or she squishes it in her little fists and rubs it in her hair; then she takes a nap and it dries in crazy directions.

i love the second picture - you can't really see it because george's big head is in the way, but ella is standing next to her daddy (she's holding onto the drawer pulls).

pucker up!

here is ella and her daddy. love it!

what's in your wallet?

ella spent her saturday morning entertaining everyone at the bureau of motor vehicles - roger and i both needed to get our ohio driver's licenses - ella growled, waved and stuffed fistfuls of cheerios into her mouth. much to roger's surprise (because he studied and i rolled my eyes at him), i passed the test! i now know that if i hit a deer and cause it's death, i can keep it. oh, yippee.

by the way, the picture of naked ella is due to the fact that she absolutely fought me on getting into a clean diaper and her pajamas. i gave up after i got her in the clean diaper and she played like this for a while.

today, mimi fed dinner to ella again! and she loved everything jill made for dinner. then i spent the rest of my night (as a result of the burglary) on a chardonnay-fueled shopping spree.

i almost vomited on my baby today

so i thought i was doing pretty well today - ella and i woke up, played, went to yoga, went to gymboree, came home and had lunch. then it all went to hell. i started heating up a bottle to give to ella before her nap. ella followed me into the kitchen and it was very apparent she needed a diaper change, so we went upstairs. there was an explosion of poop and it was everywhere - seriously - everywhere... so i wrapped her up in a towel, grabbed a clean towel, wipes, and a new diaper and went downstairs, stopping in the kitchen to turn off the heat on her bottle, and went through about $8 in wipes before getting her into the bath. after i had a clean baby, i dressed her and went back into the kitchen, where, even though i turned the heat off, the bottle was still way too hot. i put ella in her highchair so i could cool the bottle off when i heard a 'thud' behind me. she had yanked the placemat off the kitchen table, knocking my diet coke all over the kitchen floor. i think i hear a huge strawberry margarita calling my name...

yesterday morning at yoga (my first of 3 classes in a 24 hour period...ouch) the instructor was encouraging me to do a handstand. after a few attempts and not liking the distinct possibility that i would flip over and land on my face, i decided it was not happening. flashforward a few hours to ella in gymboree. the instructor was encouraging ella to go up and over an intertube. after a few attempts, ella sat back down and crawled away. we'll both get there one day, el... ;-)

and ella blew her first kiss!! she blew kisses to my mom when we were skyping. yay!

ella plus 8 (teeth)

i've now been unemployed for a whole year. as a former HR advisor, i can't help but to wonder what a performance review would look like for the past year...strengths (keeping ella clean and safe, providing lots of activities to keep her busy), opportunities for improvement (let go of some of my neurotic tendencies) and goals (for ella's first word to be anything other than "shit").

we went to roger's cousin's for dinner the other night. i showed up with my little frozen blocks of homemade pureed sweet potatoes. when i was told that they didn't have a microwave, my only response was a completely blank stare. how the hell do you heat food without a microwave?? i don't understand this.

and after several days of runny noses, drooling and trouble sleeping, ella's bottom 1st molars came in!