How Cute Am I !!!

Our little valentine is getting in the spirit....This was just too cute not to take photos of. Ella is getting so observant. She loves the bouncy seat and the mirror that Gaga gave her for Christmas. She just talks to the baby in the mirror.

The girls and I made our first over night trip without Daddy this week. We went to Charleston for a followup appointment with Mary Catherine's Doctors at MUSC. On the way into town, we met Pop Pop Rawlinson for supper and then we stayed with Meme and Mel over night. It was a long rough trip. Ella didn't sleep much and was constipated. I am exhausted. To top it off, it was bitterly cold and RAINED just about the whole trip. Driving home in the rain and being sleepy was rough. I don't intend to try to do that again anytime soon.

We went this weekend to Gastonia, North Carolina to Mary Joe's Fabrics to buy the fabric for Ella's Baptism gown. Gaga is going to make the gown. The fabric is a gorgeous candle light duponi silk. The fabric for the top has pearl cross beading all over it. The bottom is solid silk and it will have pearls around the bottom edge. We have confirmed the baptism date for March 4th at 11am. The session and minister at Effingham approved for Kevin's best friend Reverend Andy Putnam, (who introduced us, married us, and baptised Mary Catherine) to be able to come back to Effingham to baptise Ella on that day. We hope everyone will be able to join us. We will serve lunch after the service in the Family Life Center. It will be a light casual lunch- Veggie Soup, Chicken, Corn Bread and Dessert. Let us know if you will be joining us so that we plan enough food!

Happy B-day Mom...Now take me to get my Shots!

Today Ella got her first shots. Ella had a good visit with Dr. Whitehead today. He says she is happy, healthy and doing GREAT! She weighed in at 10 lbs and 10 1/2 ounces. She is 22 1/2 inches tall and her head is 15 1/2 inches around. A little advise to those of you who don't have a second one yet....NEVER make a doctors appointment for multiple kids at the same time. I did this it thinking...oh, I will multitask and take them both in, have one wait time in the waiting area, both see the doctor, both get their shots and get out. HA! HA! HA! It doesn't quite work like that. Thank goodness Kevin was off for Martin Luther Kings Birthday and went with me or I would have been chasing Mary Catherine down near the 301 Drive Inn. I had Ella, she couldn't go anywhere and just cried for a minute. Mary Catherine was a whole different story for a whole different blog. Let's just say, I will never do that again!

Ella loves her play telephone rattle. She is definitely her Mommies girl...Knows how to use that phone at an early age. She makes the oo and aa sounds and likes to look at faces. She loves the bouncy seat and often sits in it while I work. She likes work and we are enjoying being out some. So far she has done 2 closings and one group lunch with the engineers at the Japanese steak house. The gripe water is still working for us and we love the swaddling blankets. We are about to need the next size up. We are still sleeping about 6 hour stretches at night. They are good six hours for this sleepy Mom.

My favorite thing. . . when I change Ella's diaper, she thinks it is so funny if you say..."Ooooohh....Do you have a wet diaper? Ohhhh....Is that a stinky in there?" She just smiles giggles! She also giggles if I blow raspberries on her tummy. Kevin says it is my facial expressions that she is laughing at...he says I could say is that a million dollars in there and she would laugh....I don't think so. He is just jealous that she wont laugh at him! HA! Mary Catherine and Ella seem to be getting along well. Ella is fascinated with Mary Catherine and watches her close.

SNOT, GRIPE WATER & SWADDING BLANKETS!

Those of you who knew me when I was Stephanie McLaughlin will have to agree. . . I have come a LONG way in becoming domestic Goddess I am today and I have truly grown in the motherhood role. Just wait til you hear this, . . . it was only a few years ago when the discussion of snot, vomit, snotty nose kids and such nasty things that come out of kids totally grossed me out. As I am sure you recall, in my case this was extreme gross out. I believe there were times which I gagged until I got sick. Well, you will not believe what I can do...I take saline solution and squirt it in the snotty nose. I then take a bulb syringe and suck the nasty yuck out of there. I honestly can not believe I can do this. I only had to do it with Mary Catherine a few times. She rarely had snotty noses. Ella however got sick on January 2nd with a bad cold. She has no fever but she has a cough and very very extremely nasty nose. She has trouble eating and sleeping because her head is so full. I have to do this saline and bulb thing practically every few hours. I do it just like a pro and haven't gagged yet. Since Christmas, I have been thrown up on two times, coughed on, had a kid blow their nose on me, and have had to suck yucko out of the other one's nose 8-10 times a day. I am not even going to mention the nasty diapers as that is an entire story within itself. You would all be sooooo proud! Thought those of you who used do nasty stuff just to try and gross me out would get a kick out of this. LOL!

Since this cold thing has been going on in our house since early December and we seem to be just reinfecting each other (despite my excessive cleaning and use of Lysol spray), I decided to take both girls to the doctor on Friday to verify that they were not contagious and this was not something other than a cold. Dr. Whitehead said "It is a cold virus, you are doing everything you can do as a Mother, they are not contagious and whatever they have is in the air everywhere and there is nothing that will fix it." He said he had not seen a kid for a well visit this week that didn't have it and there is nothing to be done but suffer through it. Great- I thought... that's just what I wanted to hear! They did weigh Ella and she now weights 10 pounds and 4 ounces. I guess I am doing something right. WOW!!!!

My cousin, David Strickland, and his wife, Lisa, have a baby girl named Katelyn. She is a few months older than Ella. They told me about this wonderful product called COLIC EASE/GRIPE WATER. I asked the doctor about it yesterday (we got some a few weeks ago and had been trying it randomly). He said it is all natural and if it helps give it to her. I will tell you it works like a miracle for Ella who has allot of GAS, just can't burp and screams in pain from it. According to the bottle (which is brown with a black top), gripe water also aides with digestion. We get so much less spit up and screaming. We get order it from Target online (they do not have it in the Target Store in Florence). The first time we ordered, we only ordered one bottle and when it started getting low, we immediately ordered two more bottles so that we never run out. Ella is so much happier when she takes it just before each bottle. Thanks David and Lisa for this GREAT advise. If you have a hard to burp or gassy baby, I highly recommend COLIC EASE/ GRIPE WATER!!!!

Next new product which I will take credit for finding is...Swaddling Blanket. They are called Swaddle Me Adjustable Infant Wraps and are made by Kiddopotamus. They are a Parenting Media Award Winner and were featured in the August 2003 Parenting Magazine. Prior to Ella's birth, I saw these in Baby's R Us in Columbia and Charleston. I thought, that seems so harsh to swaddle the little babies like that and I didn't buy any. Well, when we got Ella home I found that when Kevin put her down to sleep she slept so much better than when I put her down. The difference was that he was wrapping her in a blanket like they did in the hospital. He was swaddling her tight. I watched her sleep and found that when I put her down she got startled and jerk her arms up, hit her face and it woke her up. I tried to learn to swaddle her with a regular blanket. She would get her arms out every time and I would have to start over. I just could not get the fold under technique down right. I started thinking back and my thoughts went to those swaddling blankets I had seen. Since we do not have a Babies R Us in Florence (which as soon as I get back to work I intend to see what I can do about that!) I asked Mrs. Fran Wright (Kevin's Mom) to see if she could find them in Charleston . She found them and brought us two. They are GREAT and worth whatever they cost. Since we started using them at night, Ella takes her last bottle and sleeps six hours straight. She loves the blankets and is so much happier in them than the regular blankets. Next time I go to Babies R Us I will be purchasing these for everyone I know as baby gifts! Matter of a fact, I think I am going to do gift baskets from now on for Baby showers called The things you need for baby and no one tells you about...Swaddling Blanket, Gripe Water, wire cutters (to get toys out of the packages), and a medicine pacifier. You can see these blankets at www.swaddleme.com or www.kiddopotamus.com. The package says these blankets are good for baby's with colic, reduces the risk of SIDS and reduces the incidence of the startle reflex, which can upset babies and increase the frequency of waking and crying. A portion of the proceeds from the sale of these blankets is given back to the First Candle/ SIDS Alliance which makes them all the more attractive to me. Mrs Fran bought us a pink gingham flannel wrap and a solid pink fleecy wrap so they must come in a variety of materials and colors.

Ella is finally feeling somewhat better. She hasn't thrown up a bottle in about 48 hours. She has been smiling, laughing and cooing allot. She likes for us to blow on her tummy and get the sugar she keeps under her chin. She also likes for me to massage her face (around her eyes). She also loves to lay on the changing table while we play the I LOVE YOU 123 game with her. She found herself in the crib mirror Gaga gave her for Christmas. She smiles and talks to the baby in the mirror. She will just wave her hands and kick her feet at the mirror. She is very cute. I would just sit and watch her play all day if I didn't have to get back to work. Tomorrow is a big day for Ella and I. We start back to work tomorrow morning at 9am. Ella, like Mary Catherine before her, is going to get an early dose of being in the real estate business. We have closings I have to get ready for so I don't have a choice but to go back now. I am going to try and work only half days at first. Hopefully, I will be back to working full time by the end of February when she starts Mothers Morning Out at Central Methodist.