Tuesday, September 27, 2005

Teeth… we have Teeth…!

This past week the newest member of the Stutz clan, baby Ella, has two new lower, front teeth poking through her gums which, understandably, has made her a little more cranky given how sharp they are. They must be taking a toll not only on her gums, but also on her tongue which, as it continually zips in and out of her mouth like a dessert snake looking for food, is always in motion. Overall she is still a pretty happy baby.

Ella's reaching out with her still tiny hands and fingers and grabbing her feet these days as well. Pretty cute to watch actually. Ella is now far more aware of her surroundings then she has been looking all around, taking it all in. Ella’s also using her hands to grab on to much more then just her feet - noses, hair, fingers, toys - pretty much anything within reach she’s trying to grab on to. Where Ella used to be too small even for the 0-3 month sized clothes, she’s now out grown most of them and is able to wear a wide variety of "oh isn’t she cute" clothes. Now if only she would take scheduled naps, all would be well in the land of Stutz.

I tried giving her Mandarin orange slice last night. That did not go over very well. I haven't seen a happy baby face turn to bitter beer face so fast since I tried to feed her brother Gerber peas. I think we'll wait a while before trying those again.

Ella did get some outside time yesterday. Ella, her brother Aidan and I all went out for a walk. Actually I went for the walk, they pretty much just went for a ride - all packed up in Aidan's little red, all terrain, jacked up, knobby tired radio flyer wagon. Ella in her car seat, placed perpendicular across the back of the wagon, Aidan in front immediately taking his little toddler Tevas off. Ella seemed to enjoy the ride, looking around at all that was slowly moving by as we trudged up the hill to the local high school and quickly fell asleep. Well, at least she had some fresh air for a bit - well, semi fresh given the number of cars which seemed to keep slowing down while passing us to take a look a the cute little girl snoozing in the back of the little red, all terrain, jacked up, knobby tired radio flyer wagon.

Monday, September 19, 2005

Catching Up

Well, we’re now on month five. The months have gone by so fast and young Princess Ella is progressing right along with all those things that newly established wee-ones are to be progressing along with. She’s able to hold her head up fairly well, is able to move it about, in more or less a semi-jerky like motion, but, regardless, still gets the job done, and is continuing to eat constantly.

Ella is adapting to her new surroundings very well, given that her two parents, while only recently inaugurated into new parenthood with her slightly older brother Aidan, still are climbing up the learning curve. She is very tolerant of her elder brother who seems to enjoy entertaining his little sister by dancing around in front of her, spinning like a top, shaking his head back and forth or stringing together a series of non-understood words using different pitches of sound which can only be taken as his attempt to sing to his little sister.

While being presented to her new family as the second child, Ella has had her own series of firsts: First to open her eyes following birth – Ella had her eyes opened and was trying to take in her new surroundings immediately where Aidan seemed much less interested and simply kept his eyes closed for the first couple of weeks.

Ella has grown much over the past four months! She used to be this little pink lump of flesh that we had to re-adjust all the car seat settings back down to their smallest/lowest level – which still seemed to far to large to be effective against her tiny body. Now we find ourselves in need of adjusting the restraining straps to allow for more room and more height!

Ella and I have had our personal bonding moments. Just this past weekend as we were playing by my picking her up over my head horizontally, then down, then back up again, to the giggles and shrieking laughter of Ella, quickly followed by Ella spitting up half her lunch on top of my head. On, what a fun, memorable father/daugher bonding moment that was. Yes, the good ‘ole learning curve continues – (make a personal note: not good to play or swim with infants for at least 2 hours after they have eaten).

Ella has also started sleeping longer periods during the night, allowing for to make the transition from bedside bassinette to her own crib in her own room. Along with this major shift in household residency, Ella has also migrated from the size 1-2 diaper to size 3! Not really so much from her needing a larger size for fit, but from her parents feeling the additional holding capacity was required – boy, can that girl produce some output – she must be destined to follow in her Aunt Kristy’s footsteps and become a finance data cruncher providing reams of analysis.