Not So Little Any More

Wasn't that long ago that little Ms Ella was a tiny baby. Last night, given the 9pm hour and the 80+ degree weather out side, many of the neighbors of our new little neighborhood street were out milling about, some ooh'ing and ahh'ing over the latest new addition to the street, a baby boy born just a few days earlier. It struck me that not only was the new, not quite so bouncing baby boy so small, but that our own most recent edition wasn't so small any longer.

Princess Ella is now fourteen months old. I know, in other postings I went on about how I really disliked the parental use of a number of months to indicate the age of their child, but fourteen months is much easier to type then ('ok, take the number of months in a year, what month was she born again, wait, that's not right... carry the one... no, there are twelve not ten months in a year... recalculate...') One Year and Two months. So, while it is easier to type, when asked I still respond 'A year and a couple of months' or 'A little over a year' - less actual math to perform in my head that way and I don't have to look like a super geek carring my pocket sized abacus around on my hip like a cell phone.

But getting back on track - Ella is really moving along, literally. She crawls faster then most other babies I've seen, not that I've seen a large number of babies seemingly hopped up on the latest major league baseball performance enhancing drug, but she seems to move pretty quickly, even without sports beat reporters chasing her. Ella actually prefers to be the one doing the chasing. She'll try and chase her older brother Aidan around the house, scampering as fast as a one year old on four appendages is able to do so - hands slapping on the floor, butt seemingly detached from the rest of her body as it adjusts right to left with each knee being thrust forward in an ever faster attempt propel her forward and keep up. All the while squealing with glee at the fun she is having.

Ella's seemingly always happy, well, at least most of the time. Did I mention cute as a bug?, at least any of those bugs depicted by Pixar - not necessarily any of your garden-variety bugs that you might find in, well, your garden. Ella enjoys playing on slides, and with water, but not really needing to actually be in the water, just to the side where she can reach in and splash around is fine with her. She's a bit dainty that way.

Ella also seems to be taking to boating at this early age. The noise doesn't seem to bother her, the rocking and bouncing doesn't seem to bother her, sleeping on the boat doesn't seem to bother her. She just seems to take it all in stride.

I wish I had some speech progress to report, however there really isn't any yet. She communicates with a few hand motions and various, random screeches and grunts which gets her message across, but certainly can't be counted as an actual language other then her own.

Overall Ella's a pretty cute, happy, fast crawling little girl who, while not yet really talking, is making strides towards standing independently, walking while holding on to someone's hands, and every once and a while tries to take her own single step for little girl kind.

Wasted Time?

Poor little Ms Ella has been sick the past couple of days. Emptying the contents of her walnut sized stomach multiple times per day. It's amazing how much can come out of such a small stomach - yuck!. Needless to day, Ella hasn't been her normal, full of energy, wanting to chase her brother around all over the house self. She's been pretty quiet for the most part.

Today is a holiday for me so I had the luxury of staying home. Being a wet and rainy day, the 28th of the last 29 days - apparently a record for Seattle which, in itself is hard to believe - there really wasn't much to do outside so, for a good part of the morning, sat on the couch with little Ms Ella. We played a little bit, gently bouncing around on my knee like a rubber balloon stuffed with sand until she had enough and immediatly fell asleep on my chest for the next couple of hours with her mouth open just enough to let just the tip of her pink tongue poke out to fill up the space.

Wasted time? If so, it was the best wasted time I've had for a long while.

Mobility

Since the last Ella blog entry Ella’s become quite mobile and grown into a fun, cute, entertaining little baby girl. She hasn’t produced any new teeth so she seems a bit lopsided when she opens her mouth showing her three lower, front teeth, but I’m sure she is working hard on some more. Her hair has gown in quite a bit more so she doesn’t look like a fuzzy que ball any longer and she’s developed her own personality along with a vast awareness of the world around her.

A week or so ago she’d discovered the concept of forward mobility by performing the baby army crawl; reaching out in front of her, hoisting herself up on her elbows, then falling forward on her arms pulling herself forward in 4 inch increments, her feet trying to help propel her forward, sometimes succeeding, other times not. So, combined with her her ability to roll around all over the floor in either direction, she can now move forward, making it that much easier to pester her brother Aidan by moving over to him and trying to touch him, something he’s not all that fond of. It also allows her to entertain herself by moving from one toy to chew on to the next providing 30-minute chucks of entertainment and relaxation value for her parents.

Ella also has, on loan to her thankful parents from her daytime nanny, a little baby scooter – something akin to a lunar rover with four independently turnable wheels and a baby seat in the middle of it allowing Ella’s feet to hit the ground and provide independent leg action. This is her favorite and most used baby item as it allows her to move herself all over the lower level of the house – made that much easier as the floors are all wood. She just scoots herself around following anyone she wants, trying to keep up. Brother Aidan will play with her by running down the hallway to the front door, and Ella will spin her little feet as fast as possible, propelling her baby landing craft down the hallway after him. Many times bumping into one wall or the other, where she immediately adjusts course and continues on to her destination. Upon reaching her brother, Aidan will then run back down the hallway to the alternate end and wait for Ella to get herself turned around and sets off back down the hallway after him.

Ella does not like baby food. Hard to believe given the every so appetizing nature of the multi puréed assortment of vegetables and fruit mush available. She prefers fresh bananas, graham crackers, and baby bread sticks. That all being stated, she has started to accept the Gerber mac and cheese mush which is a victory in itself. She has also developed a taste for the Crystal Light lemonade product. I’ll have to admit right off that this is my fault, I gave her a taste by dipping my finger into the liquid then sticking it into her mouth. She, within seconds, moved to drinking it out of my glass. When she wanted more, she would crane her neck forward, head tilted back and little, pink tongue spilling out over her three front teeth and lower lip, waiting for me to place the cup back in her mouth so she could get more of the best liquid modern chemistry has to offer. Heck, it looks like she’s already in training to pledge a Cougar sorority. I say Cougar only because I’m sure it’s would be more fun to imbibe in her favorite beverage after her school has won a football game and it doesn’t look like the home town team will be doing that anytime soon. Of course, what would I know, it’s not like my alma matter is known for it’s gridiron winning ways, but she’s certainly welcome to go there if she so chooses

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.

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.

Month Two

Finally, Ella has hit the ten pound mark, the same point at which her big brother Aidan began sleeping longer through the night then just the scant 2.5 hours at a time. Ella is climbing up the percentile charts to where she is now reportedly to be in the fifty percentile for nearly everything, weight, height, head size - a vast improvement over the initial tenth percentile positioning she came into the world at.

Much like her older brother Aidan at the same age, Ella is continually hungry and lets everyone within earshot know when she is hungry. Her hair, which had nearly all fallen out, is being slowly replaced by a new head of, what appears to be middle brownish, peach fuzz hair, matching her still fairly dark, big, bright eyes.

While her head will still uncontrollably flop over to one side on occasion, she's doing better at being able to hold her head up as she looks around while being held vertically. She's taken a keen interest in art as she continually stares at the oil painting of a French town street adorning the family room wall.

She has taken to boating fairly well, falling asleep during travel for each cruise she's been on - which is certainly nice, as we can only deal with one active, vocal child at a time while underway. We'll have to enjoy these times of cruising slumber as I'm sure, a few short years from now, she'll be antsy to get to what ever destination we're headed to so she can jump off the boat and head to the local pool to be the focus of every boy's attentions - she is pretty cute already and I'm sure it's only going to be getting worse - for her father that is.

Where are those sheep?

What happened to sleep? Maybe it's just the failed memory of an aging recent parent, and I do recall staying up late at night trying to get Ella's older brother to sleep at night, but I don't recall the continual, inconsistent sleep which I seem to be experiencing this time around. I'm sure my also sleep deprived wife would take issue with this and simply laugh at me as I'm sure she gets even less sleep then I do - but what happened? How can one small baby no bigger then a bread box be so fussy for so long during normal sleeping hours? It's not so much being fussy and not sleeping, it is the continual groaning and low level whining that is so grating. If she's going to insist on keeping her own hours, can't she do so quietly, looking off into space (or the 6-8 inches that actually come into focus), not bothering her two parents? This is not setting a good precedent for her far too rapidly approaching teen years. And on top of all of this lack of sleep, she hasn't even found a job in her four weeks of life.

Overall, Ella is still pretty cute and it's nice to hear many of those who see her comment on what a 'perfect' baby she is - if they only knew her sybil like personality that changes over around bed time. Ella has continued to gain weight, up 2lbs since her birth so she is eating and eating and eating... at this rate she'll catch up to her brother in no time.

I remember when there was sleep.

There are a number of articles, books, web sites and accounts of first hand experience written which describe parenthood as the most wonderful, joyful, fulfilling experience any person could have. How having your own children grow up before your eyes is an experience cherished for a lifetime. That the experience is to be treasured.

What a crock. It is really all about survival.

It’s about not giving in to constant whining, endless diapers, sharp toys left in the hallway to be stepped on in the middle of the night while making your way to which ever offspring is currently expressing displeasure for one inexplicable reason or another. It’s about sleep – or the lack thereof – and adjusting the habits your adult body has become accustomed to, relished, and enjoyed to those of intermittent 10 minute naps, 2 hour nightly sleep sessions followed by an hour and a half of feedings, burpings, back pattings, consolings and more diaper changes.

Even without the ability to communicate with each other, Ella and Aidan have already formed a tag team and are honing their skills at keeping their parents up at night. First Ella will want to eat, again. It’s not as if she had just sucked down a bottle faster then a greek system participant at a local haunts last call – she’s burped, she’s spit up, she’s rallied and wants more. After getting an additional rationing of frothy goodness and calming down, off in the distance is the sound of a door and the pitter patter of sleep suit padded feet down the hallway and the eventual unnerving crying expelled by her older brother. Tag, it’s your turn brother. Oh joy. Just as the one appears satisfied, the other has decided that sleeping is overrated, both for him and his parents, and that 3:30am is a reasonable hour to wake up and demand attention and/or food as he doesn’t want to be left out. I’m not sure how Aidan knows that, clear down the hall, his little sister has just stopped fussing and it’s time for him to take the stage – but however it’s done Cisco should look into it as it is a remarkable wireless connection of some sort. Yes, an experience to be treasured indeed.

In the end the parents are left with blurry, red eyes, 3-4 hours of sleep (on a good night) and the knowledge that it’s only a few short survival hours away from that nocturnal tag team sounding the bell for that nights first round against the parents.

No News is Good News

I have to say, so far Ella's been a pretty easy baby. No constant crying or whimpering (she leaves that to her father), she's fussy only when she's hungry, needs a new set of drawers, or needs to put any sailor to shame with a good burp. That's about it.

Her 10 day checkup went without a hitch. She's only lost .1 lbs, not to bad, and is starting to eat like her big brother - lots and often.

Her eyes are always open, trying to look around, although I'm not really sure how much she can actually see in focus, but I hold her up to the colorful paintings and pictures we have around the house to at least give her a change of scenery from staring at the blankets she's continually wrapped up in.

Her short, dried up, basically gross looking umbilical cord stub has finally fallen off - leaving just a bit at the base, but at least it's not catching on everything any more.

Ella seems to already have far more friends then I do, although that isn't a real shocker - she's much cuter and has a better personality then her often compared to a door knob father. She's received a great many cards, well wishes, visitors and has been fortunate enough to have been presented with a great many gifts. The latest to arrive was a very nice set of soft, fuzzy items from the Ehrlich family. Elizabeth Ehrlich runs Snuggle-Up.com and produces some very nice, customized baby items. Ella now has a little blanket with her name on it and a series of little burp cloths (I hope that's what they are, else I'm really going to be embarrassed that I've used them for that).

In the beginning...

Ella Marie Stutz, named after her great grandmother Sara Ella Katherine Myers and great, great grandmother, has finally arrived.

Even before Ella's arrival she was the center of concern. Other then the fact that she was female and I had no idea how to go about obtaining a shotgun as a future suitor deterrent, Ella's last ultrasound results provided an indication that she was fairly small, in the 10 percentile range. The doctor floated the word 'Dwarfism' which sent everyone into an immediate sense of concern and, to be honest, dismay. The measurements taken during the ultrasound indicated that she was quite small, underweight, and that her limbs appeared to be a bit short.

To be fair, The Dr. did state that he was obligated to mention the possibility of Dwarfism, but also that ultrasound measurements are not known for their accuracy. Too late, the damage of planting the seed of great concern had already taken hold and would be hanging out there for the next few weeks until Ella's arrival. There really wasn't anything to do, other then wonder what Ella was going to come out like and do a little research. Apparently Dwarfism is a genetic condition passed down through the family tree, or by a fresh genetic mutation. Well, neither side of the family touted any such cases so we were down to the possibility of a a fresh mutation - which only really increased the sense of concern and dread. What would her life be like? What kind of special care would she need?

All the worry and concern was for naught as Ella arrived just before 5am on April 29th looking like a perfectly proportionate little girl. Unlike her big brother Aidan's fairly exciting arrival, Ella's was fairly uneventful. I was even able to cut the cord this time around which wasn't anything more then using a pair of scissors, but pretty memorable. I really should charge the hospital for that surgical service I provided, maybe they'll deduct my fee from the over all, new boat purchase hindering bill.

All was well in parent and baby world.... until (queue B class mystery movie plot point music)... little miss Ella decided to entertain everyone by spitting up some neon green residue. Yuck!... As it was the general medical opinion that something that color should not be coming out of a new born baby, we were back into concern mode.

The hospital neonatalogist, Dr NotSoFeelGood, didn't paint a very pretty picture and, I felt, was a bit of an alarmist. While she briefly stated that it may be nothing, she then went on in length about how it could be an underdeveloped digestive system preventing material from traversing the entire digestive tract, or a 'webbing' may be causing a blockage - either of which would require surgery to correct. She had some x-rays taken of Ella and, while she didn't see any real issues in the x-rays, still felt that there was something wrong and that Ella should be transferred from Overlake Hospital where she was delivered, to Children's Hospital where the surgeons resided. So little baby Ella, only a day or so old, was going on her first ambulance trip.

Arriving at Children's Hospital, Ella was placed in the IICU (Infant Intensive Care Unit) where she was hooked up to a number of monitors and associated wires. The surgeons, having looked at the x-rays sent along from Overlake, didn't see anything wrong, but ordered a test where they inject a dye and then watch where it goes.... and the dye went all the way through little Ella's system, indicating that there was, in fact, no blockage. Other then some additional observation and actually allowing Ella to eat and seeing what happened, all appeared to be normal again. Ella was released from Children's about 9pm Sunday, May 1st when her tired and emotionally frazzled parents were finally able to take her home.

So, in the end, all is well, Ella is just fine and her father is still wondering where to find a license for that shotgun I'm sure is going to need in the not too distant future.