Happy 5 Months, Ella

I was trying to take a portrait of Ella while she was sitting on my lap. But I'm obviously used to taking portraits of myself I guess, so the first attempt did not work whatsoever.
Hello, Me!



This one, yes, is super cute. But it's way too close and it makes her look rounder than she really is. I mean, I'm not fooling anyone, Ella is already 15 pounds. She's big. But I swear, she's not this roundy.



By the time I got it right, Ella was totally over it.

Corny

We are going to showcase you eating corn, especially before the world food supply runs out. One day, you'll look at these photos and say, "what the heck is that? Corn? Was that really a food? Now you're going to tell me there was such a thing as rice."



Judging by all the food that's been posted here lately, you also probably won't believe me that you never ate anything. But honestly, you eat so rarely that I just take a picture anytime you do it.



OK. This is more accurate. How you just pick at food and judge it. And if it does not include chocolate or milk or a pea, you will look down on it because it's not worthy of going in your body.

Yellow.

There's a lot going on in this picture



1. This is a super cute dress you got from Grandpa Doug and Barbara's trip to Puerto Rico. Actually, this dress is Ella's. You got a blue one. But yellow is your favorite color. So you demanded that I put the yellow one on you. Who cares if it's way too short and that you can see your diaper?

2. The camera is smudged. (Or, more accurately, the phone camera because we have not replaced our broken digital camera because we are bad parents who do not want to document our childrens lives.)

3. This is you "doing gymnastics." You "do gymanstics" all the time. All the time.

4. As you can see, our new house has quite a lovely fireplace ledge and beautiful hardwood floors.

On the mend

Looks like someone is feeling better in this house!



And, what is this? Are you actually eating?

Fire alarm dance

Thanks to you, we've discovered the panic button in our new house.

The other day we were just sitting in the kitchen - you, me, Ella and your teacher, Diana, who is taking care of you during the school's Passover break.
And you touched that little cartoon picture of fire on the alarm system. I mean, who wouldn't touch that picture? It's all small and cute in a Smokey the Bear kind of way.

And this is what happens when you touch that button, the house goes: OOOOOOH OOOOOOH OOOOOOH! OOOOOOH OOOOOOH OOOOOOH!

Which isn't really a big deal if you know how to turn it off. But when you don't know how to make it stop and the house is screaming OOOOOOH OOOOOOH OOOOOOH! OOOOOOH OOOOOOH OOOOOOH! for twenty minutes, it's kind of jarring.

Silly me was actually concerned that the noise would be too distressing for you.

But instead of running scared and freaking out the way you do when you see a vacuum cleaner or hairdryer, you stood in the middle of the kitchen, naked, and started dancing.

It was your own private dance club. OOOOOOH OOOOOOH OOOOOOH! Where you waved your arms in the air. OOOOOOH OOOOOOH OOOOOOH! And bounced up and down. OOOOOOH OOOOOOH OOOOOOH! As if you were never sick in the first place.

And how did we turn it off? I had to awkwardly introduce myself to the neighbor, who happens to be a contractor. And he had to climb in the attic (did you read that? in the attic? that I didn't know we even had?) and power it down.

I have a 20 second video of this I took on my phone. I can't figure out how to post it. Stay tuned. Or text me for a preview copy.

Wordy

In the midst of all the cruddy stuff going on in our lives right now (Ella has a fever now, too), you are gathering quite an impressive vocabulary.
This is probably the only thing keeping us on a semi-sane level.

Because when you find one of my rings and you pick it up and say "Mami's anillo," (ring en Espanol), even though I had absolutely no idea you knew how to say anillo, it makes some of the stress go away.

Not only that, but you are getting good at imitating things we say. Last night I tried to get you to eat some CPK frozen pizza by singing "Pizza party, pizza party, pizza party." You didn't eat the pizza. But you did say "pizza party" for a good 10 minutes.

This also means that we have to be more careful with our own language. Dad, who you are now calling Daddio, likes to say things like "Yankees suck." And the word "suck," when not in reference to a bottle or a pacifier, is probably not something the other kids at daycare should be exposed to just yet.

Even though you still cry when you wake up in the morning, and even though you spit out your pink ear infection medicine all over my clothes, I am thanking you anyway because you are responsible for bringing happy light to our house.

slow recovery

it's been three days since your ER visit and we're all still all jumpy.
yesterday you cried and whined for, literally, two hours.
today you woke up in a super good mood. the first thing you said when you saw me was "cookie!" but after your nap your fever was back up to 103. and i went in crazy panic mode where i started yelling.

a few weeks ago i posted something about what a difficult time i was having with ella not sleeping and other things i can't remember. but i took it down because it just sounded like i was feeling sorry for myself. little did i know that the "woe is me" post was actually a cakewalk compared to this last week.

A ride in the ambulance.

Today was supposed to be my first day back at work.
But you've been off all week and I had a feeling things weren't going to go as planned.
Sure enough, this morning you woke up with a 102.7 degree fever. And that was the lowest it got all day. The fever got worse and worse and while you were laying in my arms you kept having these mini convulsion things. The doctor said not to worry. But then. You had a seizure. A full-blown seizure where you were convulsing and foaming at the mouth and having your eyes roll backwards. Your fever? 104.9.
So, I mean, screw what the doctor says. I panicked and dialed 911. And that bought us an ambulance ride to Children's Hospital where you got Motrin, Gatorade and a teddy bear dressed in doctor scrubs.
And so, well, I guess it is pretty normal to have "febrile seizures." Because no one seemed all that alarmed. In fact, you got tons of compliments about how well spoken you are. And all you were saying was "No, Mami." and "Go??"
Once we did go, your fever broke. You ate Elmo soup and went to bed with no problem.
I really don't think my first day of work could have beat this day.

Photo Update

All this time I wanted to find a house with a perfect backyard. And I finally did:



But you are more excited about having a bookshelf. Because you see those pink bins behind you? Your books used to be in there. And if you wanted to read something that was at the bottom of the pile, you had to scream for help, then cry and then knock all your books on the floor.



Meanwhile, Ella found her hands. And likes to eat them. Here she is at the doctor. Oh yeah, in the middle of our move, Ella had to go to the doctor for eczema. She is fine.


And here you guys are, sharing a swing at our new park.

A house!

We have finally moved in our new house and the verdict: you LOVE your room. You don't even care about the backyard or the super special playroom. You just want to sit in your room and read.

Since we're still unpacking boxes, there won't be too much time to write a lot. Though there are short updates on Hall life here.