Surprise!

I couldn't say anything about this earlier, and it's been killing me having to keep a secret for so long. A couple of weeks ago my future BIL called me and asked if Ella and I would like to come down to Florida to surprise my sister for her birthday this past Saturday. A free visit to Florida? Sign me up, please!

Ella was- how should I phrase this? a holy terror on the flight down. She didn't do anything bad per se- she was simply energetic and wanted to make good friends with the people around us. Naturally, the best way to endear everyone to us was to try climbing up the tray table, banging on the window, and doing her impression of a Tarzan yell. Of course, as soon as we landed in Atlanta she fell sound asleep, only to wake up as soon as we were boarding the next flight.

Fascinated by the seat belt. This very quickly turned into her waving it about. 

Passed out during our layover. I wish I got to sleep like that! 

However, my sister was so thrilled to see us that it made the miserable flight bearable. She walked in, said "Hi" very calmly, then it dawned on her that I wasn't really supposed to be there. Once that realization hit she ran out of the room screaming.

Although it was a quick visit, we managed to pack a lot of things in. We ordered her wedding dress, and I think I have made my final decision on my maid of honor dress (that is, as long as she doesn't take me out shopping again and I find something else I like better). On Saturday my parents and I drove out to Tallahassee for the FSU-Clemson game. I had thought that we would end up having to leave early, but Ella fell asleep almost immediately so I figured as long as she was content, I would stay. She ended up sleeping through almost the entire game. How she managed to do that with over 80,000 people cheering is beyond me. 

At the FSU-Clemson game. Ella rocked her noise-protection headphones.

The rest of the trip went by in a blur, and before I knew it, we were heading back to the airport. Ella did so much better on the return trip, which was amazing considering that she had not one, but two teeth pop through. Now we are back to the regularly scheduled program, and I have to figure out how in the world to top this birthday present next year.

I've been a bad blogger

I can't believe it's been almost two months since I've had a chance to sit down and type something up. So quickly, before the mayhem machine shrieks or finds some new mischief, here is a quick list of what has gone on in our lives since the beginning of August.

• We took an insane, three-week long road trip, traveling through 18 states (twice in Indiana, Georgia, and New York), and logging almost 4000 miles on my car. Ella and I spent a week in Florida and two weeks on Cape Cod. Jim flew down to Florida to meet us, spent a week on the Cape, then had to go to a conference in Philly. 
• Ella has learned to crawl; cruises around like crazy; walks holding onto our hands; stands up on her own for short periods of time; says hi, mama, dada, dog, and up; waves hi/bye; eats "grown-up" foods; tries to climb on everything; and is full of trouble. I spend my days chasing after her, learning about new things in our house that have to be baby-proofed, finding Cheerios everywhere, and cleaning up bits of paper that she loves to tear up. We go to bed exhausted, but this is my favorite stage so far. She has such a fun little personality. 
• Jim got a chance to get back to brewing. He and one of our friends made a pumpkin beer for the fall. Once it's ready, we're going to have a fall party. 

Gah, I'm trying to think of more things that we've done. In fact, I'm sure that we have done something more. We must have done something more, right? I'm blaming the baby for this lapse of memory. To distract you from my poor blogging skills, here are some photos.  

Sound asleep in the car

Right after she learned to crawl. She was very proud of herself. 

At Justin and Lucie's wedding reception in Florida

Loving her float on Cape Cod

Not loving her life vest

Finally somewhat happy on the boat

Jim and I managed to get out for a date night at the Popponesset Inn

At the Cape Cod Children's Museum. Ella showing her disapproval of sharing with the other kids. 

Showing off how she eats like a big girl

Playing foosball with Nana and Grampa Jim

With her Nana and Grampa at the beach

She loved, loved, loved spending time with Nana

Swimming with Nana

Wearing Nana's hat

Showing off how we "nap" at the beach

Posing for a picture

Swimming with Daddy

Hanging out

Her super-secret, babies only clubhouse

Labor Day weekend at the Splash Park

Fascinated by the water

Extremely suspicious of spaghetti

Pulling clothes out of my dresser

And her face when she realizes she's been caught in action

Crawling around

Cruising around the house

The joys of moving

Or rather, not.

The last two months of my life have been taken up with moving- finding a new place, packing up everything, physically moving, cleaning the old place, and now, finally, unpacking. As if doing all of that was not enough on its own, Ella has been teething like crazy and has entered the stage of separation anxiety. Fun times.

Thankfully we have some awesome friends who came and helped us out, and amazingly everything was out of the old place and moved into the new by 11:15am. We still can't locate most things and the place is a wreck, but it's a relief not to have the worry hanging over my head.

While I'm glad that we now have a fenced-in yard for the dogs, more space for the three of us, and are paying less rent to boot, it was bittersweet leaving our old place. That was the place where we learned we were becoming a family of three, where we took Ella home to from the hospital, where she grew from a tiny helpless newborn to a big girl who cruises around furniture, waves hi, and tries to talk.

And if I'm being completely honest, part of the reason why I'm having such a hard time with moving is because I had hopes that when we moved out of the townhouse, it would be because Jim had found a permanent position and we were moving to our forever home. I know he is just as frustrated with the job market and still being a postdoc as I am, and it certainly is not for lack of trying (right now it is 9:30pm and he is still sitting there working on job applications).

Thinking on the positive side, we are fortunate that he has a job, and that it is one that allows me to stay at home with Ella. He still has over a year left on his contract, and his research supervisor has never had a postdoc finish up their contract without finding a permanent position. As for the house situation, as one of my friends told me, even though it's not perfect, I will find ways to make it my own, and eventually it will feel like home.

Toys, toys, and more toys

On a good day, my house looks like Babies R Us took a truck full of toys and dumped it in my house. On a bad day, it looks like a tornado hit the house and threw the toys everywhere. I really have no idea how one 16-lb, partially mobile baby makes such a mess of everything.

So naturally this morning, what do I head out to do? Buy her more toys.

This photos is a few months old (she's around 3.5 months here) but these are only a small sample of her toys.

Apparently Target has a semi-annual toy clearance, and I thought it would be a good idea to try and get her a few things to set aside for later, like blocks, stacking rings, and puzzles. Most of her current toys are stuffed animals and even though we rotate them out constantly, I can tell she gets bored playing with them. Her favorite thing right now is a little workbench that she can push down on different shapes, pull levers, and spin things, so I wanted to find her some toys that she can stack, build, and of course, knock over.

The toy sale was a bit of a let down. Most of the toys that were on clearance were for much older kids (5+) and were things that I would not buy even if they were age-appropriate. I don't care for much of the character-based toys, as I strongly feel that they send the wrong messages of commercialism and gender-stereotypes to kids. I also prefer for her to play with toys that she can explore in various ways and be creative with, rather than toys that only have one specific function.

I did end up finding a set of wooden block on sale for $4, which I guess made it worth the trip. For now they will most likely end up being chewed on and thrown about. But play is all about being creative and exploring, so as long as she has fun, I'm happy.   

Elimination Communication

Since a lot of people ask me about elimination communication, I thought I would write up something about our experiences with it. I am by far not an expert on it, so this is entirely my thoughts and opinions. If you want to get technical about it, we are a part-time EC family. 

I can’t express to people how much I love cloth diapering. The environmental factors, the savings over disposables, the fact that my daughter has not had a single blow-out in one, and, of course, the cuteness factor (okay, a lot of it is the cuteness factor)- there are simply a million and one reasons why my husband and I prefer them over disposables. However, there is one part that I’m not so fond of, and I think most cloth-diapering parents would agree: dealing with poop.

When Ella was about a month and a half old, I happened to mention my dislike of cleaning poopy diapers to my grandmother, who, at that point, was the only person I knew in real life who had cloth diapered. She mentioned an intriguing solution. “Why don’t you just hold her over the toilet when she needs to go?”

What?! This was perhaps one of the craziest-sounding pieces of parenting advice I had heard to date. Did she seriously expect that my little baby, whose vocabulary at that point consisted of a few coos and screeches, would be able to let me know when she needed to go? 

But the idea had wormed itself into my head. Over the next few weeks, I did some research into elimination communication, or EC (this website has a ton of great information for those first starting). I began to pay attention to what was going on right before she went. Turns out, she was sending me a ton of clear signals that she needed to poop: she would be gassy, her face would get red, and she would start grunting.

Ella was about 2 months old before I felt brave enough to try and get her to go on the toilet. I had no idea how I was going to be able to grab her, undress her, unsnap the diaper, and seat her on the toilet without it being a huge disaster. I had visions of her leaving a trail of that liquidy breast-fed baby poop all over my house, or it getting all over my bathroom walls.

Turns out, it went so much easier than I had thought. She started grunting, and I had plenty of time to seat her on the toilet before she went. Now that she’s older, she stops even trying to go the second I pick her up, because she knows that she is on her way to the toilet. When she was around 4 months old, we began to incorporate the baby sign for “toilet” into our routine. She'll occasionally sign that she needs to go, but this has backfired on us a bit because sometimes she simply wants to go in the bathroom and play around with the toilet paper.   

There are still times when she ends up going in her diaper. But I would say that our success rate is fairly high. We are starting to work on getting her to pee in the toilet, but I find that a little harder to figure out. We have learned that she tends to pee within 5-10 minutes of waking up, and within ten minutes of nursing. On a good day, she will pee in the toilet up to five times. I think that for a baby that's only 7 months old, that's pretty accomplished. 

Besides not having to clean poopy diapers, I think the best part is the sense of accomplishment Ella feels from going in the toilet. We are always sure to praise her whenever she goes, and she gets a huge smile on her face like she knows she’s done something great. Now that she’s older and has discovered her voice, she has a blast hearing her giggles and shrieks echo off the tile in the bathroom. It’s a win-win situation for our family: she thinks it’s a big game, and I don’t have to clean messy diapers.   

Here she is on her potty, at about 5 months old

Some FAQs:

What do you do while you’re out/ traveling? It depends. Honestly, some public restrooms are so skeezy that I’d rather deal with a messy diaper. And sometimes it’s simply impractical. If we are using a public restroom, I line the seat and then hold her over rather than seating her on the toilet. If we are staying at a hotel or visiting friends or family, our routine is the same as at home.

What supplies do you need? There is absolutely nothing that you have to buy to get started. Now that she can almost sit up on her own, we purchased a child size potty for her to use.  

Is it something you do habitually and that your baby is used to? Yes. When we first started out, any time we placed her on the toilet, she would get a confused look on her face. Now it has become something that is part of our routine, as much as anything else we do together, and she finds it more natural to go on the toilet instead of in her diaper.  

Does she get upset when she goes in her diaper? She does get upset, but I think it’s more because she’s uncomfortable. I think about it this way- I wouldn’t be too terribly thrilled to be sitting in a dirty diaper either.

How does it work with other people, like your husband or a sitter? Because I am a stay-at-home-mom and am around her pretty much 24/7, I am much more in-tune to her signals than other people who watch her. Jim is starting to get better at picking up cues, and knows what to look for, although he sometimes still needs pointers. That’s not to say that you have to be a stay-at-home-parent in order to practice EC- you can choose to do it as little or as often as what works for your family.

In theory anyone who watches her could practice EC. However, we have found that unfortunately it seems strange and more than a little crazy to most people we tell about it, so on the occasions where we’ve had a sitter, she is entirely in diapers.

How long do you hold your baby over the toilet? Usually she gets right down to business. If it’s more than 5 minutes and she hasn’t done anything or it seems like she’s getting frustrated, I stop. I want it to be a positive, stress-free experience for both of us, and I don’t want her to have negative associations with the toilet.

What are the benefits to EC? There are many benefits to doing EC. The most immediate benefit to us as a family is that it reduces the number of diapers that we use in a given day, which means less water and detergent used.

From what I have heard, practicing EC from early on can lead to children who are toilet trained at a much earlier age, because they are already used to using the toilet and communicating to their parents or caregivers when they have to use the toilet. I am already dreaming of that magical day when I don't have to change another diaper. 

In my opinion, EC also helps reinforce the bond between baby and parent, because she can trust that I am paying attention to what she is telling me. Traditional diapering places the burden entirely on the parent, while EC creates a dialogue between parent and child.

Furthermore, EC turns bathroom time into fun time in my house. A diaper change is so prosaic- yet another chore that must be done. When she is in the bathroom, we have fun together by hearing our voices echo, making silly faces in the mirror, and singing songs. While fewer dirty diapers are a big benefit to practicing EC, seeing her smile and laugh truly is the best part.   

Wife. Mom. Nerd.

Yes, that sums me up pretty accurately. This is my pitiful attempt at keeping a record of my crazy life as a crunchy, stay-at-home-mom. My husband is a chemist and before having Ella I was an archaeologist, so we are an extremely nerdy family. We have seen every episode of the original series of Star Trek. We re-watched Star Wars in the machete order (more about that here). We apply Jim's knowledge of chemistry to making our own beer. Dinner conversation usually centers on crystal growth. Our lives are hectic and we have predestined our daughter to be a nerd, but I wouldn't have it any other way.