Monday, October 31, 2005

A worse pic of Mom 'n' Swee'pea

This is really blurry because I took it without the flash. I wanted to get the spider from the pumpkin. Posted by Picasa

Why I don't really like cats

This photo is completely un-retouched. He just looks that way!

Well, no, not really, I did a lot to it. But those weird flashes in the eyes were there. Otherwise, such a trustworthy face. Posted by Picasa

Nickname update

I've been using a lot of "Ellie Bean" and "Ellie Belly." "Ellie May" seems to creep in, too.

I like Ellie more than Elly or Elli or Ellee...but I could go a bit different and spell it "Elie." "Elizabeth" has only one "l" in it. But it might look like is should sound like "Eli." Or I could never ever write it down and then it doesn't matter how it's spelled. But then I'd have to stop blogging, or type "Elizabeth" every time. Hmmm.

(- Do all philosophers start with an "S"?

-- Yeah, I think most of them do.

- Nietzsche doesn't start with an "S".

-- Ah, but there's an "S" in Nietzsche.

- Oh yeah, so there is.

-- Waiter, this conversation isn't very good.)

A better pic of Mom 'n' Swee'pea

You can see Tina & Ellie better here, plus I think you can see the spider's legs on the pumpkin.

Ellie looks really really interested in...well, something. She's kind of looking over my left shoulder... Posted by Picasa

More same-night photos

Here's me holding a pea pod with a face.

By the way, my head's not quite as misshapen as it appears...there's a shadow from the flash on the wall behind me. Posted by Picasa

Weird things afoot...well, amouth

Ellie's been drooling a lot and seems to be chewing on things (nipples, pacifier) in addition to sucking. Those are early signs of teething. Not that we think we have an early-developmental freak or anything, but we're hoping she doesn't teethe quite yet.
Here's a de-saturated close-up. I kinda like how the pacifier stayed pretty colored-in, but the rest of the picture got washed out. Posted by Picasa

Here's the pea pod

Sorry it's a little blurry...I took the picture without flash so I didn't blind her. Posted by Picasa

Eat, sleep & poo (part XVIII)

Tina's quite convinced the Similac is preventing normal intestinal traffic flow. We had to assist the process yesterday. I'll say no more.

Tina, by the way, is a great mom. Mayhap the world's best.

Sunday, October 30, 2005

Behold the power of Picasa

Here's a photo collage of Tina & Ellie. Yes, they sleep a lot. Yes, I take a lot of pics of them sleeping.

Yes, I prattle on about Picasa. Posted by Picasa

Sorry not much action

I've been dealing with an annoying head cold. And, as Tina likes to point out, I'm whiny when I'm sick. Apparently I'm the "worst ill person."

Not much argument here.

Tuesday, October 25, 2005

My two favoite girls

 Posted by Picasa

Yawn

If I didn't have a dissertation to do, I'd never get this many pictures up.

I'm sure my advisor would love to read that, eh? Posted by Picasa

Nice pic

The stripes on Ellie's head kinda make her look like she's a Michigan Wolverines fan. But I like this picture anyway. Posted by Picasa

Monday, October 24, 2005

Ellie's still a big girl

By our measurements, she's 12 pounds and 23.5 inches. According to the What to Expect book, that's in the 95th percentile.

She's pretty much grown out of the "0-3 months" clothes. At seven weeks. She is, in Tina's words, a giantess.

A milestone, I guess

Ellie rolled over yesterday. Tina put her on her belly, and then *flop* she was on her back. I didn't actually see it, but I heard Tina whooping about it. She only did it once and it's not clear she even meant to do it, but she did it.

Saturday, October 22, 2005

My ma and my daughter

I really hope all these people don't mind having their pictures on the internet with my daughter. If you mind, please let me know and I'll laugh...I mean, take it down. Posted by Picasa

More Cleveland pics

I should be honest; these pics are really from Bedford, not Cleveland proper. Oh well.

Here's my Aunt Connie with Ellie. Posted by Picasa

FYI

Here's the un-Picasa-ed picture. Not the same.

I could get into photography. Posted by Picasa

More Picasa magic

Here's Ellie being held by her second cousin Sophia.

Picasa fixes: straighten, crop, a little oversaturation, soft focus, enhanced warm tones and graduated tint to darken the top. Pretty cool for free. Posted by Picasa

Artsy

Here's an artsy bluish one...from our trip to Cleveland. Posted by Picasa
Here are my maternal grandparents with Ellie (this was from our trip to Cleveland). Posted by Picasa

MoreCinti pics

Here are Ellie's cousins:

Samantha's holding Ellie, Nicholas in the middle, and Emily wanting to get off the couch. Posted by Picasa
And here's Aunt Sherry with Ellie. Posted by Picasa

PIcs from Cinti

Here's Tina's Uncle Jerry with Ellie. Oops, I guess I made this one too small. Sorry, Jerry. Posted by Picasa

Eat, sleep and poo (part IV)

We've gone back to Similac. Ellie never really ate the Enfamil with all that much gusto. She'd eat a little, fall asleep, play with it, etc. She didn't get over the constipation, either. (Although that might have had something to do with traveling.)

She has gotten off her nice sleeping schedule. I think that's a result of traveling too. (Notice that I'm blaming all her issues -- well, our issues with her -- on traveling. I'm just tired of that...wait, I already whined in the last post. Sorry.)

For a while it was eat a lot at midnight, sleep until 4, eat some more, sleep until 7, eat some more, and then nap & snack all day. Lately it's been be awake for 36 hours straight, eat a little, spit it up, be awake some more, eat a little more, sleep during Tina's 3rd baby shower, be awake at night...etc. etc. etc.

Swapping formulas back and forth didn't help, I'm sure. And part of it is just her going through stages, I guess. But it's a bit frustrating, because Tina's not getting regular sleep and I'm powerless to understand what Ellie wants now or what I absolutely shouldn't do at this very moment or whatever.

Latest updates

We went to Cincinnati last week. That was a good trip, although I'm getting a little tired of the traveling-circus routine, what with the dog and the baby and all their related paraphernalia. I'm going to start demanding that people come see us for a change. If I didn't have a dissertation hanging over my head like Damocles' sword, I'd probably enjoy it more.

Some pictures of the trip should be up here shortly.

Sunday, October 09, 2005

New formulee

Ellie's been getting Enfamil LIPIL rather than Similac lately. No real big reason for the change; it was a try-it-and-see sort of thing. Plus, Enfamil LIPIL has twice the DHA as Similac. (Oh yeah, I think I said that in a different post.)

She took a little bit to get used to it, as expected. We've found Enfamil to mix more easily than does Similac; the Enfamil's a drier, finer powder and dissolves more quickly. Plus, it doesn't foam up as much when you shake it and its foam goes away. That's nice, because it makes it a lot easier to see how much formula she's eaten when it's sort of dark and the stupid graduations on the bottles aren't all that obvious -- at least with Enfamil, we don't have to figure out where the foam stops and the formula starts.

Plus, she seems a little less constipated. How nice for her...her bowel habits are posted on the Web for the world to read. I'll keep doing that for the next 18 years or so, just to keep the boys away. (I'll need to do something - she'll be gorgeous.)

Tuesday, October 04, 2005

Further proof God is good


The fact that Ellie looks nothing like me as a baby probably means she'll look nothing like me when she's 9 1/2 years old.

Unfortunately, this picture is not airbrushed or distorted in any way.

I note with ironic glee that my nostrils were asymmetrical back then. Which means the fact that my nose is so crooked now isn't entirely the result of a collision with the steering wheel of my '86 Buick. Partly, to be sure. But I wasn't made with a straight nose.

Nobody but me cares about how straight my nostrils are, I gay-ron-tee.

Me as a baby


Here's further evidence that Ellie will look like Tina. She looks nothing like me as a baby.

Well, a tiny bit. But nothing like as much as she looks like Tina as a baby (scroll down for that).

Well, we DID remember the baby

We took our first trip with the little one. Halfway between Jackson, MI and Walton Hills, OH, in Toledo, we noticed that we'd forgotten the diaper bag. It was packed full, and sitting on the living room floor.

Bright.

Fortunately, everything in there was replaceable. But it was a bit of an inauspicious start.

Saturday, October 01, 2005

Ellie's eating habits

Ellie's been eating a lot between 10 PM and midnight. Last night, though, she didn't really do that. And she slept for about 5 or 6 hours after she fed. So maybe she's working towards sleeping through the night. That would be nice for Tina, who does most of the middle-of-the-night feedings.

We've gotten plenty of coupons for Enfamil, a competitor to Similac in the formula racket. We're going to try her on that. It has twice the DHA as Similac, whatever good that does.

Ellie's still doing well with the Nuk nipples. She doesn't have to burp very much after using them, which is probably nicer for her but we don't get big huge funny burps out of her like we used to. There are tradeoffs for everything, I guess. Also, the Nuk nipples seem to help her keep all the formula in her mouth - she's not spilling as much out the sides as she was before. Which helps her eat more of what we make, which helps us monitor her feeding and save a little formula. Overall, we'd rate the Nuks as pretty dang good.