Mama thought the chair was gonna tip over!

 

Happy girl

A happy girl in her favorite chair.

Well, her papa's favorite chair. Ellie's favorite chair is probably her mama's lap. 

odd pic, cute story

Ellie likes to stick her finger in the end of the stick eraser and pull it out to hear the little popping sound.

She usually will try 2 or 3 times until she gets the sound, then stops. So it's pretty clear she has an idea in her head about what she wants to do with the thing, and knows how to go about it and when she's accomplished it.

For most people, that's just a cute little thing a baby does. But for someone who's piddling around in graduate school, especially someone studying cognitive psychology (as a minor), that's evidence of a "goal-directed system" with "test, operate, test, exit" processes.

Never ever ever get a PhD. It makes your brain really goofy. 

I knew it

So my monkey came back, with a new tooth peeking through right next to the first one. I just knew that would happen.

Plus, yesterday when they got in, Ellie was really tired and cranky from the car ride, and she kept looking at me and crying. Not happy for papa. A good nap took care of it, but for a while I was as sad as she looked.

Last night, she wouldn't stay asleep until papa put her to bed. So that made up for it...except that it was 2 in the morning and we didn't realize that's what she wanted until mama tried it a few times. (Or maybe Ellie was just tired...but I'm gonna say she wanted me to put her to sleep.)

And so it begins again

Here starts another week without my monkey. Ellie,Tina and Mammaw are headed to Auburn, Alabalamalammy to spend a week with Ellie's aunt Donna. So I get to spend a week without them.

Well, I usually spend a week without Mammaw, because she lives in Cincinnati and I in Michigan. But Ellie and Tina, I'm usually with.

So I probably won't blog anything, there being nothing about the Mastilakbaby to blog.

Milk options

Ellie could get goat's milk after she's off the formulee. It's supposed to be easier to digest. Tina's not thrilled about the idea, mostly because she's never had goat's milk (or goat's anything).

Maybe we can get our own dairy goats someday. Depends on where we live.

Milkula bad

OK, so the milkula experiment was a flop. It turns out Ellie has a sort of cow's-milk intolerance that leaves her sort of...well, solidified, if you catch my drift. As soon as she went on the milkula, she got unhappy. As soon as she went off it, happy again.

Apparently it's not all that uncommon, so we tried a day or two of soy "milk" (I, a fan of dairy in all its forms, hate to sully the good name of milk by associating it with a bean product), but being a bean product, it gave her a bubbly tummy. So that was no good.

So now she's on 75% Isomil soy-based formula (the same formula she's been on for a while) and 25% Nestle Good Start formula, which is cows'-milk based but is supposedly partly broken down for easier digestion.

What we'll do once the formula days are over is a bit up in the air. She probably can't ever really have that much milk if she wants to poop ever again, which she probably doesn't think much about now but is probably a good plan. Soy "milk" is straight-up nasty, but we might have to give it to her with gas-X or something.

By the way, Tina is a sicko. She thinks even the sweet goodness of organic whole milk is sour (compared to her coco-crispy chocolate milk, I guess it is) and actually likes the watery Edensoy yuck. She might push to give it to Ellie...well, I guess Ellie might have to get it, but man! will I be unhappy about that. Real people drink milk.

Waaaay too proud of myself

OK, for most guys this would be no big deal, but we put a new faucet in the kitchen today. The old one was leaking, and in true Mastilak fashion, we just bought a new one.

I come from a family in which (no exaggeration) the last two new car purchases were made because a van needed new tires and a Buick needed a new window motor. So I never really learned how to fix things, just to replace them. Of course, nobody could teach me to do things like replace faucets, which is why I'm so proud of myself.

All of which is more than anyone wants to know. Suffice it to say, we don't work with our hands much in the Mastilak line. Our mouths and our brains, but not our hands.

Feeding the giraffe

Here are Ellie and Tina (bottom right, Ellie's the little yellow hat sticking up) coming face-to-face with a giraffe at the zoo.

They sell "giraffe biscuits" to feed the big ol' beasts. Ellie didn't like getting face-to-mouth with it.

Sorry for the poor quality - it's a screen capture from a video. 

Waitin' for the tram

Here're Ellie & mama waiting for the tram.

And not smoking. 

Llama-llama-bo-bama

Here're Ellie & I watching a llama get fed. He got carrots and some green things I didn't quite recognize.

I'm not good with vegetables yet. 

Tram time

Here's Ellie enjoying a ride on the tram at the Binder Park Zoo in Battle Creek, MI. 

Ellie reading something important

Here's Ellie reading our latest update from World Vision. She's thinking, "What with Mother's Day coming up, it would be a great idea to get Mom something really important this year. I hope all my faithful fans head on over to World Vision's web site to pick out something so Mom can enjoy that motherly feeling of helping some children who really need the help."

Ok, she's probably not thinking all that. But it would be a nice idea, wouldn't it? 

Milkula, or F75

We've been trying Ellie on Milk-ula, which is a blend of 75% formula and 25% milk. She seems to like it better than straight formula, which is really nasty.

I'm also calling it F75 in honor of E85. Fortunately, it's easier to get F75 than E85. But F75 costs a lot more - organic whole milk is about $6 per gallon, and formula is about $14 a gallon. (Forget about diapers; formula is the real expense.) So a 4-oz bottle of milkula is about 38 cents. Four oz of E85, at the latest price I saw around here, is about 6 cents.

Not that anybody really cares about the relative prices of F75 and E85.

Well, it's about time

So I'm sitting in a very important meeting (not really) yesterday when my cell phone rings, and it's Tina. She says what I've been waiting to hear for about four months:

Ellie has a tooth!

It's just a little sharp bump sticking out of her bottom gum, and it's just barely visible if you know it's there, but it's a tooth.

OK, I can put away the infant-denture brochures for now. But this tooth better get some friends soon, or I'll get cranky about it again.