Ellie's Work Friends

I obviously feel very lucky to have found a job where I can bring Ellie along. Even more so that both homes have friends for Ellie to play with! Here are some pictures of Ellie with her "co-workers."

 In this picture, Ellie is showing Graham how to go about selecting the tastiest leaves for chewing at the park. Graham seems to be taking the lesson quite seriously!

Here is another friend from Graham's home! This is Ramona! Ellie is learning to be gentle with animals and will now even say gentle ("EN ta") while petting Ramona!  

This is Ellie and Jack. We usually arrive to Jack's house before he is awake. When we go up to get him out of his crib, I will put Ellie in with him for a minute so she is safe while I get him dressed. Whenever I do this, Jack toddles over to her, gives her a hug and a kiss, and then turns on the crib toys for her. She is typically grinning ear to ear the entire time. 

Last, but not least, is Jack's dog Mia. Mia loves to play around the babies and is amazingly gentle with them! She also loves to hang out around the table during meals. It didn't take either baby long to figure out that she could quickly get rid of any food they didn't want! 

So needless to say, I couldn't really have it any better! It's so fun to watch them interact and I believe that Jack and Graham could be lifelong friends for Ellie. Time will tell.

Test Blog Using Blogsy on my iPad

I got my new iPad today and have been having fun playing with it all evening. Now I've installed a new app in order to more easily blog from it! So here's a test blog with a test pic just to see how the features work.

Ellie's Potty

Almost every morning, Ellie wakes up with a dry diaper.  Within a few minutes, however, she is soaked right through her pajamas.  I had tried to sit her on a potty that we had been given before she was born, but she is still so little, she just about fell in!  So I recently looked up "little potty" on Amazon to see what was available and I found the perfect potty!  

Ellie's Little Potty

My plan with the potty was to just see if I could avoid that initial morning soak of the day.  I certainly had no intentions on "potty training" my nine month old.  I started on Christmas morning and sat her on the potty in the bathroom while I sat on the "big potty."  As soon as she heard me go, she went!  I was so excited!

The next morning, I did the same thing and she went again!  This has been the case every morning since I've started!  But today I thought I'd try to put her on the potty any time her diaper seemed dry or dryish.  She peed on her potty FOUR TIMES today!

I think that she is already making associations with her potty that allow her to release that muscle.  I'm still not attempting to "train" her, but I do feel like this will possibly eliminate the need to train her at all in the long run.  I'm theorizing that if I put her on the potty often and give her the option to go there, she will eventually choose that over her diaper.  I plan to teach her the sign for potty starting tomorrow and hope that once she learns it, she can tell me if she wants to use her potty.  

Visions of Minivans Dance in Her Head...

I don't know if it has been previously blogged yet, but Harold, my 1998 Ford Escort, died in the beginning of October. It was decent timing, the Durham family I worked for was becoming a Carrboro family that weekend and Scott and I were already talking about how we could start saving for a new van by March.

So we just went with it. Ellie and I have become pros at the Chapel Hill bus system! Time seems to be flying past with the holidays and the mild North Carolina weather has been something to be truly thankful for!

But now I'm missing the time I'm losing without a van. The buses are free and they run often, but they are horribly indirect. Jack's family lives only five minutes away, but it takes an hour to get there and another to get home. Three days a week equals six hours of my life that I could be using doing other things.

Recently, I've started to paint. I would love to have more time to indulge in this past-time! I would also love to get up at 5am on a Saturday, pack up my computer, and sneak out to a coffee shop to do some blogging before Ellie wakes up! Ellie's bedtime is nonexistent because we get home at 7:30 most nights and she misses Scott and he misses her. So they are playing and spending time together when she should probably be getting ready for bed. Or she falls asleep on the way home and wakes up full of energy way too late. I have sort of given up until we have a van.

Anyway, it's just for a short time. I'm sucking it up and looking at the positives. No gas or upkeep to pay for. I've been losing weight with all of the walking. Sitting on a bus is pretty stress free when compared to driving amongst the masses every morning. So in all, I've got nothing to complain about.

But I still can't wait to get that van!

Nonna

Ellie calls Scott Dada. It is very obvious she means him when she says it. When we are at work, she rarely says it unless something reminds her of him or if I ask about him. At home, she will use it all the time. She knows home is where her Dada is.

For a little while, she was calling me Momma, but it went away. Well, she still uses Momma when she is mad at me. If she wants me and I can't come immediately, she screams, "Maaamaaamamamaaa!"

But she has recently started to say Nonna a lot. At first I just thought it was a new sound. However, we have realized that it's Ellie's affectionate name for me! She says it in the sweetest voice! It sounds like Momma, but with n's. I don't know if she's heard people call me Rhiannon and picked up on it, or if she's just made up her own thing for me, but I love it!

Ellie Dancing

Ellie now does this little dance move any time she hears music.  It is the cutest thing I have ever seen!

A Day in the Life of Ellie (Which Also Happened to be Halloween)

Waiting for the 6:45 bus to take us downtown.

On our first bus of the day.

Bus stop #2!  Waiting for the D bus.

This is a view out of the front window of the second bus.

Happy Halloween!  A cute decoration greets us at the door of Jack's house!

Nom Nom!  Is it time for breakfast now?

Morning Nap

This is Mia, one of Ellie's doggie friends!

Play time at Jack's!

All bundled up to play outside!

Jack makes an adorable moose!

A ride home!  Yay!

Playing with Daddy.

Napping with Mommy.

Time for Trick or Treats!

Ellie's first Halloween stash!