Cerin Amroth

“76″:http://www.polytropos.org/mt-static/ella/ella76.jpg & “77″:http://www.polytropos.org/mt-static/ella/ella77.jpg — Last Friday was the first day that it was warm enough to take Ella out for a walk without having to completely bundle her up. We headed out to Great Falls, Virginia to stroll around and watch the water. Ella slept through most of it, but perked up a bit toward the end.

“78″:http://www.polytropos.org/mt-static/ella/ella78.jpg — At her very first Room 19 Hootenanny, Ella was introduced to Jack. They got along swimmingly, if by “swimmingly” you mean that they pretty much ignored each other. Ella still finds light bulbs and random spots on the ceiling the most fascinating things in the universe, followed not too closely by people’s faces.

“79″:http://www.polytropos.org/mt-static/ella/ella79.jpg — The first and only toy Ella has thus far shown any real interest in is a firefly named Frank. Frank’s wings make crackly noises when you squeeze them. Frank does not fit in Ella’s mouth, though not for lack of trying. In this picture she’s holding Frank while engaging in one of her favorite activities: staring and staring at the hood to the Vibrating Bouncy Chair. I still don’t understand.

“80″:http://www.polytropos.org/mt-static/ella/ella80.jpg — Ella has upgraded from the inflatable-mattress-thingee to the plastic-tub-thingee at bathtime. In this shot she’s on the verge of expressing impatience that we’re snapping pictures instead of drying her off.

Ella still doesn’t have near enough hair to get a decent bearing on what color it is, or will be. How light or dark it appears depends on the lighting, the humidity, and/or her skin tone. That being said, every once in a while I’ve been noticing what seems to be an auburn tinge to her wispy locks. (It wouldn’t be unreasonable for Ella to be a redhead — she’d just be following in the footsteps of her Aunt Sarah and Great-Grandpa Red.)

Every time this has happened I’ve chalked it up to wishful thinking and scolded myself. But lately the redhead notion has been getting some external confirmation. Our friend Julia is certain that Ella’s hair is red. Suanna says she sees it in the eyebrows. We may all be deceiving ourselves, and only time will tell, but in the meantime it’s fun to guess.

And the eyes? Still blue. Early theories that Ella would be a brown-eyed girl like her mother are less likely to be true, but we’re still a long way from the age when eye color tends to stabilize.

Today was the day of reckoning for Ella. She recovered enough to get the shots she skirted 2 weeks ago. The protocol at our pediatrician’s office is that the nurses give the shots. I suspect this is normal because it’s not something that requires MD skills. It also likely allows doctors to remain the people who poke and prod, but do not stick.

Ella received 4 shots – 2 in each thigh. I held her arms down during the procedure. She was caught completely off guard and immediately went into mouth open, tongue retracted, head all red, silent cry. It’s the silent ones that are the worst. She cannot even breath because she is crying so hard. Fortunately, the nurse was very quick about it, allowing us to cradle Ella in our arms almost immediately. She moved from silent cry to whimper after a couple of minutes, so we were able to take her out of the office without loud wails – which I am sure was appreciated by the other parents in the waiting room.

She immediately fell asleep in the car. We gave her some baby pain reliever as soon as we got home, and she has been fairly sleepy since then.

All in all, the process went much better than I imagined. Nate confessed that he was caught off guard by the size of the needles. I admit that I didn’t look a bit. Fortunately, she’s probably still at the age where she will not remember this next time we take her to the doctors’ office. While we were in the waiting room, I heard a small boy insisting to his mother that his appointment was going to involve pain. She couldn’t convince him otherwise. It’s that situation that I am really dreading. I have never minded shots that much, but she could inherit her father’s fear of the needle.

. . . and counting since Ella’s last, shall we say, _substantial_ diaper. When the time comes, it’s going to be a doozy. The Big Moment has been on her mind all day, but she’s never been able to produce more than a fart-barrage before plum tuckerin’ herself out. All that work, and she can’t even read magazines on the john. The life of a baby is hard.

UPDATE: About seventy-four hours in, Ella finally let loose. It wasn’t record-setting or anything, but nevertheless impressive. I wonder if this is going to be her pattern from now on…

There haven’t been many Ella pictures depicting new milestones or exotic locales, so I hadn’t been planning to post new ones for a while. This course of action (or non-action) provoked a bit of grandparental revolt, though. Hence, more pictures.

“71″:http://www.polytropos.org/mt-static/ella/ella71.jpg — Ella’s attitude toward baths has shifted from ‘indifferent’ to ‘ambivalent’ to ‘peachy-keen.’
“72″:http://www.polytropos.org/mt-static/ella/ella72.jpg — Ella finds the Internet way more fascinating than I do. She’s young.
“73″:http://www.polytropos.org/mt-static/ella/ella73.jpg — She continues to dislike tummy-time, but just a little bit less so now that a strange new person has been joining her on the floor.
“74″:http://www.polytropos.org/mt-static/ella/ella74.jpg — Showin’ a bit of skin. Certain bits have been smudged out in order to prevent a mass exodus of Cerin Amroth readers.
“75″:http://www.polytropos.org/mt-static/ella/ella75.jpg — The hand-wringing has become a regular occurence. “The same thing we do _every_ night, Pinky . . .”

Nate and I are at Common Grounds right now. We’re taking advantage of the fact that Ella is feeling better and getting out of the apartment as a family. Ella will definitely grow up thinking of this place as her second home – as we do.

We’re sitting at a table, and Ella is in her carseat on top of a chair. Nate is sitting next to her working on a crossword puzzle. I steal a glance at her, and she has a huge smile on her face and is looking at Daddy – clearly trying to get his attention. She doesn’t make any noise or cry, just waits with a huge grin until he looks at her next.

Then she starts to get more demanding, letting him know that she’d really like to take a tour of the place. He walks around for several minutes and then tries to sit down with her in the crook of his knee. She is unsatisfied – the tour must continue. Again, she’s not protesting too loudly, just using her cuteness to urge him on.

She finally lets him sit down again, but she must be facing out so she can see the rest of the place. She certainly loves looking around. Sometimes it’s out the window, sometimes it’s at peoples’ faces, and sometimes it’s just off into space. She’s developing into quite the socialite …. I think we know where she gets that from.

I forgot to mention an additional aspect of Ella’s growing mouthiness (thank goodness this is not yet in the angsty adolescent sense). She is constantly sticking her tongue in and out like a lizard. Not quite that quick or far out, mind you, but in the sense that she seems to be using her tongue to discover the world. She takes the world in like a dog lapping water out of a bowl.

Alert readers may have noted in Suanna’s last entry that our word for Ella’s pacifier is “skeksis.” (Suanna actually misspelled it at first, but that’s now fixed.) Why “skeksis,” you ask?

Bonus points to anyone who realizes that it’s a “Dark Crystal”:http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Academy/3108/darkcrystal.html reference. In that film the Skeksis are the decadent, vaguely birdlike villains; by far the most interesting of them is the Chamberlain, who makes this unforgettable “hmmm” sound. I can’t find it online, but I’ve seen it described as a “whinging mmmMMMMmmmmm.” It’s part deviousness, part curiosity, part delight.

Anyway. Ella does not make that exact sound, per se. But when she wants to suck on something and she knows that her pacifier is coming, she gets an expression on her face that clearly indicates that she _would_ make that sound if she could. Additionally, we knew we wanted to come up with our own pacifier-nickname, since there are already dozens of euphemisms out there, none of which we were particularly happy with. Hence, skeksis.

Ella is clearly beginning to explore the world through her mouth. If you hold her on your shoulder, she will open her mouth and explore your shirt with her tongue. She doesn’t have enough control over her arms and hands to bring things to her mouth, but that’s sure to come.

We visited friends who have a baby a few weeks older than Ella a few weeks ago. They have her constantly wearing a bib. Without it, they said, her entire outfit would be wet with spittle. … So that’s why everyone gave us those cute little bibs!

The other day, her pacifier (or skeksis) fell out of her mouth. The collar on her outfit caught the skesis, so it was still touching her cheek and neck. She spent a great deal of time sticking her tongue in and out, convinced that she could get the skesis back in if she could only touch it with her tongue.

The other thing she has become fairly expert at is blowing bubbles. She doesn’t do it all the time, but seems to enjoy it when she’s on a kick. Also, if she gets a fair amount of spittle in the back of her mouth (which was happening more when her coughing was at its height), she loves to gurgle.

We’ve had a deuced time trying to catch an unambiguous smile on the camera. At long last, here’s a couple.

“69″:http://www.polytropos.org/mt-static/ella/ella69.jpg — Extreme Smile Close-Up.
“70″:http://www.polytropos.org/mt-static/ella/ella70.jpg — Ella meets her Aunt Kate, and finds her quite engaging.