Cerin Amroth

Ella has a bit of a cold; all the sniffling woke her up late last night and it took more than an hour to settle her down and get her back to sleep. Today we’re apartment-bound as a result, unable to take our usual afternoon stroll. And it’s _tough_: last night was stressful, I’ve been tired all day, and I’m going stir crazy stuck at home now. The thing is, we went through all of this three months ago: she wasn’t sleeping through the night yet, and she was sick for a couple of weeks. So why is it so hard now? I don’t remember it being all that bad then. The question of the day: is it a case of rose-tinted memories, or an object lesson in how quickly we grow soft?

Nana and Papa Bruinooge visited for the weekend, and the camera, which had seen relatively light use recently, got another workout. Here are some Ellacentric highlights.

“100″:http://www.polytropos.org/mt-static/ella/ella100.jpg — First, let me pause and thank everyone for bearing with all these pictures. I don’t know what’s scarier: the fact that there are now over a hundred of them on this site, or the fact that that’s only a fraction of what we have taken. Anyway, as picture #100 makes clear, the long tummytime nightmare is over. Ella now enjoys the occasional repose on her stomach, now that she can actually see things.
“101″:http://www.polytropos.org/mt-static/ella/ella101.jpg — This was taken while preparing Ella for her first ever experience with solid foods — though rice cereal wouldn’t be considered “solid” by any conventional defintion. And having mixed the stuff up, “food” seems pretty questionable as well. Ella would have preferred eating off-camera — that’s why in this picture she’s giving the photographer the finger.
“102″:http://www.polytropos.org/mt-static/ella/ella102.jpg — The very act itself. Like every new experience with her, we approached it with a certain amount of worry, but her reaction was: “Something new. Huh. OK. I guess I’ll play along.”
“103″:http://www.polytropos.org/mt-static/ella/ella103.jpg — Ella and Nana.
“104″:http://www.polytropos.org/mt-static/ella/ella104.jpg — Ella with Nana and Papa. I promise my dad doesn’t always look like that.
“105″:http://www.polytropos.org/mt-static/ella/ella105.jpg — Papa, with DJ E-WILLOW IN DA HOOOOOOUSE!!! To get her to look that way we told her we were shooting for the album cover.
“106″:http://www.polytropos.org/mt-static/ella/ella106.jpg — Today was the first really hot day of the year, and consequently the first day Ella was out and about in bare feet. She liked it. Note the fat-rolls around her legs, and note also her early affinity with backgammon.
“107″:http://www.polytropos.org/mt-static/ella/ella107.jpg — Slipping into delicious oblivion in Mama’s arms. It was a long day.

I should say first of all that it’s possible I’m just paranoid.

Ella hates being interrupted when she’s having a bottle. The problem is that if she sucks down six ounces all in one steady flow, which she’s happy to do, she’ll be spitting up off and on for the next hour. So, despite her complaints, I always take a break to burp her halfway through.

She has definitely caught on to the fact that, during those halftime breaks, once she lets out a decent burp she gets to keep eating. “OK, that’s done. Happy now? Bring the food!” That’s what her eyes are saying, anyway.

Here’s the thing. Lately, she’s been very good at burping surprisingly quickly. They’re not always particularly loud, body-resounding burps — in fact, they sound don’t sound real at all. Could it be that she’s letting out fake burps so that she can get back to her bottle faster? No, it couldn’t be. I’m just being paranoid . . .

I was sitting in the backseat next to Ella on the car ride home this morning. She was acting a little tired, so I reached over to rub the top of her hand with my finger. She immediately flipped her hand around to grasp my finger firmly in her little palm.

As if that wasn’t enough to melt my heart, she spit out her skeksis, which she has been sucking on very actively, in order to give me a hugh smile. It seems like most of the time the world revolves around her, but then she does something like that and makes you feel like the world revolves around you in her eyes.

She has proven herself to be the most incredible baby this weekend. On Friday, Nate and she picked me up from work, and we went to dinner in Old Town. She was very alert and engaging as we drank our beers and ate our appetizers. She took turns sitting on our laps, but just before our entrees arrived, she went to sleep in her carseat and remained asleep while we ate. Yesterday, she sat in her carseat in shopping carts in Target and the grocery store for 2 hours and didn’t complain once. Of course, since she was so good in Target and it was such a nice day, I fed her on the grass outside before taking her in the grocery store. And this morning she slept through the entire Easter service, even though it was quite noisy. We have certainly been blessed with a wonderful baby. … If you’re reading this in your pre-teen years, Ella, this doesn’t give you license to be a terrifying adolescent!

It’s not often that one week gives you a whole new perspective on the world. Having spent my first week staying home with Ella, Monday to Friday, morning to evening, I’ll never look at other stay-at-home parents the same way again. This job is _hard_. Not in the same way as other jobs, of course: the drain isn’t mental, and is only occasionally physical. My friend Geoff described it as an “emotional” drain, which is closer to the truth. A day with Ella is an incredible joy, because she’s just a bundle of fun, but she’s a _demanding_ bundle of fun, and the lion’s share of the hours are given over to addressing her needs and whims. The other little snippets of time that happen when she’s napping (brief) or occupying herself without a desire for personal attention (briefer) — some days I look back and realize I didn’t shower, or have lunch, because I literally never got the chance.

File these thoughts under “Stuff That’s Painfully Obvious to Parents Everywhere,” a subset of the “No Shit, Sherlock!” folder. In a perfect world, “Stay-At-Home Parent” on a resume would make a prospective employer’s eyes light up with delight: “If this person can do _that_, she can do _anything_!” In a perfect world, unemployed single moms on welfare trying to raise their kids wouldn’t be told that they’re “not working” and need to get a job. I’ve said something like this “before”:http://www.polytropos.org/archives/000189.html, but my hat goes off to all my fellow full-timers — and for single parents, and those with twins, I can offer only awe and undying respect.

Living with an infant is sometimes like watching the movie Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead. Like the two characters, Ella is constantly discovering new things about the world around her. I was just in the kitchen making a snack and heard quite a racket, so I stepped into the living room where Ella is laying on the playmat. She was screaming and gurgling with excitement because she had a dangling toy in EACH hand. Perhaps this is the first time she discovered that she can operate her hands independently to grab two toys at once.

Of course, 15 minutes later she is doing this like a pro – as if she never had to learn this, but could do it all along. She’s off to discover the next wonderful thing about the world.

She’s a handful, that’s for sure. Lately her fond feelings for her Vibrating Bouncy Chair have fallen away. Now that she can kick and squirm — can she _ever_ — she’ll put up a fuss every time you try to put her in it, though with a bit of attention, or her skeksis, she’ll usually subside. She’s starting to work on grabbing things, which means she likes her play-mat-thingee quite a bit. Mostly, though, she still wants to be held facing out and shown the world — that’s the one thing she never seems to tire of. It’s nice having something you know you can always fall back on if she’s fussy, but the arms _do_ tire. She likes people, though as objects of her affection go, ceilings are a very close second.

Smiles and laughs are now common, and she’s had maybe half a dozen full-on giggle fits, brought on by seemingly random events, including our friend Jen saying “oop” to her, and me singing “Hello Again” by The Cars. She still reserves most of her outbursts, both happy and sad, for the safety of home. Out of the house she’s mostly quiet and observant.

Seems like a couple days ago she was enjoying being held in a sitting-up position, but that no longer holds much interest. Now she wants to go right to being held upright and pushing unsteadily with her legs, especially insofar as standing is an intermediate step on the way to “Ella’s Flyin’!” She gets a big kick out of that, though one must take care to properly time the maneuver in relation to her most recent feeding.

Speaking of which, she still sucks down bottles like she’s trying set a record, and breastfeeds languorously. We tested her on formula and she liked it just fine; now she has a bottle of it a day. Rice cereal is right aroung the corner. She sleeps from 9:30 to 7:30, with four short naps during the day. (I’m in the process of trying to coax that into two longer naps. Tips are welcome.)

I have long assumed that, since Suanna and I are both cat people, the impish hand of fate would make Ella a dog person. However, it appears that she’s going to be a cat person too. “Here’s the proof”:http://www.polytropos.org/mt-static/ella/ella99.jpg.