One year ago...

Last July 29th I was handed my 4 pound 11 ounce bundle of sweetness and was actually allowed to leave with her! We drove straight to the airport and got on the next plane to Utah. It was incredibly stressfull, but all I wanted was my baby home. Of couse in retrospect this feeling makes me laugh because little did I know in the comming days how many times I would sit and cry wishing we were back in Tampa!

Speech development

*I HAVE HAD THIS SITTING IN MY DRAFTS FOR ALMOST 2 WEEKSWAITING TO UPLOAD A VIDEO FOR IT. IN THIS AMONT OF TIME THINGS HAVE CHANGED EVEN BEYOND THIS, SO I FIGURED I BETTER POST IT ANYWAY!!


At 12 months babies are expected to have 1-2 words to be considered "on task". While Ella has always demonstrated understanding of words her actual language skills have been considerably delayed. It is important to remember she never actually passed a hearing test until she was 5 months old.
And today Ella says...
baba (bottle)
bubu (by-bye) While waving
bubu (bubbles) and yes they sound very similar!
Mama (Mom)
cock (Clock)
pup-pup (her dogs)
Papa (her grandpa)
?possibly kit (kitty)?
Ella
yeah and claps
ha (hat)
hi (while waving)

I'm pretty pleased! Even though many of these sound pretty much the same she clearly knows what she is talking about and gestures along with her words. She also has a "sign" for more (even though it is NOT the ASL sign).

Paper towels.

Learned a valuable lesson. I was cleaning last night, got sidetracked and ended up setting down a roll of paper towels in Ella's room. This morning I knew she was awake even though she hadn't made much noise and I went in to get her only to find...

A crib full of paper towels! LOL 
FYI she wasn't crying because I beat her or yelled at her relentlessly, she didn't understand why I left to get the camera without getting her out! Funny girl.

another now and then...

New pictures...again!

Yes I have Ella's pictures taken somewhat excessively, but in my defense this was a re-shoot from last month when she did nothing but cry!
*Just as an FYI (as I am frequently asked) We use fotofly and fotoflyaway exclusively. They are beyond fabulous!

stat update

Ella finally had her 1 year appointment this week. Her doctor assured me that not only is she doing well but thriving. She is smart is in the normal range with her peers for intellectual and physical development. *as an odd but interesting side note he told me that because she is black her synapses develop faster and continue to fire at a faster rate than her Caucasian peer. That is why black people tend to excel in sports* He assured me that although I have concerns about some of her behavior she is normal. :)

head circumference is 44 cm, from 17.8 at birth. This is the 27th percentile.
height took a huge jump to 27 1/4 inches, from 12 and is now on the chart at 5%
weight is 17 pounds 11 ounces, from 1 pound 11 ounces at birth and is 3%

Her height is the best news. She has visibly had a growth spurt in length and I am now hoping that HGH (human growth hormones) are going to be not needed!

Party!

Ella's first party was allot of fun, and allot of work! I rented a local clubhouse and put up a little bouncy house (thanks to my bro and sis-in-law) and we also had a ball pit. Now that I have done a Birthday party I will know a little bit more in the future as far as what was a waste of time and what wasn't. It's all a learning curve.
Ella really did okay at her party. I was worried as I think she may have some attachment issues. She was overwhelmed at first and cried a few times. But after about 45 minutes she loosened up and had fun. She loves watching other kids play, she just doesn't want to play WITH them. She also doesn't like attention from adults unless she has solicited it.

After the party my sister noticed some weird sores on her sons feet. Turns out her had hand foot and mouth disease. If you have never heard of this it is a highly contagious disease in the chicken pox family. It spreads quickly among young children and seems to taper off at about age 6. Adult cases are extremely rare. We ended up being one of the unlucky ones. Ella came home early from daycare on Wednesday for a fever and just plain miserableness. We did end up in the doctors office for several hours for respiratory distress (caused by the fever). She had that for about 2 days...then the spots. She doesn't have many on her hands or feet but the ones she does are blisters. One on her right heel is about dime size. Her face has lots of little tiny ones. Where it really causes the problem is the ones in the mouth. It's hard to know exactly what is in there because she isn't super thrilled about me looking in it at all. I do know that the inside of her bottom lip is covered in them. They are painful and she still has a low grade fever off and on. It is SO sad! We also had 3 other victims from her party. Two of them being my coworkers children which is really hard because we can't all not be at work and our children can't be anywhere where there are other kids. They also all want their Mommy's.