10 Months with Ellie

Changes/Development
We have a crawler!  Ellie started with a little scooting around and how she can get places fast!  She doesn't quite crawl on her hands and both knees, rather she keeps one foot under her body and propels herself forward with the other foot and her hands.  I am waiting for the foot she is sitting on to come out straight but maybe she just won't crawl the "normal" way. 

Her two bottom teeth look like they are almost fully in.  I haven't felt any other teeth poking through just yet.  

Ellie is really starting to get into a fun stage.  She can interact with adults and other kids so much more now.  I love it when I pick her up after work and she crawls over to me when she sees me.  When she sees me pick up a baby book to read she scoots right over to look at all of the pictures.  

Ellie had her baptism this month.  We waited a bit because we weren't 100% sure which church we were going to go with.  I was raised Catholic and Brian was raised Lutheran and we were able to find a church that we both really like and where we feel comfortable.  Ellie wore my family's christening gown that is almost 100  years old.  My grandfather's brother was the first person to wear it and almost everyone in my family was baptized in it.  

We also got her a party dress for after the ceremony.  

Sleep
Ellie has been really awesome with sleep lately.  She consistently sleeps through the night - goes to bed around 7 pm and wakes up between 6:45-7:15am.  She takes two naps a day and either one can range from 30 minutes to 3 hours.  

Feeding
Ellie is still mostly breastfed at this point, but she does have 2 "meals" a day.  In the morning she has oatmeal baby cereal with mixed in fruit.  Sometime midday I try to give her some finger foods (small pieces of cheese, puffs, baby mum mum cracker, egg yolk, etc) and then purred veggies in the afternoon. She is doing great at the finger foods and I need to figure out how to get her to eat more of them.  I get nervous about her choking on things, but even though she only has two teeth, she seems to do well mashing things up. 

Mama Stuff
I have been a spoiled pumper for the past few months at work.  I am very lucky that there is a dedicated nursing room at work.  I may have mentioned it on my blog before, but the room has a sink, mini fridge, reclining chair, and cleaning supplies.  It is very close to my desk which makes it super convenient.  On top of all that I was the only person using it for the past few months so I could come and go as I pleased and leave my stuff all over the room. 

This past week a new person at work has returned from maternity leave and started using it.  I am thrilled that she is utilizing it, I am just missing being able to come and go as I please and not worry about my "scheduled time."  It is nice though knowing that somebody else at work is pumping too.  It can often feel strange to have to duck away to go milk myself (ha) so it is good that I am not alone!

Brian and I celebrated our 5 year anniversary this past weekend and Brian and my birthday is also this week (big week, eh?).  We went out to dinner in the North End for some Italian food and it was a lot of fun.  We were originally planning to go away some place for our anniversary, but between Ellie's Baptism and Brian's sister's wedding, it would have been too much all in one month.  Plus it would have been a bit tricky to leave her for a few days while still nursing.  

Brian and I are flying down to Philly for his sister's wedding (leaving early Saturday coming back Sunday afternoon) and Ellie is staying with my mom.  I am not concerned about leaving Ellie (my mom takes care of her 3 days a week so she knows her routines, etc), I am more concerned about finding the time and place to pump, hopefully that won't be an issue.  It is nice to have an adult night, but at the same time I have to remember that my body still wants to feed Ellie!