The Storm is Raging

Ella is going through this phase that Suzy Giordano (the author of Twelve Hours Sleep By Twelve Weeks Old) calls "The Storm."

Here is what it looks like:

(I know, what kind of terrible mom takes pictures of her baby crying?)

As you can tell, it's a pretty awesome phase!

It hits at around six weeks, is pretty awful at about eight weeks and then slowly dies down. 

We are at the slowly dies down part right now. 

Suzy says to not even attempt to sleep train your baby during this several-week-long phase. 

Just try to survive. 

That's exactly what I'm doing.

I came up with this new family rule: If you are holding Ella when she is screaming, you are allowed to eat as many of these as you want:

Mississippi Mud Brownies from Our Best Bites

I have had approximately half the pan of brownies within the past twelve hours.

Another thing that has helped me survive is this book:

The author, Harvey, talks for a long time about different theories and stuff that you don't really care about when your baby is screaming it's head off, so just skip past those chapters until you get to the part that tells you what to do to help your baby settle down.

I was convinced that it wouldn't work as well as Harvey said it would so I decided to do everything that he tells you to in the book to prove that he was wrong. Unfortunately, Ella fell right asleep when I did all the steps so I guess he was right. Thank you, Harvey, for publishing your wisdom, I'm sorry for doubting you. But I can't get her to stay asleep so I need to read the rest of the book to figure out how to do that.

And the light at the end of the tunnel is this book that I mentioned before:

One day Ella will fall asleep at 8:30pm and wake up at 8:30am. Whoa, that's hard to believe but I am willing to give it a try because her current sleeping schedule just can't go on. 

It goes like this: 

Scream until 2am then finally fall asleep out of exhaustion. 

Wake up at 4am to eat and then 8am.

So technically she only wakes up once in the night to eat, but that can hardly be called a real night of sleep.

The book is a quick and easy read and sounds do-able once The Storm has passed.

I've heard that Babywise is a good sleeping book too, but all the copies at the library were already checked out. 

It also helps that Ella and I are at my parents' place for the holidays so that there are other people to talk to besides screaming Ella.

Luckily The Storm occasionally subsides and we get moments like this:

You Have to Admit, Genetics Are Pretty Awesome!

Baby A

Baby B

Do you think Baby A looks like Baby B? 

That's what my family says. 

Baby A is me.

Baby B is Ella.

Ella looks like an Adam-version of me. 

She's blonder than I was (those blond eyebrows and strawberry blond hair)

And I think she might have Adam's cute mouth.

Adam says she has a Jones head.

She has an "essence" of Adam (as Sandra Michelle might say)

I hope she gets Adam's pale blue eyes when her real eye color comes in.

It will be fun to see what she looks like as she grows older.

Although I hope she doesn't grow up too fast!

The Awesomeness and Awfulness of Traveling With The Baby of Cutenesss

 Awesomeness

1. Forget that rule about only being able to get 3 fl. oz through security, they allowed me to carry-on a 8 fl. oz. bottle of hand sanitizer and more than 3 ounces of liquid baby tylenol because I had a baby (they did not allow Adam to carry-on the water bottle I had accidentally left with him)

2. Adam was pulled aside to go through the full-body scan but then one of the security people stopped them and said, "Oh no, he's the husband" nodding towards me juggling several bags and Ella. They let him bypass the body scan.

3. We were allowed to be in the fastest-moving lines and to board the plane before most of the other people because we had Ella.

4. An airport employee heard Ella crying her head off in her stroller and handed us a free cart to wheel around our four giant bags to check-in.

5. The airport had bright blue lights overhead, Ella loved them so much she forgot how hungry she was and stopped crying.

It is so nice to be helped out so much in the airport because we definitely needed the help! Traveling with a baby is not easy!

Awfulness

1. Pushing four giant suitcases, three carry-ons and a baby stroller with a screaming baby through the airport (it is unbelievable how much stuff Ella needs to travel!)-- (but that was solved by point 4 above)

2. Ella pooping through her outfit in the middle of security

3. Ella's ears hurting on the plane due to the elevation change (but that was easily fixed by feeding her, the sucking helped her pop her ears)

4. Ella screaming her head off the whole two hour drive between the airport and my parents' house 

The awfulness wasn't really that bad because we were helped out so much at the airport, everyone was willing to give us a hand. And then we saw this cute couple on our plane who were juggling four carry-ons and four-month-old TWINS and we realized that our job was easy-peasy.  

We were so overwhelmed by what it took to travel, we didn't get any pictures of Ella on her first plane ride, so instead, I just posted these random pictures.

The Baby of Cuteness Slept Through Christmas

Ella spent most of Christmas like this:

(In the swing she got for Christmas- she LOVES this thing! It keeps her asleep for hours without having to be held! She slept the whole night through in it!)

And when she wasn't sleeping, she was like this:

(zoom in):

Ultimate compliment: You know how everyone automatically thinks that their baby is the cutest? It's your child, so of course it's the most adorable thing in the world. So it was the hugest compliment when yesterday at church someone told us that she and her daughters had seen pictures of Ella and they had decided together that Ella was so cute, she might even be cuter than any of their girls had been as babies. Whoa! What a compliment! And she had cute girls, too! 

People I didn't even know were swarming towards Ella after church to get a glimpse of her. It's crazy that people love to see this little person who's best skills are pooping sideways out of her diaper and spitting up mass amounts of milk over everything within five feet; who would have guessed that she would attract so many people's stares? Although, I must admit, those are pretty impressive skills.

I was in the bathroom at the airport late Tuesday night (I'll talk about the awesomeness and awfulness of traveling with a baby on tomorrow's post) and changing Ella on one of the pull-down changing tables. Once again a complete stranger had stopped to stare at Ella and she was telling me about her cute grandson as I was changing Ella (I love how many people I meet through Ella!). The changing table faced a mirror and Ella was gazing at herself in it and I guess she thought she was pretty funny-looking because she burst into peals of laughter. It was the most adorable laugh I have EVER heard in my life (see point above about automatically thinking your child is the cutest thing in the world). But I was the only one to hear it (except for the complete stranger) and she hasn't laughed again since, but we have certainly been trying to get it out of her again.

Ella's in the closet and she's smiley

These videos of Ella aren't really exciting but if you're in need of a baby fix then hopefully this will do.

Adam Can Sing and Dance

Adam has several different approaches to dealing with Ella crying. 

1. Make noises that are louder and crazier than hers to hopefully confuse her into silence

(it's awesome to be in the same room as them when this happens, listening to a screaming baby and a yodeling husband)

2. Put her in her bouncer and bounce it at a rapid-speed pace to hopefully astound her into silence

3. Sing crazy songs about her life while dancing around with her to enchant her into silence

I got a recording of the last approach. He had been singing this song about Ella's life for a good five minutes before I even started recording

While I was looking through the videos on our recorder I came across this recording from a couple years ago of Adam's dance moves. My favorite moves are at the end.

Pictures from this week

 Skyping with the grandparents

That belly!

He's just so cute carrying that diaper bag!

Crazy thing that Ella did this week: I woke up at 8am to the sounds of Ella hiccuping. I sat up and looked at her bed. She sleeps in a bouncer that sits in her playpen. She wasn't in her bouncer (see first picture below). So I looked around me to see if she was in our bed or if Adam had her cuddling with him. But she wasn't there either. I would have been panicking at this point but I could hear her hiccuping, so I knew she was okay, wherever she was. I scooted closer to her bed and finally saw a little hand waving around underneath her bouncer. She had somehow wiggled out of her bouncer and rolled underneath it and had been sleeping down there (see second picture below). I still cannot figure out how she maneuvered her little body down there. And then it hit me that I did not have to get up once in the night to feed her, she had slept the ENTIRE night without needing to be fed, that is AMAZING! She must not have even woken up when she rolled out of the bouncer. And she didn't even wake up crying from hunger, she woke up because she had the hiccups! Maybe we should just put her to bed underneath the bouncer every night (okay, not really).

What I saw when I looked in her bed this morning:

If you look under the bouncer this is what you see. She got underneath there all by herself, how on earth did she do that? She doesn't even know how to roll yet:

As requested: two more videos of The Girl

I have been trying for several days to catch this almost-laughter on video and we finally got it last night, I die with happiness every time I hear it!

She sneezes just like her Daddy and her Grandma Jones, multiple times in a row

Stealing movies from Facebook

You know when people post videos on Facebook that you like so much you steal them and put them on your blog so that people who aren't friends with those people can watch them too?  Yes, that's what these are (thanks Natalie and Michelle!).

Dancing with an iPod in public-- Christmas edition

First watch this one just to get an intro to the music video: 

 And then here's the actual music video:

Grumpy Grump

My mom took a video of Ella grunting and getting grouchy and my brother, Kevin, took that movie and captured individual shots of Ella's face in the process of becoming grouchy. These are faces that Adam and I get to see everyday, but seeing them captured in a still shot like this made us laugh, so I had to share them.

(blowing bubbles)

Gerard the Giraffe

Ella did not like that we dressed her to match her best friend, Gerard the Giraffe.

But I think she's especially upset that Gerard has trumped her in the crazy-patch-of-hair category.

Cool things Ella did this week:

She has started making little talking noises to get our attention.

And yesterday I was watching a video on a blog of a six-month-old baby playing and I realized that Ella had become very still and quiet; I glanced down at my lap to find her avidly watching the video with me! She rarely focuses her complete attention on anything (except for pooping, she puts 100% of her efforts into that, scrunching up her face, making loud grunting noises and vigorously kicking her legs) but this baby had her completely entranced.

Ella's first bottle. 

At first she was screaming with frustration because we kept sticking it into her mouth and she thought it was that silly pacifier that we are always trying to give her, but as soon as the milk started dripping on her tongue, she changed her tune.

From a few weeks ago: