The Second Child

Yesterday was October 19th, which means it's been one month since Ellie turned one. In a classic case of "poor second child" syndrome, I haven't written a post (aka updated her baby book) in many, many months. I did manage to throw her a birthday party and schedule one year pictures to be taken though, so at least something will mark her transition from babyhood to toddlerhood. She really is the happiest, funniest, easiest baby I've ever encountered so I want to make sure to create a good record of how she is now lest she become a difficult toddler or preschooler. Ellie has been a dream pretty much since she came home. She slept for long stretches right away and since 5 months, I can count on one hand the number of times she's woken up in the middle of the night. She sleeps much longer than Timmy does every night, usually 12 or 13 hours. She eats pretty much whatever we give her, she is content to be held, on the floor, in a stroller or in the car. She doesn't have a strict schedule (or any schedule really). She is used to just going with the flow and it takes a lot to make her cranky. She flirts with everyone, EVERYONE, everywhere we go. A coy smile, a cheesy grin, a belly laugh. She stops at nothing to get strangers to pay attention. People constantly come up to us and tell me that she is a beautiful baby and the happiest they've ever seen. She is a social butterfly and especially loves her brother. The pecking order in our house is usually #1 Timmy, #2 Me and #3 Daddy. Occasionally she switches it up. But I think in her eyes, Timmy can do no wrong. She laughs at everything he does, tolerates (and even seems to like) his overly-enthusiastic love squeezes. She goes wherever he may be in the house and wants to play with him. She usually wants his toys, so he started putting them out of reach on counters and tabletops. She quickly learned that she could get them by standing on her tippy toes or climbing on things. She makes us laugh all the time. Peek-a-boo and funny faces/noises are her go-tos to make us laugh. She also will put random things on her head or turn a pencil into a mustache and then show off until we crack up laughing. She is different from Timmy in so many ways. All he ever wanted to do was read books and she wants very little to do with them at all. And it wasn't until he was well over three that I could convince him to try putting on his own clothes/shoes. For the past four or five months, Ellie has sat on the floor trying with all the baby concentration and coordination she can muster to put on shoes and hats and hair clips. It's adorable...someday I'll post a video of it. She is even more stubborn than Timmy, which I didn't know was possible. Feisty too. I can think of at least three times already where Timmy (who by the way, is almost FOUR) has complained about Ellie hurting him (usually biting or tearing something away from him and scratching in the process). Meanwhile, the pediatrician asked us at her check up actually asked us if she seems to feel pain. Because by all appearances, she doesn't 95% of the time. We took away the bottle after we had weaned her off of formula and even though she drinks water from anything, she refuses to drink milk now that it's in a sippy cup. I dread taking away her pacifier at bedtime. She is a snuggle-fiend. Whenever we pick her up, she immediately puts her head in the crook of your neck and starts patting your back. It melts me every time. She is more cautious than I originally gave her credit for. After months of cruising, she started taking lots of steps right around a year. She would look like a little baby Frankenstein, walking across the room but she did it without falling. A month later, she still prefers to crawl although she is walking more and more. She always picks the "boy" toys to play with while Timmy is always stealing her "girl" toys. I love that. Down with gender stereotypes! She dances and "sings." She is really aggressive in trying to pet the cats. She signs the hell out of the "more" but I don't think she's learned any others yet. She says Mama and Dadda and a few other fake words but not much else. She has two little bottom teeth (that came in at 11 months) and two top teeth with a little gap in between that cut through on her birthday. She still has blondish hair and blueish eyes. I think she still looks like a female version of Timmy. She is tall and fairly chunky. Both PJO and I were nervous about having a daughter. He was terrified of having a teenage daughter and I was terrified of having a spoiled, drama-loving, princess-obsessed little girl. She has converted us and I love having a little girl. She makes me feel like the best mom in the world even on my worst days and I can't imagine a more perfect daughter for me. Happy Birthday to our sweet girl!