do i ever stop talking about my child? why no, thanks for asking.

Wow.  My head is absolutely spinning.  Ellie is developing and learning so quickly and my mother heart just feels so conflicted about the whole thing.  On the one hand, it is the funnest thing in the world to watch the wheels in her brain turn as she figures something out.  But on the other, it makes me a little sad because I am never going to get this time with her back.  And I am a sentimental person, so that's just how it goes.

Kind of like how packing our tiny apartment makes me feel like crying about a fourth of the time.  We brought our newborn baby home to this beloved 900 square feet, for heaven's sake.  But the other three-fourths of the time I remember how excited I am that our house closes this Friday and I stop crying.

Do you see the parallel here?  You're a smart person, I'm sure you do.  But just in case I've been unclear: I spend about a fourth of my time feeling all sentimental about Ellie's development and the other three-fourths feeling like the proudest mama in the world.  Those fractions are just a rough estimate, of course.  I don't actually spend time measuring the amount of sentimentality I feel at any given moment.  [Or do I?]

Let's talk about some of those changes.  [And if you're not as excited as we are, it's ok.  We can still be friends.]

• On May 22nd, just before her three-month mark, she rolled over from her tummy to her back.  This made total sense to me, since she'd always hated being on her tummy.
• Right around that same time, she started deliberately grabbing at various objects.  Especially her rings.  She loves the rings.

• The next day, she started grabbing at objects and bringing them to her mouth.
• She also started holding her own head up the majority of the time.

• She started giggling a little over a week ago.  Not consistently and not all the time, but any time she does it is my favorite time.
• During that same time period, she rolled from her back to her tummy.  And she's starting to tolerate tummy time a little more as a result but...this new skill has killed nighttime sleeping.  For all of us.  Before, she would sleep for at least one four hour stint.  And now, she is constantly rolling over to her tummy in the middle of the night and waking herself up crying.  Like every 30 minutes sometimes.  So that's been fun.
• Speaking of sleeping, Ellie isn't much of a nap-taker and never has been.  We're working on it but this could be a long road.  Suffice it to say that for now - if she takes them at all - they're very short and only happen when being held.

• Her eating has gotten dramatically better within the last couple of weeks.  Before, she wanted to eat every hour-and-a-half, on the dot, and when she did eat she spent about half the time crying.  Now, I made one little change, and she eats every 2-3 hours and very rarely cries.  Hallelujah.
• She finally started taking a binky!  I tried a trick that I read about online and it was a miracle worker.  She still goes back and forth between ridiculously smiley and babbly and unexpectedly very cranky but she is much more content more of the time.
• She doesn't like being at church very much.  I think maybe partially because we can't talk to her as much as we normally do?  Or maybe because we have to get her up earlier than normal?  I'm don't know.  But I do know that she spends almost the whole time crying which means that one of us is always either roaming the halls or walking outside.  Because...

• She loves being outside.  Whenever she's having an especially hard time, I know that just being outside calms her down the majority of the time.
• She loves spending time with both Tim and me.  Occasionally she'll have a preference for one or the other, but mostly she just loves both.

• She's decided that she doesn't love her swing anymore but has a newfound love for her bouncer.  I think because it's more interactive.
• Whenever Tim starts to play guitar, she starts "singing" with him.  Which, of course, we think is the cutest thing on the planet.

And here are a few of our favorite nicknames currently:

• Ellie Bean
• Ellie Bean the Drama Queen
• Stinker Bell [I'll let you guess how this one came about.]
• Ellie Belly
• Princess

If you actually made it through this whole post, you can probably tell that we are more than in love with our little Ellie girl.  She is so fun and we are absolutely loving her little personality.

Or rather, her big personality.

Because that's probably more accurate.