Story A Day (or at least a few times a week…)

…Sweet Potatoes   She didn’t actually like them as much as the second photo would indicate, but we’ll see if she acquires the taste!

…this is your destiny

One of the things I’ve re-realized since having Ellie is that I am incredibly lucky to be surrounded by a community of people that I can learn from, share with, and cry to when those tough days happen.  This gift of community has been even more salient to me since becoming a mom.  I’m sure a lot of these folks don’t even realize the impact that their words have, but they are powerful…some are moms, some are not…all of them are wise.  Today’s salient moment…reading a friend’s blog about the anniversary of the loss of her mother, and realizing that even though I haven’t lost a parent I share many of her fears about being gone from Ellie’s life too soon.  Call me a worrywart, I always have been, but her blog entry brought me to tears as I realized I do many of the same things as her to ensure that if anything ever did happen to me that Ellie would be able to know who I was, know how much I loved her, know how I lived life, and from that gain insights of her own about how amazing (and sometimes tough) life can be…I journal, I blog, I make scrapbooks (well I used to, now I make videos montages ).  We’ll just say Ellie would have lots of stuff to read and look at.  In the end, it’s all about loving one another, learning from each challenge, and living life to the fullest each and every day.  It’s cliche, I know, but it’s all true.  I am grateful to be a very happy person (most days!) and I think the root of that happiness is a daily attitude of kindness and gratitude.  If nothing else, that’s what I would want Ellie to know.  And don’t worry, I don’t plan to go anywhere anytime soon but that post hit me today…thanks, friend, for sharing your wisdom.

Look who’s learning to sit up!

…maybe even two!  Ellie has been showing lots of signs of teething lately – copious amounts of drool , needing to CONSTANTLY have something in her mouth (unless she is sleeping), gnawing on the hard plastic part of her pacifier rather than sucking on it, a bit more fussiness than her usual (which is still not much, but relatively…), and some funky eating habits the last few days.  I was suspicious that a tooth might be on the way.  Today I rubbed her lower gum, and lo and behold, there was a sharp edge poking through in one spot.  It’s barely visible, but it’s coming!  The neighbor tooth looks like it might be about to emerge as well.  I have no idea how long it takes for a tooth to come in fully, but I imagine that the pre-emerging through gum stage is the most painful??  Moms out there, feel free to fill me in on this…  We’ll try and get a photo of said tooth once it’s visible without a flashlight

Saw this on Facebook today, thought it was pretty cute

Ellie has been cracking me up lately with her new squirmy move.  Check it out…

We’ve had some freaky happenings on our street in the last week.  Our neighbors a few houses down on the other side of the alley had their car stolen from their garage and items taken from the first floor of their home (while they were sleeping upstairs!).  Super scary.  The good news is that the cops caught two guys who had their belongings.  The bad news is that they think there are more people involved, because they appeared to be back last night.  They got into another neighbor’s unsecured garage, and the back fence gates of a number of homes (including ours) were wide open this morning.  Seriously.  That probably means there was someone in our back yard last night.  The comforting thing (as best as anything can be comforting in a situation like this) is that these criminals seems to be looking for the easy grab.  We learned today that our neighbor’s garage was not secured (their  service door had a broken lock), and they had left a set of house keys in a work bag, in the car, which was unlocked, in an unlocked garage.  Crime of opportunity.  I’m hoping they’ll be done with our block after realizing there are no more unlocked doors.  In the meantime, we’re setting the alarm.  Booooo.

We had some fun with today’s 5-month photo shoot.  Ellie is a lot more squirmy now than she was for earlier photos   You can see the fun progression below…My favorite photo is the last one!

Ok. Winter is officially here. Finally. I was ok without it I think I almost froze my face off on the way out of Target tonight!