What's in a name?

Giving another human being a name is not an easy task. Hopefully, your child will have the name you pick for the rest of their life. In some countries they take baby naming so seriously that they have approved lists of names to pick from, and prospective names can be rejected. At least that's what I've read! Unfortunately for the children of Hollywood stars, that is not the case in America. We have gotten asked a lot about Ellison's name, so I figured I would write about it!

I have been OBSESSED with names for as long as I can remember. I always read the stories about popular names and wait anxiously to see what people I know (and celebrities) will name their babies. Maybe this stems from having an "unusual" name myself. I know there are plenty of kids named Kennedi/Kennedy (and Kennedie, Kenadee, and other butcherings of the name) running around now, but growing up I never had another kid with my name, in any variation, in my class or even in my school. I loved having a unique name and still get comments on it (and the "different" spelling) to this day, even though it has gotten a lot more popular. I have always known I wanted to give my children "unique" names, too. Not "Hollywood" names that are better suited to fruits, cities, or animals. Those "names" are pretty silly, in my opinion. I don't know why anyone would do that to their child. I also didn't want my kid to have a name on any "most popular" list and have to go by their first name and last initial their whole life. Obviously lots of people go with popular names, and if they weren't nice names they wouldn't be popular in the first place. But that just isn't for me. The problem with my taste for a more unique name was getting Jay, who is into more traditional names, to agree with me on something!

Due to our differing ideas about names, we picked out Ellison's name before I was even pregnant. It's really the only girl name we both liked, which may be a problem if she ever has a sister! Here are the answers to the questions we get asked most often about it:

1. How do you say her middle name?

It's pronounced like "Katie". And we weren't just trying to be different by spelling a common name in a weird way, Katea is my middle name too. I'm named after my grandmothers, Kathleen and Teallie (sidenote, Kennedi is after my grandfathers, Kenneth and Edmund).

Jay got me this beautiful necklace with Ellison's name and birthstone and gave it to me in the hospital right after she was born!

 

2. Where did the name Ellison come from?

We both really liked Addison, but it became way too popular for me. Because of my job, I see the "trendy" baby names over and over again, and I would rather not have a baby with the same name as multiple patients I've taken care of! I also really liked the name Ella, but again, really popular. So I wanted to find a name we could shorten to Ella, if we wanted to. None of the ones I was finding really worked for me (yes, I admit I was working on this...looking up stuff like "names that shorten to Ella" before I was pregnant), so I thought I would kind of make up my own. Ella + Addison = Ellison. And Jay loved it too! Unlike every other name I ever suggested...

I realize there are other Ellisons out there. Like I said, I'm obsessed with names, so I did my research and saw there were other people with the name. But I checked the Top 1000 names on the Social Security website, and Ellison has never been on it. I looked it up on a million baby name sites and Google'd it to make sure it wasn't associated with anyone horrible. I read every message board where other people considering the name debated with strangers over whether it was for a boy or girl (boy on most baby name sites, but doesn't sound like a boy name to me!) and whether it sounds too much like Allison (I never even thought about that until long after we picked it out). Point is, I don't personally know any Ellisons besides ours. Neither do most people I know. Perfect!

3. Are you going to call her "Ellie"?

This is a popular question! Short answer...probably not. Long answer...nicknames are weird to me. Maybe because my parents ALWAYS called me by my full name and still do. I don't understand why people name their kid one thing and call them something else right off the bat. I'll make up an example...we named her Delilah but we are going to call her Lila. If you wanted to call your kid Lila, why didn't you just name her that in the first place? Now I know I said I wanted to have a name that could shorten to Ella. But we did not plan to start calling her that right away, and I don't know yet if it really fits her. I think nicknames should be something that kind of develop over time. I find that we call her "Ell" most often. Actually we probably call her a million things more often than that (sweet pea, princess, etc!), but as a shortened version of her name, I think it's Ell we use most. So we will probably go with that and not Ellie or Ella if she is going to have a nickname. But we'll see as time goes by!

I'm really happy with our choice of Ellison Katea and think it's the perfect name for her!

And to end this post, here's a couple pictures from the last week or so...

9 Weeks Old, 4/20/12

 Absolutely obsessed with her play gym...she kicks the piano SO HARD!

 Hair all slick with baby oil for cradle cap...I think it looks hilarious!

LOVES looking at herself in the mirror

 10 Weeks Old, 4/27/12

 Passed out from playing so hard

Daddy's girl

Growing Up So Fast

Everyone knows that newborns don't do a whole lot. They basically eat, sleep, poop, and cry. So you get all these cool toys and gadgets for your baby at your showers, and they can't use any of them in the beginning! Since I've never done the mommy thing before, I really didn't know at what point Ellison would start to be interested in all those gadgets. We put her in her bouncy chair within the first few days of life, and her swing has been in regular use for over a month now. But we didn't really bring out any toys for her until a couple weeks ago, since it was pretty obvious she was more interested in snuggling or snoozing than toys.

3 Days Old in Bouncer

Loves her swing!

"Playtime" for about the first month and a half of Ellison's life basically consisted of being on her tummy for a bit each day, and laying on the ground or in her Pack N Play kicking around and waving her arms.

All smiles for tummy time

A couple weeks ago she started really loving her swing, which has spinning animals and a mirror, so I thought maybe she would finally like some toys. I brought out a couple rattles, and she now tracks them with her eyes and can even hold them.

Playing with her toys

She doesn't seem to know she's doing it yet, but she can grip on! Over the weekend we brought out her play mat for the first time and she seems to love it. She stares at herself in the mirror and smiles.

There is a piano at the foot of the mat that she can kick and it makes music! Very cute.

We also put her in the Bumbo for the first time this past weekend. We weren't sure she could hold her head up well enough for it yet, but she did great and was grinning away!

In other news, she had her 2 month pediatrician appointment last week. She was 11 pounds, 8 ounces (75%tile) and 23.5 inches long (95-98%tile). A very healthy little girl! She got the dreaded two month shots and did better with them than Mommy. She wasn't quite herself that night and got her first dose of Tylenol, but by the middle of the next day she was back to her smiley self!

One thing that came out of the appointment was the doctor recommended we start to let Ellison cry herself to sleep at night. We were really struggling with getting her to bed at night and would end up holding and rocking her for hours until she finally fell asleep. This was not conducive to getting much done at night or having any time to ourselves! With me going back go work in just over a week, something needed to be done. We had already started a little bedtime routine (bath every other night, pajamas, a couple books, prayers) but after we put her down in her crib (which she has been sleeping in for almost two weeks now!) we would end up picking her back up two or three times. The doctor said to let her cry for 5, the 10, then 15 minutes, going in between to reassure her she is ok but not picking her up. I didn't want to start the night of her shots, so we waited until the next night, and she slept through the night! She cried until about the 14th minute of the 15 minute period that first night, which was awful for Jay and I. But we got through it, and she has now slept through 3 nights in a row, crying a little less each night. Yay!

Story time with Daddy (this happens in her room now!)

This past weekend was Jay's birthday, and I want to show off Ellison's gift to him because I think it is super adorable!

Here are some other pictures from Jay's birthday as well...we had a wonderful dinner of ribs and some delicious side dishes (thanks Pinterest!) with Jay's parents, sister Litz, brother-in-law Brian, and niece Isabella, and a neapolitan cake! My mom, Ron, Konneli, and Ryan joined us for cake as well.

Neapolitan cake...yum!

Jay and his mom's birthdays are one day apart!

Birthday boy and his girls

Have a great week everyone! I will be enjoying my last full week of stay-at-home mommying...back to work next Wednesday night.

Camera Crazy

I used to think I took a lot of pictures. Then Ellison was born, and we came home from the hospital (after less than 2 days of being there) with over 400 pictures of her. At last count, we had over 1500 pictures of her on our computer! Maybe this is excessive, but every thing she does (yes, even sleeping) seems like something we NEED to capture! I feel so lucky that we have the technology to do this. When we were growing up, our parents couldn't just take 20 pictures of the same thing and delete the bad ones. People could end up with entire rolls of film that they thought contained all these precious moments, and when the roll came back someone was blinking or not looking at the camera...in every picture. What a bummer! I feel blessed that I can load my pictures onto a website like Snapfish or Shutterfly and print as many copies as I want, in any size. I can crop my pictures with the computer, take out the red eyes, even make them black and white. We don't have Photoshop, but I know you can do even more amazing things with programs like that. Yay technology!
Maybe it's because of all this that I feel like I HAVE to take a million pictures of my baby. But I know there will come a time when she probably won't appreciate me taking pictures of every single thing she does, so I suppose I need to take advantage of the time I have to do just that!

We have a mini photo shoot with Ellison every week. I made special blocks for this purpose during my pregnancy (we took weekly "bump pictures" too). There are two number blocks and a big bottom block that has weeks, months, and years on it. I actually got the idea for them from similar blocks I saw online...for $40. There was no way I was spending that on 3 blocks of wood (ok, Jay said no!). So we made these instead, and I have loved having them! I'm sure once I go back to work we will miss some weeks, but so far we have been really good about our photo shoots. Ellison usually cooperates and lets us get at least one good picture. Here's my favorite from each week so far...

1 Week Old, 2/24/12

2 Weeks Old, 3/2/12

3 Weeks Old, 3/9/12

1 Month Old, 3/17/12

5 Weeks Old, 3/23/12

6 Weeks Old (and winking!), 3/30/12

7 Weeks Old, 4/6/12

8 Weeks Old, 4/13/12

2 Months Old, 4/17/12

(in case you wondered, there is no 4 weeks because the way the days fell in March, she was 4 weeks old only one day before she was 1 month old, so we waited until that day!)

And since we (obviously) can't get enough pictures of her, we also have monthly onesie stickers! Here are the first few pictures taken with those...

"Just Born" (2 days old), 2/19/12

1 Month, 3/17/12

2 Months, 4/17/12

Today is Ellison's 2 month doctor appointment, so her 2 month stats are coming next time!

Easter with Ellison

Holidays are a challenge for us. Like any married couple, we have both of our families wanting to spend holidays with us, and since they don't live in the same area, we can really only see one or the other. That would be hard enough, but I don't just have parents and siblings like Jay does - I have my mom and her boyfriend, my dad and stepmom, and my stepdad (still consider him that even though he is no longer married to my mom) and his girlfriend. As a child of divorced parents, I got used to doing something different every year and only seeing one branch of the family on certain holidays, but I think it was a harder adjustment for Jay, who is very close to his family and always got to see them on holidays. It doesn't help that we both work in hospitals and there's a good chance one or both of us are scheduled to work, too! Now that we have added a baby to the mix, everyone wants to see us even more. Luckily, this year neither of us had to work on Easter, and we decided early on that we would be spending it in Manitowoc with Jay's family, who don't have as many chances to see Ellison.

She can sit! (when propped just right)

We decided it would be easiest if we left on Saturday, so Ellison got her Easter basket a day early. Plus, she had multiple "First Easter" outfits that needed to be worn... :) I realize she has no idea what Easter is, but I love holidays and wanted to at least get her a little something! Next year I think we will get more into the "Easter bunny" part of Easter, but this year we just kind of plopped her down next to her basket and took a few pictures.

E with her Easter loot

Then we made the short drive to Manitowoc. Ellison has already been on a longer car ride than that (3+ hours when she was less than a month old), so this drive was no big deal!

Stylish little lady going to Grandma & Grandpa's

Sunday we got all dressed up for church. We have been at church every week of Ellison's life (except the first one, we were still in the hospital since she was born on a Friday night) so we are getting pretty used to how long it takes to get all three of us looking church-appropriate. We were even fairly early this week! So far Ellison has behaved very well in church. I don't think she has had any major meltdowns yet. She seems to really like the organ music and the last few weeks has been awake and looking around for at least part of the service. I really hope she stays well-behaved, because there is no way she will be one of those kids who are still up to the bathroom three times, eating snacks, and playing with toys the whole time when they are 6 or 7 years old! Not gonna fly.

Ellison and Daddy

Ellison and Mommy

Our family!

Ellison's oldest cousin, Logan, gave her a big chocolate bunny for Easter, and she got a very cute dress from Grandma and Grandpa Miller. This little girl is spoiled rotten and I know she has a couple more Easter baskets still to come...she is going to get good at writing thank you cards pretty early in life, I think!

Our Easter meal was delicious. Ham and all kinds of other deliciousness, yum! I love almost any meal I don't have to cook, but this was really, really good. Jay's mom always does a great job! I made a cake from scratch for the first time ever, and I thought it turned out really tasty. I was pretty nervous, because I have started to cook more in the last couple years, but "baking" has always been a mix from a box. So I was glad it turned out!

Strawberry Yogurt Cake

I want Ellison to stay little forever, but I am also looking forward to when she can play with her older cousins. They are so funny and fun to watch! She is lucky enough to have a girl cousin, Isabella, who is only a little over a year older than her, so I hope they will be great friends!

Ellison and Isabella...future BFF!

 

All in all, it was a wonderful first Easter as a family of three!

First blog post ever!

I'll be honest. When people I know started having kids and writing blogs about them, I thought...who cares? Then I had a baby. Maybe I should have figured this out during pregnancy, when people were constantly asking super personal questions, but apparently there are some people who actually want to know EVERYTHING about my child. However, these people are not all 600+ of my Facebook friends, which is why I initially said I wouldn't be one of those parents who constantly posts pictures of my baby. Within days of Ellison's birth I realized that is easier said than done. Everything she does is so cute, how could I not post a million pictures of her? So anyway, I realize the majority of Facebook doesn't care about my labor and delivery, how breastfeeding is going, and what color my baby's poop was today. But some people probably do care. Ok...not about the poop. But if you are friends with any mommies on Facebook, you know that even that is not off limits for some people to post! So I thought I would start a blog too. Then anyone who cares how much my baby weighs or what cute thing she did last week can find out...and the rest of the world won't be bothered. At least not as much. Because let's be serious, I'm not going to stop posting pictures on Facebook. Everyone else is doing it! And if I have to look at their kids, they can look at mine. And if no one ever reads this, it will be here someday for Ellison to read. I don't really know how to do all kinds of fancy things to this blog, so it's going to be pretty basic...at least for now!

The Pregnancy...
If I could do it over again, I would have started blogging during my pregnancy. Maybe it's better I didn't, because there would probably be some haters out there...it was a pretty easy pregnancy. Not that I have anything to compare it to, but after hearing horror stories from so many women, it sure seemed easy. Maybe they just complained more?! I was nauseous at the beginning and got really uncomfortable at the end, but I think that is pretty standard. The only issue was that the little lady was so comfy she didn't want to be born. Maybe being "overdue" wouldn't have been such a big deal if I hadn't been off of work already, but since I was, I needed to get the baby out so I would have as much time home with her as possible!

 5 Weeks Pregnant (just found out)

40 Weeks and 4 days Pregnant (Ellison's birthday)

Labor & Delivery... (no gross details, I promise!)

I got induced the soonest my doctor would allow, which was 4 days past my due date. Of course everyone has these horror stories of inductions, but again, I have nothing to compare it to. It wasn't any worse than I expected pushing an entire person out to be. Ellison Katea was born about 10 hours and 39 minutes after the pitocin was started, and from what I've heard, that is a pretty fast labor for an induction. It still felt like it took about a week, because labor is definitely called that for a reason. Even with an epidural, it's no joke! But as cliche as it may sound, I forgot all about it as soon as they handed her to me.

Whatever was still going on down below, I know nothing about because I was so focused on my little girl. Anyone who doesn't believe in God has obviously never thought about the miracle of an entire person growing from basically nothing. Every part was there and in the right place, and it was the most wonderful moment of my life holding her for the first time! 2 things that surprised me: her size (7 lbs, 14.5 oz) and her thick black hair.

The baby that came out was definitely not the one I was picturing for all those months I was pregnant! She is so much more perfect than I ever could have imagined. I really expected her to be bald and weigh under 7 pounds. When I was 33 weeks pregnant I had an extra ultrasound done because she was measuring small, and I really didn't gain THAT much weight during pregnancy (about 25 pounds), so when she came out weighing almost 8 pounds, I couldn't believe it! The hair was obviously an even bigger shock. And for everyone who said it was going to fall out, you were (thankfully) wrong! It is getting lighter, but it's definitely not falling out. Yay!

Ellison's First 7 Weeks...

Even though Ellison's hair all stuck around, the weight didn't. Ellison lost an entire pound by the time we went in for our first doctor's appointment, which was the day after we got home from the hospital. It's typical for babies to lose weight after birth, but because she lost more than 10% of her initial weight, the doctor was a little concerned, leading to us having 3 appointments at the pediatrician in the first 4 days home. At least we learned pretty quickly how to get her in and out of the car seat with all that practice! Luckily, supplementing with a bottle for a couple days (I think she only actually got formula 3 times) led to her gaining almost the whole pound she lost back within the first week. They actually took us into a second exam room and re-weighed her on another scale at her second weight check because she had gained so much weight in 2 days...score!

Daddy giving Ellison her first bottle

3 Days Old

Looking at her 7 weeks later, I cannot believe we were ever stressed about this girl's weight! She is a chunky little monkey! At her one month appointment, she weighed 10 lbs, 0.5 oz and was 23 inches long. I still don't believe she could have grown that much in a month (she was 19.5 inches at birth) and maintain that they must have measured wrong initially! I know from experience that measuring a squirmy baby is not an easy task.

Chunky Monkey!

The last 7 weeks have gone by faster than I could have possibly imagined. I know people always say kids grow up so fast, but I didn't understand until I was experiencing it myself! Ellison already looks so different to me than the tiny baby we brought home. We have retired the newborn clothes and moved on to the 0-3 month and 3 month stuff. This made mommy pretty sad and a tear may have been shed...

What she likes!

In the last few weeks Ellison has become very interactive and is full of smiles, especially first thing in the morning. She loves her swing, which looks like a spaceship or a carnival ride because it is so big and elaborate. I can't tell whether it's the mirror on the underside that she is looking at, or the spinning animals, but something about that thing just mesmerizes her! Sometimes she likes her tummy time...sometimes not so much. She has been very strong since she was born (her head control has amazed us from the beginning), and I think it frustrates her that she can't move around much when she's on her belly. Her neck is getting super strong and I think she will be controlling her own head VERY soon! We realized this weekend that she can sit if you prop her just right in a chair!

Happy Girl!

What she doesn't like...

Angry version of Ellison

Ellison hates when we try to put her to bed at night. I have about 3 weeks left before I go back to work, and since I work nights and Jay will be home with her at night 3 days a week, we wanted to try to get her on a schedule already. Apparently, one month olds don't do schedules. We were trying to put her to bed between about 7-8 pm. She has decided that her actual bedtime will be more like 9 or 10 pm. At least once she finally goes to sleep, she sleeps for pretty solid stretches now. Usually she will eat around 8-9 pm, go to sleep within the next hour (or so), and sleep until 2-3 am, and then sleep for about another 4 hour stretch once she falls back asleep. Much better than being up every 2-3 hours like clockwork for the first month!

She also doesn't like bottles very much, at least not this week. We started giving her a bottle every few days after her two week checkup. At that appointment, we were advised to start with bottles every 2 or 3 days because I am going back to work and she will have to live off bottles for a good portion of the day when I'm working. It really wasn't a problem for that first month or so of doing it, but in the last week, we have started giving her a bottle once a day. This apparently is not to her liking, because she has been fussing a LOT when the bottle comes around! Hopefully she will start to like it soon, or she's going to be a very hungry girl when I go back to work.

More to Come...

I have so many more pictures, and so much more to say about my sweet baby girl. But this is getting VERY long, and someone is probably getting VERY hungry! I'm not going to fool myself into thinking I will post on here daily, or even weekly, but I'll do my best to update it regularly (ish). Being a mommy definitely does not leave a lot of time in the day to sit on the computer! It is definitely a full-time job...but by far the best one I can imagine having!!!