Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes....

Not just the blog site, but lots going on with Ellie. She has changed so much in the 3 1/2 months since Maddie was born. She is quite the crawler now; something she had barely started right before Maddie was born and then just took off on. While I was in the hospital, she pulled up to standing using Dave's hands. Just a couple weeks ago, she pulled to standing on her own. Slowly, but surely, it is coming along. She gets on her knees to reach things and has also gotten pretty good with the one knee, one foot stance (a beginning stance for standing). She has shoe inserts to help her stance. She tends to use the inner part of her foot to stand rather than standing flat -footed. These should help. She also locks her knees and we're working on that. She also using some new fine motor skills like stacking a block and putting small things inside of different sized containers. She's finally using some sign language (fish, bye, hi, play, drink, milk, all done and eat) and has really shown an interest in copying words and sounds lately. Just this week she said "bee" (she likes when I beep her nose), "buh" (book) and sings the "e-i, e-i, o" in Old McDonald and I yih yih yih (whatever that song is called). Other things she has said in the last couple months, fish, hi, night-night, bye, no, nose, and my favorite, "no mama". Of course they are not so clear that anyone can understand, but they are definitely words she is using.

She absolutely loves Maddie. She was jealous the first couple weeks and promptly showed us her first tantrum when we brought Maddie home but now all is fine. She now loves to kiss her and pet her head. If you lay Maddie on the floor where she can get to her, she crawls right up and just stares into her face. The only time Ellie tends to get jealous of her now is if she is hurting and I can't hold her alone and comfort her. And yes, she's giving kisses, complete with a smacking sound and hugs now. We all love that, especially Sydney and Reagan.

.....I'll update more later, Reagan's sick.