3 Brief Comments...

3 noteworthy updates about Ellie in the last week or so...

1. Her sleeping habits have become really goofed! She'll be dead tired and start falling asleep in your arms or while eating, but as soon as you put her in her bed, she jerks awake and seems quite alert (sometimes happy, sometimes not). She can lie there for hours--cooing, baby talking, laughing, crying, screaming--NOT sleeping. If you leave her alone, she gets more tired working herself into a lather. If you pick her up and try to rock her to sleep or out her pacifier back in her mouth, she might start to fall asleep but as soon as you put her in bed (even after she falls into a deep snoring sleep) she wakes up. This is all daytime sleeping.

Nights are varied. Some are good and some are not.

2. The other day while we were playing/exercising with Ellie on the floor, our dog Popcorn came over and laid beside her (as she frequently does); but for the first time ever, Ellie reached her arm out to the dog and began moving her hand back and forth over Popcorn's body!

3. While in the supermarket this week, we put her in the little "seat" of the shopping cart. Previously, she would never sit still enough or balanced enough to keep her in there more than a few seconds. This time we put her little hands on the things in front of her, held them down with our hands over hers, and she stayed seated and balanced the WHOLE TIME! This may seem a small thing to some, but it really is an encouraging sign of progress!

Ellie's First Emergency Room Trip Was A Gas!

At various times on Saturday Ellie was trying to have a bowel movement, with no success. We put her to bed about 9:30 PM. At 11 PM she began screaming and crying very loudly. She had filled her diapers with a very large and solid deposit, and she had vomited all over her bed and herself. After bathing her, changing the sheets, and rocking her to sleep, we put her back to bed. At about 1:15 AM, she began crying again (mostly in her sleep) but she seemed to be in much pain, especially if you touched her in the stomach area. We had never seen her like this (nor any of our other kids--except for William when he was 8 and had appendicitis), so we were a bit concerned!


After almost an hour of this, we called our pediatrician who finally suggested it would be best to take her to the hospital to make sure nothing serious was wrong.


As we got ready to go to the hospital she began to quiet down. When we put her in the car she woke up and seemed wide awake and quite content all the way there. When we arrived and waited for the doctor, she passed a bit of gas and seemed quite happy. As the doctor began to touch her in examination, she cried quite hard (which is quite normal during doctor visits). Vicki started making her laugh so the doctor could examine her, the doctor gave her a small enema, she immediately deposited a large load, and we were able to leave.


We got home around 4 AM and Ellie got back to sleep around 45 minutes later.


All things considered, we are very grateful that it was nothing more serious, and she has been just fine the last couple of days.