Happy 2nd Birthday, Ellie!

Ellie is two! It's crazy that it's already been two years, it's gone by fast, yet there have been many days with her that have seemed to never end. She is 22 lb 4 oz, and 33" tall! She's quite tall and finally on the bottom of the chart for her weight!

New shoes :).

She's not happy about the bear, she's scared of him. But I wanted a comparison - she was the length of the bear, but skinnier, at birth. It's completely amazing how much she has grown!

Ellie loved having everyone sing "Happy Birthday" to her!

She even played with her cupcake! We won't show me trying to get her to try ice cream, she was not happy about that. But at least she touched the cake!

It's still hard sometimes to not think that Ellie needs her hair cut because it's too long! Girl's hair is still novel to me. It can get pretty wild in the mornings after having pig tails the day before!

Ellie does not like to eat. She has reflux, and her stomach doesn't empty as fast as it should. So, her stomach always hurts, probably, and eating is not comfortable. So, she doesn't like to eat. But she has to. It takes a lot of distractions and bribery to get her to eat usually, and she has to be on a strict schedule. She's taking 8 (and it should be 9) doses of medication daily. One medication I put in her bottle, four doses of one med are before meals, and three (should be four but there is not enough time in the day) of a third med has to be on an empty stomach - but her stomach can take hours to empty, so it has to be timed to have enough time for her stomach to be as empty as it can be, but then she needs 30 minutes for the med to sit in her empty(ish) stomach, then time to eat, and then stay upright for 45 minutes (at least) after eating before going to bed, and she still naps. She eats four times a day at the same time every day. Getting off schedule is a very bad thing. And with all that she still loses her food 3-5 times per day. Every day. So, any type of playing with food or even putting things to or in her mouth is progress. She does not feed herself or hold her own bottle. She eats pureed foods and drinks bottles still. But here she is with this huge bottle and she put it to her mouth all on her own! We rarely drink pop, so she's probably not ever seen one before. We had this when everyone - except John - got the stomach bug.

And this was one of her finest moments. You can't tell very well, but she has oatmeal on her face. She took my spoon while I was eating (normal occurrence) and put it in her mouth! And she did it several times! This never happened again, but it was a wonderful thing. I had to email her therapist right away and she was delighted (she has a therapist who comes each week to see her). Her therapist came originally for physical delays, but Ellie is now caught up in all areas except eating.

And this was the same day - she got out these paper bowls and spoon and sat there and put the spoon in her mouth! There is hope she may do this for real, all the time someday!

This was Ellie's first Halloween costume, a hat I made her while she was in the NICU. It was too big for her head at the time.