How time flies!

My cousin, Lisa, with Ella

Where has the time gone? Well, let's see... I took a short trip to Chicago - on fairly short notice. My cousin, Lisa, was going to be visiting my folks for a few days, and we hadn't seen each other since my wedding so I decided- heck, you can manage flying just you and the baby! And you know what? I really did! I'll admit it took me almost all morning to get myself together for the trip, and I almost missed the flight since I did not get there early enough- especially considering the check-in line was both super long and stagnant. In desperation I checked in at the "carry-on" kiosk even though I definitely intended to check my bag if not there then at the gate- so I just whizzed through security hoping that no one would give me a hard time about my hefty luggage- and no one did. But I did have a baby strapped to my chest; I'm thinking that may have had something to do with it. Ella slept for most of the flight, and upon waking cooed like the little cutie she is! Coming home I thought I would definitely have a hard time, since the flight ended up getting delayed, but I got lucky again - she nursed and slept while we waited to board, and this time we had the whole row to just us so I could really spread out. And sitting right behind us was an elderly couple that really engaged Ella every time she could peek through the space between the seats. Anytime she got a little fussy I'd just lift her up a little and point her at them, and they'd get her smiling : ) Oh, and the other thing I was worried about was having to use the toilet (I wasn't sure what to do with Ella if I had to go!), but for once I didn't even have the urge- it may sound funny, but that right there felt like divine intervention because I've been on the plane before and had to pee so bad, there was no waiting for that "fasten your seat belt" sign to go off... TMI? Sometimes I just don't know where to draw the line...

Hmm, anyway... the trip was good, short and sweet : ) Mostly a family visit but I got to see a few good friends which is always nice! One day I felt so nauseous in the car, I rolled down the window as far as it could go to see if I could fit my head out in case I needed to throw up suddenly... It reminded me of how I felt when I was pregnant with Ella... Well I did end up throwing up, but it was nothing to do with being pregnant - I checked, hehe...

Well, this seems to be a long post already so I think it's time to wrap it up. We're been busy, but you know it's mostly our daily routine (eat/sleep/eat/sleep/eat/sleep, hehe), not a whole lot to blog about... although at the risk of being judged, I will just go ahead and say that one of the most exciting things for me today was Ella going pee in the toilet! I'm not potty training Ella, but when I'm pretty sure she's got to pee, why not put her on the potty? She seems amused to be on the potty (you should see her smile), plus it seems more hygienic that her waste goes down the toilet versus her sitting in it... And I wouldn't say that I'm all that "green", but this would count as being environmentally friendly (okay now you can see I'm just throwing out all kinds of justifications for this.) Some people are really against early potty training (which like I said I'm not even really potty training), but the norm used to be to potty train your kids by 1 year, and doing some online research, it seems that a good portion of the world potty trains as infants... so as long as she's smiling about it, I'll keep doing it... And whether or not she pees, her smiles are always returned : )

I took this picture last week...

Ella was all excited about her little chair from Aunt Chris!!!

Soooo cute!!!