Wednesday, March 26, 2008

Change: Oh Boy, It's A'Comin'


















































In case you aren't one to pick up on subtle hints...



We're having a baby!



Your Frequently Asked Questions - Answered!






Q. Is it true? You guys are really having another baby?!


A. Yes, it's true! We're adding a new member to the Molloy Clan roughly around October 5, 2008


Q. Really? Weren't you just pregnant?


A. While it does feel like I was just pregnant, it was shockingly two years ago now since I experienced the joys of pregnancy (i.e. bloating, nausea, vomiting, narcolepsy...joy!)




Q. Wow, your kids are going to be pretty close in age. Is this an "oops" or was this planned?


A. It was always our plan to have our children between two and three years apart. Elise and her little sibling will be about 2 1/4 years apart, which fits into our ideal timing perfectly. We are hoping Elise will make a smooth transition to a toddler bed this summer to free up the crib. And she may even be potty trained by the time the new baby makes its debut, so we'll only have one in diapers. That's the hope anyway!




Q. Having two kids so close together is going to be a lot of work. Are you people crazy?


A. Yes, we are crazy.



Q. Are you at least going to find out the gender this time?


A. No way! We loved being truly surprised when the doctor laid our little girl on my chest and we are excited to have that experience one more time. Sorry to disappoint all you "need to know-ers"! I promise we're not doing it just to drive you crazy (though that might be part of Marty's reasoning).



Q. Are you going to do a blog for the new baby too?


A. As I am sure we will be completely swamped and overwhelmed for the next several...um... years, at this point I think it is unrealistic to think that we will have the time to dedicate to two blogs. However, we absolutely love keeping record of our child's monumental steps through a blog and want to do the same thing for our new little one. Therefore, we will probably be revamping this blog to be a Molloy Family blog, instead of being focused on Ellie only. So sadly, the new baby will not get his/her own blog. The second born always gets the short end of the stick - it's a hard life lesson that he/she will learn early. (Marty and I are both second borns so we have little sympathy for this hard life fact)



Q. How do you think Ellie is going to handle not being the center of the universe anymore?


A. We think that she's going to have a rough transition at first. She is a bit of a Mamma's Girl, and as a nursing mom, her precious Mamma will have to assume most of the baby duties. But we also think that she will adjust quickly and that she will be an absolutely wonderful big sister. She is great at bossing people around, so she will fall into her natural role as big sister easily. =) And honestly, Daddy is thrilled about the prospect of becoming Numero Uno. Just yesterday she had a "Daddy Day" where she didn't want anyone but Marty to pick her up or help her with stuff. So maybe she'll move over more to a Daddy's Girl before the baby is even born, which would be helpful.



Q. What are you calling the new baby while it's in utero?


A. In keeping with Elise's nickname for the duration of my pregnancy, "Mini Mo" (Mini Molloy), we have been calling the baby "Mini Mo 2.0". However, when asked what we should name our baby, our friend Shoshana's 2.5 year old daughter Regan said we should go with "Juan". How she came up with that, I have no idea, but it is hilarious so we have also been calling the little one Juan.

Monday, March 24, 2008

Dancing Queen

Ellie loves to boogie. As you probably noticed in the video we posted from that concert we attended back in September, dancing has long been a passion for our little girl. She loves to dance. And boy does she dance! There's music pumping through the intercom at the grocery store: Ellie's dancing. A car pulls up to a red light with rap music blaring while we're at the corner waiting to cross the street: Ellie's gettin' down. Music on a tv commercial: Ellie boogies. I start singing, humming or sing-talking (as unmelodious as it may be): Ellie dances. Dance, dance, dance. Sometimes it's only the music in her head...and our girl is movin' to her own beat.

It's not just how much she dances that is so entertaining, but how she dances is equally hilarious. The child of two very white, fairly soul-less parents, poor thing dances a bit like Elaine from Seinfeld - arms flailing, hips rocking, shoulders turning, feet stomping...all seemingly independent of one another. I absolutely love that Ellie jumps up and starts dancing at the hint of any music, and her dancing technique makes the process all the more adorable. When she hears a song that gets her really excited, she dances by running around in circles and or holding someones hands and running in place. It's just too cute.

Ellie has a passion, not only for dancing, but for music in general. Lately, Ellie has been treating her parents like her personal jukebox, especially in the car where she shouts out her musical request repeatedly and incessantly until you start singing. Sometimes she'll just say "sing!" but most of the time she has a specific request. Her current favorite is "Dinah" ('I've been working on the Railroad') which I swear we've sung more times in the past two weeks than any other song in our lives. And the very moment our thrilling "Dinah" rendition has concluded she belts out an enthusiastic "Nain!" (again) "Dinah! Nain!" with a huge grin on her face until we start singing again. And you can't get away with just one parent singing while the other one takes a little break. If only one parent is singing, she'll interrupt with "Mommy sing!" or "Daddy sing!" until the silent parent also joins in. What can I say, the girl loves a duet.


We seriously need to buy a kids music cd!

Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Ernie Watch Ellie Eat Oatmeal

Mark it - March 11, 2008! Elise Lawler Molloy says her first full sentence with nouns and verbs and objects!

"Ernie watch Ellie eat Oatmeal."

It's all very exciting.

Saturday, March 08, 2008

Sick and Sicker

Wow. It's been a crazy week at the Molloy's house - and by crazy I mean downright disastrous. Last Monday evening, Ellie seemed to be coming down with something. Out of no where she became completely congested, started coughing and acting a little crazy. We put her to bed early, hoping that she'd sleep it off, but she woke up on Tuesday a complete sick mess with a fever. She couldn't breath at all, and our normally "energetic and spirited" child just sat there, veggin' out like a zombie, whining softly. Poor baby! She gets colds rather frequently, but she has had very few major illnesses that slow her down and require her to stay home sick. And I think that she's only once or twice before had a fever. Usually, she comes down with a cold or allergy related congestion and sounds sick, but keeps continues life like everything is fine. Not the case with this one.


Ellie and Riley watch Backyardigans (not Elmo!)

She battled for several days, eating only tiny amounts of food, sleeping a lot and cuddling with her Mommy and Daddy, who took turns staying home from work. By Thursday evening, she seemed to be in better spirits. While she was still congested, her fever had been gone for 24 hours and she was back to playing and dancing as she normally would. So, we decided to go ahead and send her back to daycare on Friday. Wouldn't you know it - that happened to be the very day that there was a stomach bug outbreak at daycare. They sent a warning email home about this issue, but Elise came home on Friday seeming completely fine, so figured we were in the clear.



Ellie gives hugs to pal Riley

On Saturday night, we were heading home from Marty's mom's birthday dinner when we stopped to get some gas. I turned around to check on Ellie, who had been soundly asleep. She raised her head up a little, looked around, opened her mouth and randomly began spewing vomit all over the place. I was paralyzed for a few seconds watching this happen (she has only ever thrown up once and that was nearly a year ago), then sprung into action, pulling clothes out of her diaper bag to clean up the mess. Of course I have always had a weak stomach, and the close-quarters of the car combined with meatball-and-peaches vomit was enough to put me over the edge. I opened the car door and start dry heaving, leaving poor Marty to multi-task the gas pumping and puke clean up duty. It was a complete disaster.




Once I regained my composure, I changed Ellie out of the nasty clothes - though the only thing we had was a onsie - threw a coat on her and strapped her back into her carseat. Luckily through all of this, Ellie is not crying or upset, she is just sitting there quietly looking very confused. We get back on the road and within two minutes, she starts throwing up again all over her fresh onsie and coat. We are barreling down I-95 at 65 miles per hour, and I am leaning back into the back seat scrounging around for something to catch puke in. This went on for nearly the entire 30 minute car ride. Then continued into the night. She just kept vomiting - even when it seemed impossible that her little belly held anything else.



When she got up the next morning, she was exhausted and still couldn't keep a thing down. So, she completely gave up trying to eat, and only drank when we practically forced the sippy cup down her throat. Worried about dehydration, I talked to the pediatrician who said that as long as she was getting a wet diaper at least every 8 hours, she was ok. (Seriously? Does that seem normal?) And it turns out this wasn't just a 24 hour bug. On Thursday, she was still vomiting, albeit much less frequently, lethargic (she hasn't had any food! she has no energy!) and very sleepy. Oh yeah, and the congestion is still there.



Elise cuddling with her Opa (Meredith's dad)

Inevitably, Elise could not keep all this stomach bug fun to herself. On Monday night, Marty had the pleasure of joining his daughter in feeling completely miserable and becoming a vomiting wreck. I joined in the party briefly, but fortunately rebounded after one evening of illness. Marty was completely bedridden and miserable for three days. Today (Friday) Elise is FINALLY showing signs of feeling a little better. She has a little more energy, has played a little and is actually slightly interested in eating something. Thank goodness! We were just finally getting some meat onto those bones, and in the last week I wouldn't be surprised if Ellie lost 4-5 pounds. Her Buddha-belly is no more! (though I won't be giving her meatballs or peaches anytime soon to get it back)



It has been an exhausting and fairly disgusting week, but after back-to-back illnesses that spread through the family, I'd say we've experienced more than our share of sick. We're ready to enjoy our healthy and illness-free spring.