Clots

For about two weeks, I was having some unexplained back and leg pain. It started in my lower back and hurt terribly. I was worried that if it persisted I would have to call in sick to work because I could hardly walk. Luckily, it mellowed out after a day or two. Then this stupid pain started radiating down the back of my left leg. I thought it was sciatic nerve pain even though there was no reason for it. Well, I lived with that pain for a few days, then this annoying pain migrated to the front of my left leg around my groin area. It seemed to be feeling better though, so I decided I would just have to wait it out. Well, a few more days went by with this constant ache in my leg. I was a slow walker, and tried hard not to limp. I still had no way to explain the pain, and that was probably the most frustrating part of the whole ordeal. Eventually, by the 8th of September, the pain started to move down my inner thigh, and I even felt it a little bit in my shin. I just figured that the muscles or tendons that were hurt initially were probably connected to the muscles and ligaments down my leg, so if one thing hurt, other things were bound to hurt eventually too. But, I finally decided to contact my doctor's office and ask their opinion. I spoke to them over the phone on Friday afternoon, and they encouraged me to go in and have my leg checked out. I didn't think it was anything serious, I didn't have any swelling or redness, just that pestery pain, so I decided to schedule an appointment for Monday since I had the day off of work. Well, Friday night came along. Brad and I were getting ready for bed after having watched a very stupid movie together. It was at this time that I realized that my leg was, in fact, starting to swell. There were also patches of red all the way down the inner part of my leg. Yikes! That surprised me, and the changes started to really really worry me. I was also worried that I was overreacting, but these signs pointed at the possibility of clots in my leg. Brad decided that we needed to go to the ER. I really didn't want to take this route, but in the end I gave in. Brad's mom came over to our house so we wouldn't have to wake Ellie, and we headed out on a midnight adventure (the last time we headed out on a midnight adventure was the night Ellie was delivered, so of course this was brought up on the drive to the hospital. This time, unfortunately, the circumstances were a little more unknown). We got to the hospital and then played the waiting game. We saw the doctor who agreed at the possibility of clots. He said it was a good thing that we decided to come in. Well, lo and behold, I did have clots. This actually really surprised me despite all the signs. I had one large clot in the upper part of my leg and clots throughout all of the veins in my lower leg. They started me on blood thinners and sent me home with instructions to stay down and keep my leg elevated. The leg continued to swell and be painful for a few days, but eventually the blood thinners kicked in, and I started to see improvements. The instructions to stay down persisted for 2 weeks, but I did finally get to go back to work this Tuesday.

And why did I happen to get blood clots? Well, the only explanation is this......

Yep. This little peanut is already starting out to be a trouble maker. Everyone said Ellie's personality is more like me, and boy I better watch out when we get a little one like Brad. Maybe I'm being warned early on. Who knows! Anyway, we are really excited about this little baby even if it is causing a lot of concern. It is totally healthy as far as the doctor can tell, and hasn't been phased by the whole ordeal. I am now 11 weeks along, and we are expecting the addition to officially arrive in mid April. By the time it comes Mommy's belly will be a well worn pin cushion due to the twice a day shots I have to take throughout the pregnancy, but it will be well worth it. We are so excited to see our little family grow!

Ellie at 14 months

Ellie, as always, is an ever a growing girl. It is hard to keep up with everything new that she is doing from day to day. It is hard to think that I can't call her my baby any more. She is now definitely a toddler. She started walking a few weeks after her first birthday, and now her signature scoot is gone forever. Now the real exercise will begin. We just about lost her a couple of weeks ago at church. She just walked out of Sunday School class without us noticing. She only made it to the foyer so we were lucky. We can't wait for her to be old enough to go to Nursery just so we don't have to chase after her for 3 hours.

Ellie loves to read stories with Mommy and Daddy, especially stories with lots of animals in them. She is so good at making all of the barn animal sounds and a lot of other animals too like elephants, monkeys, and snakes. The library has become a great resource to keep my sanity from the monotony of reading the same board books over and over and over again. Now we read three or four books for about three weeks and then switch when we take a visit to the library. This last bunch of books we got from the library included the book "Opposites" by Sandra Boyton. Ellie loves all the Sandra Boynton books. She loves the rhymes and all the animals in them. Well, earlier this week she kept walking around the housing saying "Ap-a-sit" and for the longest time I couldn't figure out what she was say, maybe A-B-C or something, but then we sat down to read book the Sandra Boynton book, and she she "Ap-a-sit" again. It finally dawned on me what she had been saying all week long. I'm pretty impressed with a 3 syllable word coming from a 14 month old. Unfortunately her new favorite book had to go back to the library today :(

She has become a little parrot when it comes to speaking. Anything we say, she likes to try and repeat at least one word from what we say. Some of the cute ones lately have been "busy" "cook" "pretty"and "messy". I don't really think she knows their meaning completely, but she is definitely on her way.

Ellie also absolutely loves the gift she got from her cousin, Ainsley, for her birthday, an episode of "Baby Signing Time." She is doing a great job learning the signs in the movie. We have to limit this annoying moving to one time a day, more to maintain Brad and my sanity than anything. The songs on that video are just so so catchy. WE CANT GET THEM OUT OF OUR HEAD! We are singing them ALL the time. But if Ellie doesn't get her fix of the show every day, she walks around making the sign for baby while say "baby, baby, baby" over and over again. What a cutie.

Ellie is a great eater. She was introduced to watermelon this summer and now if there is watermelon within her sight, she will not eat or do anything until her appetite has been satiated. We've just learned to use watermelon like a dessert. You don't get to even know that there is watermelon until the end of dinner. She also was introduced to corn on the cob a few weeks ago. I think she likes it better on the cob than off. She has just enough chompers to make it as a viable option for her. She is only picky when it comes to meats. I don't think she likes the texture very much. But if we disguise them with something else, usually we can get her to at least eat some.

So yep. There's a little update on our sweet Ellie. She's as cute as ever, and we love, love, love seeing her grow up.

This is Ellie saying "cheese" to the camera. This is actually a good "cheese" face. Any time she get her picture taken now she squints up her eyes and makes a silly little cheesey smile.

The Zoo, Take Two

The weekend of my birthday (known to the rest of America as Labor Day weekend) we decided to finally go to the zoo as a family. We have attempted the trip two other times in the past month, but both times we failed to actually make it to the zoo. Ellie and I went to the zoo back in May with Grandma, Grandpa, her aunts and her cuzzy, but I was so happy to finally be able to go and experience the joys of the zoo with just Daddy and Ellie. It has been quite a while since Brad last went. Brad seems to think the last time he went to the zoo was on a field trip in elementary school. He has only poor memories of that sad journey. His room mother chaperon decided it was important to first see the insects and snakes (probably because it wasn't crowded there), and after that, they had to go eat lunch and head home. He was a little bitter then, and is still a little bitter now. But he had loads of fun on our trip last week, so I guess the zoo experience has been redeemed to some extent. Ellie loved the zoo again this time. She had so much fun seeing the elephants, giraffes, and rhinos, but we think her favorite part of the zoo was probably the elephant slide. Yep. All those cool animals, and she just had a smile from ear to ear going up and down that silly little elephant slide time after time after time. Brad's favorite part of the zoo was just spending time with his girls. I agree with him. I just had fun being with my two favorite people.

Here's our sweet Ellie enjoying the amazingly exciting elephant slide

Ellie had to experience all aspects of the zoo, including all of the flowers and weeds along the path. She is so cute. Any time she see a flower, whether it be a real flower, a silk flower, a picture of a flower, or a weed that has some semblance of a flower, she has to smell it. So of course she had to do this with all the "flowers" seen with our strolling about zoo too.

She though the rhinos were quite interesting. She likes to point to their horns in books, so she pointed to the horn on the statue too.

I don't think she really trust this gorilla next to her.