My little niece Ellie is 10 months old and on Sunday she took her first steps over at Scott and Lisa’s house. We were all three trying to get her to walk and what at first was one step turned into four.

Kendel was sad that she wasn’t there but today Ellie had shoes on and she walked even more! Kendel had her standing by the bathroom door and Ellie let go of her hand and walked over to me. We went to the grocery store and Ellie walked about 50 yards while one of us was on each side of her holding a hand.

It’s crazy to watch her grow so fast. At times I want to run away but overall the Ellie experience is a very, very good one and I may bitch a lot but I love that little girl so damn much!

So not only did Ellie walk today but she also got her first skinned knee. It was bound to happen, at least she didn’t cry.

Speaking of growing… Here is her in the new car seat. This one is much cuter plus her feet don’t have to be all jammed up against the back of the seat anymore since she’s so tall.

I have nothing particular to write but I am sitting here so I am just going to see what comes out. That sentence should be the first sentence to all my posts. Anyway, I am think about lots of things today, big surprise. One of them being that I really need to improve my typing skills. You think that after years of blogging and being a student and all that other crap that I would be a bit better an dI will admit that I can type pretty fast but I have to look at the keys so I could never have a typing job, I am only good at typing what comes out of my own little brain. Some days though I feel like my fingers just wont go where I want them to and I have an amazingly insane amount of typos. Today is one of those days, hold on while I fix this paragraph here.

I love right clicking words and getting the properly spelled version right there just one click away. I think this might also be contributing that I don’t know how to spell a handful of awkward words like diarrhea. See, that word right there, the one I told you I couldn’t spell. I was in fact right. I typed out what I thought but then right clicked and got the right version.

Oh my gosh this post is going nowhere fast. Kendel started work at noon today. Ellie is being a major butt/ass muncher. Screaming, screaming, screaming. If you aren’t holding her or looking her in the eyes she just screams. I try not to spoil her, I try to just let her be but after awhile I feel like my insides are going to explode so I just have to pick her up and give her some attention which I definitely do not mind doing but listen up, I cannot do anything when I have her. I am completely engrossed in entertaining her while she is on my watch and I am exhausted from it.

When Kendel comes home I just sit and stare at the wall and before kendel leaves for work I do the same thing. I call it meditation, others call it a vegetative state, either way I am not responsible for a crying baby and its all good times for me.

The house looks like a tornado swept though, not even joking. You think I am though, you think I am just trying to be metaphorical but I am speaking the truth here. It is messy beyond comprehension, baby crap EVERYWHERE. It appears as though I am lazy, and maybe it is true but I see it more of a breakdown in the order of priorities. Cleaning up just doesn’t come out on top when things like laying in the front yard watching Ellie eat grass while NOT screaming are on the list.

I would show you a picture but that would be far too embarrassing. It would surprise you, make you question the very fact that you are my friend and also make you worry about the welfare of everyone that lives in this little house because Kendel or I may well trip and impale ourselves on a random baby toy at any moment. More likely it will be me because Kendel is always at work, either way, its insanity over here. Ellie is napping and I am going to go clean this disaster.

Baby Ellie just woke up from her nap an hour ago. I was sitting here on the couch watching one of the Harry Potter movies and I heard her in there fussing and fake crying so I walked into the room and flipped on the light to see her standing in the crib with her eyes all squinty while she gave me the hugest grin I have ever seen. Ellie is a happy baby.

It’s not the kind of happy that you would think of when you think about happy babies, its the kind of happy that is almost freaky and too good to be true. She will fake cry to get attention and yeah if her nap plans get screwed up in anyway she is pretty impossible but 99% of the time she is over the top happy.

Don’t get me wrong, just because she’s happy doesn’t mean being her quasi-mom is easy. Taking care of a baby is the kind of responsibility you can’t even try to comprehend, you have to experience it to know it. Still, stress or no stress I love her with all my heart and on the days I have to watch her I really watch her and just try to make every moment I spend with her count.

The fact that I am so sad and depressed and just whatever the hell I am makes it hard sometimes to be happy-go-lucky but when I am with her it is an effortless activity. To say she’s the light of my life is not only cheesier than Velveeta but it’s also an understatement.

Last Tuesday morning started out like most mornings. Ellie was the center of attention and being her usual happy, giggly self. She just started crawling a few days ago, like actually moving forward and being able to get to the cats she loves so much, instead of just moving like an inch and having us call it crawling. Its now undeniable crawling.

Kendel and Ellie were in my room with me this morning because I actually have a large area of carpet that is great for crawling babies, unlike the disaster that we call Kendel’s room. Ellie was making us laugh because she just can’t help but flirt with herself in mirrors and there was one right in front of her on my wall.

So we’re both talking to her, she’s laughing, we’re laughing and then she just lays down flat on the floor, like she suddenly just needed a break from the laughter. I keep joking with her and she smiles but something just isn’t right.

“I think she’s taking a poop” Kendel says as she picks her up off the floor and onto her lap. She stiffens her body, let’s out some grunts and the look in her eyes drops my stomach. Kendel and I both knew something was wrong at the exact same moment. I asked Kendel if Ellie was okay and the panic in my voice scared Kendel even more. Kendel started shrieking.

Kendel stood up with Ellie, I looked in Ellie’s face and her eyes were rolling back. She stopped breathing and Kendel yelled for me to call 911. I called and repeated my address to the lady twice because she didn’t understand when I said the “and a half” that is after our street number. I kept telling her Ellie wasn’t breathing and I asked her what to do. Of course I was freaking out of my mind with panic but the lady wouldn’t tell me what to do and I wanted to die. She just kept asking me “is she breathing yet?”.

Ellie’s face turned white, her lips were blue and her eyes were open but looking upward. She still wasn’t breathing. Kendel and I were so scared. We both lost our little brother 7 years ago and that was the only thing running through my head, I couldn’t bear to lose another little person in my life. I kept telling Kendel she was going to be okay, but honest truth she looked like she was dead and I was freaking out.

While I was on the phone with the dispatcher I was about three feet from Kendel and I could barely look at Ellie. Kendel layed Ellie on the bed and used the nose sucker thing on her, which Ellie hates with a passion, and she started to breathe again. Kendel said it seemed to startle her into breathing but who knows.

I stood in the doorway and kept telling the lady on the phone what was going on, Ellie was breathing again but doing weird things. Opening and shutting her mouth and eyes in slow motion. It was the worst thing I have ever seen.

The lady told me the ambulance was coming and then I hung up. Kendel gave Ellie to me and I sat on the couch with her. She was totally dazed out and still acting weird and it seemed like it took the ambulance forever but everything happens in slow motion when you’re that scared.

The paramedics came in and looked Ellie over and then took her and Kendel to the hospital. I drove to the ER and we were there for about 5 hours. They did blood work, tested her urine and all they found out was that she had two ear infections and a bit of a bladder infection.

We had just taken Ellie to the doctor a few weeks ago because she had a cold and they put her on antibiotics but apparently they didn’t work and instead of getting better her ears got worse. She hadn’t been pulling on them or anything so we had no idea. She had been a little fussy in the days prior to this but she’s teething so we just thought it was that.

After all that time in the ER and the blood draws and the x-ray to see if she swallowed something they decided to admit her for overnight observation. Kendel stayed with her at the hospital and I went home at about 9. I layed in bed all night with Ellie’s face plastered to my eyelids. The scene played over and over and I couldn’t help but think about my little brother.

After a night in the hospital they still had nothing to tell us. Ellie is on antibiotics and has a doctors apt in a few days. She has been totally fine and normal since it happened but we both keep a hawks eye on her. I can’t imagine the unbearable pain that goes along with losing your baby but I do know the pain of losing a sweet little person from your life and it’s something that never goes away. You can never really come to terms with it like you can an old dying grandmother. The little people are supposed to stay so the big people can smile.

I wrote this a few days ago and have been pondering if I wanted to post it. Right now I say yes, tomorrow I may say no. peace & love greenbeans!

please click to see the bigger version…

I have talked to a few people before about wanting to adopt kids and I know I’ve wrote about it here before but there is still this one little thing I don’t get, how do people honestly think they couldn’t love someone else’s baby as much as one that came out of their own vajayjay? Ellie isn’t mine but I’ll be god damned if I could ever love anything more than I love her.

I loved her the minute she popped into this world and I have only loved her more each day. When she looks at me and smiles my heart hurts and I just feel like crying because she is so precious. Yeah it may sounds cheesy but it’s the truth, Laycie’s a cheesball.

Today I was dancing for her and she started laughing. LAUGHING! she has made tiny giggles here and there that you miss if you blink but today it was full on laughing and it made me feel like I was a freaking superhero. Kendel was super jealous, told me she’d been trying to make her laugh all afternoon. Finally Ellie realizes her aunty Laycie needs to feel special. I made the baby LAUGH!

Like I said, she’s not my baby. I don’t sleep with her, I don’t get up in the middle of the night and make her bottles but I will always be her to do a funny dance and make her laugh. I’m going to be the amazing aunty Laycie. :)

Happy Thursday everyone! I went to the doctor yesterday to talk about my hand and my infinite sadness but apparently the stupid person I called to make the appointment with gave a me a short time with the doctor so she made me pick which was most important to me. I didn’t pick my hand, and being able to use my hand is very important to me.

She asked me how I was feeling and how long it had been going on and whatever else she could fit into 3 minutes, made me fill out some little questionnaire things and then told me that from my symptoms I could possibly be anemic so she ordered some blood work and decided to ask me real quick about my hand and ordered one more little blood test to check for something that could cause arthritis, or something.

I just saw Michael Moore’s Sicko movie last week and the whole time I was sitting the room waiting I just kept thinking about that movie and how it’s so insane how suck-a-licious health care is here. I have never felt like my doctor truely cared about me because they are only giving you like 30 seconds to tell them your problem and how can you really treat someone when maybe you aren’t getting the whole story.

Who knows, I hate the doctors office and that’s why this is only the second time I have been there in 12 years. I was trying to see if I could never go again but my dumb hand and my mom’s constant ramblings about how I need to be checked for rheumatoid arthritis just bounce around in my head.

So I have another appointment in a few weeks to go back and see what my blood told her. Probably nothing more than: this girl eats too much icecream and hasn’t had enough hamburgers in the past few months. Hopefully it says something helpful though.

I have a low heart rate, not because I am an elite athlete but just because I am awesome, and I love seeing how people react to it. When I had my fun little surgery I was hooked up to come machine that kept beeping because my rate was dropping too low and yesterday the doctor listened to my heart and brought a clock in to count my pulse, what kind of doctor doesn’t have a watch with a second hand, come on!

I’m not sure what I really got out of the doctors appointment besides flashbacks to my grade school counseling sessions when I would just start crying because I didn’t know what to say. Sometimes the words coming out of your mouth just make things more real and sometimes I don’t want things to be real, I want them to be pretend fake things that I can forget about.

Having your blood taken sucks. It’s annoying and disgusting. I am not a fan and I don’t recommend it as a leisurely activity.

Besides all that my life pretty much revolves around Kendel and baby. I’m fine with that right now because I love my sister and who doesn’t love babies? I’m holding the little glow worm right now, she’s so cute! Kendel wraps her up all snug and we call her the little burrito or the little glow worm.

I still have more pics on my camera but this set will take you from the water breaking to about 5:30 this evening. we only took about 100 more pictures since 5:30 so there will be more to come for sure. It’s really awesome to be an aunt, it was amazing to see my sister do this and this baby is so dang little!

Thanks to everyone who came and visited today, it really made Kendel feel special plus we were kinda getting bored sitting here alone this afternoon. I was the lucky one who got the hospital bracelet so I got to stay the night here with her and now I am on night two. I was stinking like no tomorrow though so I took a shower here tonight and feel a million times better. I am super tired but really excited to share these pics so I spent a whole 30 minutes picking out my favs and uploading them.

Kendel gets to come home tomorrow and I get to see my babies. Michael said they were all looking for me except Badger so either he was trying to make me feel good or I am the most amazing cat mom ever!