My New Favorite Game........Pat-E-Cake!

Sleeping is Good!

One Crazy Week

My new swing! Look I'm getting so big!! My daddy and me...we're best buds.Here I am all bundled up to get in the car to take Mom and Dad to class! I love my bouncer seat! Also...this is the cute onsie that I got from my other little friend, Ellie! It has Ellie embroidered on the bottom...I'll have to get a picture of that next time! Well, this past week has been pretty crazy for Team Gramkow! Our babysitter, Lori and her family got sick so it was up to Mom and Dad to figure out how to make this work! Ellie got a lot of carseat time as Mom packed up Ellie to pick up Dad outside the engineering complex at 10:20 am only to switch drivers and drop Mom off at her class that started at 10:30 am. I don't think Ellie minded it much at all, but it was a bit taxing on Mom and Dad! We're praying for Bill, Lori and Bridget and good health to come their way soon! It's no fun being sick! Prayers for Mandy too as she is now sick! :( I am SO ready for cold and flu season to be done! Yesterday the symptoms really hit hard so I've been camping out on the couch while Ben does an amazing job of caring for Ellie. So frustrating, but I'm trying to sleep as much as possible this weekend to hopefully get rid of this cold ASAP! The past week we've had a couple Ellie appointments. Jeanette, our infant toddler case worker, and occupational therapist came to assess Ellie's development. Ellie does a great job of tracking your voice and will follow you if you move. It's pretty fun. We tried to get her to track a toy while Jeanette was here and she wouldn't follow the toy, but would a face! Faces are so much more interesting! :) Ellie was also all smiles when Jeanette started talking to her. Too fun! We did notice that Ellie favors turing her head to her right, so we've rearranged some stuff in the house (her bouncy seat, her diaper changing station) to try to get her to strengthen the left side. We also have some black and white pictures she likes to look at because we learned that babies love to look at contrast. We've also tried to increase her tummy time. She's still not very strong at keeping her head up, but with practice, hopefully it'll get better! She also is starting to find her hands and will put them to her mouth. She actually sometimes helps herself put her pacifier back in her mouth! Friday Ellie and I went to Family Connections and visited with at county health nurse, Sharon. It's mostly educational and informational things about Ellie's growth. We also got her weighed and she's 9 lbs. 11 oz. now! Yippee! That means she gained 9 ounces in the past 8 days. We have started to see an increase in mLs in her feedings. I think her record is 86 I think...anyways, she's still having some fussy feedings in the evenings with her classic arch back, but for the most part, she's doing better with her feedings. Dr.Duff did say it would take 1-2 weeks to for us to see if the increased dose of prilosec would help her acid reflux. So far so good with being off the caffeine. Praise Jesus for that one! She's such a delight and we're sure enjoying Ellie as she's become more responsive! What fun! Please just pray as we continue to have many life roles this semester and that we can be the parents Ellie needs us to be. Both Ben and I thought often of how we are so proud of our little princess and how she's 9 lbs. 11 oz - soooooooooooo different from 2 lbs. 8 oz.!! Enjoy the new pictures!