Operation: Ella Take...Ahhh Forget It.

Ella. Will. Not. Take. A. Bottle. And it is KILLING me. Not only does she refuse the bottle, but she refuses the binky as well. I am her food, her comfort, and, lately, her all-hours-of-the-night buddy. I'm tired. So tired.

Someone got a hold of the baby powder...

Despite her adamant refusal of the aforementioned things, Zach and I ventured to Erie for his friend's wedding and left Ella with his parents. Brady stayed with my mom and dad because they're not nearly as patient as St. Mother-in-law and we knew if anyone would win Ella over, it would be Terri. She didn't do too bad, either; she actually resorted to feeding the child out of a medicine dropper. Seriously--who has that kind of patience? Anyway, Ella slept fairly well for them and even latched on to a bottle at one point and drank about 3 ounces, but other than that, all bets were off. When I say this child is stubborn, I'm talking STUBBORN. Like she's already made up her mind about how the rest of her existence on this planet will go and we're just along for the ride. This is probably God's way of getting back at me for doing the same thing to my parents. But for the love, at least I took a bottle and SLEPT.

Learn to love this crib. Immediately.

Oh sleep, how I miss thee. Since returning from what was a train wreck of a wedding (an outdoor ceremony in the RAIN, a jerky groom, bridal party chaos, horrible company AND cookies, and the need to manually relieve myself into a toilet for fear my boobs would explode--just how I wanted to spend my ONLY night out...), Ella has been punishing me by refusing to sleep. Like at all. No naps, no more than 2 hours a time at night, and even though she used to nod off in the car, she's decided she would rather scream now. Last night, after trying to put her down for two hours, was the final straw: I just broke down and cried with her. At one point I honestly entertained the thought of leaving the house. I had nowhere to go or I would have just taken off! I am beyond exhausted. What I don't get is that she's NOT. She's all smiles and giggles, especially when she's in my arms. I think she's plotting against me. I look like a homeless person and I feel like I've been hit by a bus. It's just a matter of time before I get sick and have to keep up the facade of full-time mother and teacher. And the latter, by the way, is kicking my butt, too. I'm currently training teach on another platform in addition to Blackboard and not only is it incredibly different from what I'm used to, but I've got to "hurry, hurry, hurry" and finish it in a week because our fall enrollments are picking up. If I could hit the lottery, my life would be so much better: I would quit working and then I wouldn't care if I had to be up all friggin' night with the girl. And I would be able to afford a much-needed facelift.

She drools a lot.

 My boy Brady has been all kinds of wonderful, though. He's saying more and more each day, and most of the time it's hilarious. When he woke up yesterday morning, he was softly calling for me and when I went into his room, he said, "Oh please get me out of here, I can't do it myself!" He's very dramatic. We met one of my high school friends at the park last week and her 3.5 year-old son kept Brady on his toes! There is SUCH a huge difference between a 2-year-old and an almost 4-year-old! And it was the first time I actually witnessed Brady having a conversation with another kid. ADORABLE. They discussed how yummy lollipops are and then decided they would have a race down the slide. I was in charge of yelling, "Ready, set, go," and my friend had to wave an invisible flag to signal the beginning of the race. I think both boys have watched the Cars movie one too many times.

Much like her attitude, her hair is outta control.

I woke up early today (5:30) to get some work done, and I accomplished the bare minimum and then turned to the blog. It's about 7:00 now and I'm figuring I may have a small window of extra sleep time, so I'm going to take advantage of it. As Brady would say, "Later, Mater."

Bet he wouldn't like her so much if she kept him awake all night...