Category: Day-to-day & Personality

What makes Ellie who she is and what goes on day-to-day

Enforcing our parenting decisions

Martina & I have chosen a fairly “atypical” upbringing for Ellie, and raising her means sticking to those decisions and enforcing them at every turn.

For example, we’ve decided that we’re going to raise her vegan: I’m vegetarian (mostly vegan, and heading for strictly vegan), while Martina is already strictly vegan. There will be difficult times, where we’re forced to hunt high and low for something appropriate for Ellie to eat, or she’ll be offered ice cream, or some other food that she’s just not allowed, and we’ll have to politely turn down the offer.

Aside from just eating vegan, we’re actively seeking healthy food choices, and organic foods wherever possible. After all, cookies, cakes and chocolate can be vegan too. So her access to sweets and treats is going to be severely limited. This is going to mean there will be some awkward situations for us and the inevitable “Oh, well why not?” from those used to plying their children with rocket fuel. Continue reading “Enforcing our parenting decisions”

Ellie’s 6-month picture

Today is Christmas Day, which is also Ellie’s 6-month birthday.

Ellie is so much fun these days and Martina and I are enjoying parenting much more than in the first few months. She’s a lot of fun and is developing new skills every week.

Ellie is now rolling over, sitting up without much support, laughing, playing and recognising people and animals quite readily.

6 months

Height: 26.75in (81st percentile)
Weight: 15lbs 3oz (30th percentile)
Head circumference: 17.13in (82nd percentile)

Passport time

As Martina and I have started discussing when to go to England in 2014 (since we’ve decided that we’re definitely going next year), we figured we should start getting Ellie’s passports squared away.

It is very important to us that Ellie get her British citizenship, so we started to assemble all of the necessary paperwork and documents.

It’s not a cheap adventure: by the time she gets both her red and blue passports, it will have cost us about $500 in applications fees, courier fees and record fees, but it’s both necessary, and important to us.

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