A typical morning

Thought I'd document a typical morning on my days at home with Eli. Here's how this morning went....

6:15.... woke up because Mike was getting ready for work and I heard the cats meowing for food. Got out of bed as quieeeeeeetly as possible so as to not wake my sleeping baby. Made it out successfully.

6:20... said goodbye to hubby and went to the couch to keep sleeping (God forbid I open the door to go back into the bedroom.... that would have surely woken the little prince up).

7:08...Hear Eli talking to himself. Go back to sleep.

7:15... Hear Eli getting louder, singing now. Get up... warm up a bottle...brush my teeth... come back and hear silence. Thinking Eli went back to sleep.

7:25... tackle the huge pile of "things to do" that has been building up on my counter for about 2 weeks now. Sort through the mail, clean up a mess, find address book, put stamps on thank you cards that I wrote a month ago...

7:45... hear Eli again. Louder this time. Decide to go in. Happy baby this morning! Watch him dance around his crib while singing.

7:55... diaper change. Able to distract him from screaming bloody murder by finding a few toys for him to play with. Becomes a diaper change/game of catch.

8:00.. bottle...cuddle with Eli.

8:05...Let Eli loose and quickly run around hiding things he's not supposed to touch...remote controls, pens, etc. Move things away from the edges of tables, counters, etc.

8:10...Watch him play with his tractor and dump truck...trying to teach him things so am constantly yelling out "what does a goat say? where's your hippo? oops - your tractor fell down..." Etc. It's a running commentary.

8:20... Play basketball with Eli.

8:25.... pick up the farm animals, toys, etc that he keeps tripping on.

8:30.... try to distract him from continuously going over to his stroller, trying to knock it down.

8:35.... breakfast time! Try to cut up fruit for Eli in the kitchen while he's playing with his farm magnets... but...

8:37...he notices me cutting up blueberries and attaches himself to my legs, crying for blueberries.

8:38...manage to wash/dry/cut blueberries with a crying baby attached to me.

8:40.... put Eli in his high chair. Get him strapped in, only to realize... poopy diaper. Take Eli out of high chair.

8:42... screaming poopy diaper change.

8:45... back in the high chair... start to dole out the food. Papaya and blueberries.

8:46... start to prepare MY breakfast. Eli starts screaming for more. Feed eli more. come back to my breakfast. Just about get everything prepared...then he is screaming for more. cut up more fruit for eli.

8:55... sit down to eat my breakfast. Eli now throwing his papaya cause he's done with it. Take away all of his papaya. Realize he doesn't have water. Search for eli's cup. Find it - not washed.

9:00.... wash Eli's cup... fill it with water. Give it to him.. he wants help holding it.... then throws cup. wants more food. go get him a banana. try to take a bite of my food, but he sees it and wants it. Give him part of my bread.

9:02.. manage to take a few bites of my breakfast. Then peel the banana and give it to him... he wants to hold it.... so constant monitoring to make sure he doesn't shove the whole thing into his mouth. Gets to the end and shoves way too big of a piece in his mouth... his lips are even puckered out cause there's so much banana in there. Watch intently, praying he doesn't choke. He swallows... all is well.

9:05 .. take the rest of the banana, cut it up into small pieces... dole it out a few pieces at a time.

9:07... try to wipe eli's hands down cause he has smooshed banana everywhere. eli screams as if I'm slicing his hands with a knife.

9:09... finish part of my breakfast. eli is done. decide to wipe down eli and the high chair and abandon the rest of my breakfast.

9:11... take eli out of his high chair and attempt to find all of the food he threw.

9:12... realize eli is not in the room with me...realize it's too quiet... never a good sign. Abandon clean-up and run to bedroom... find eli opening and closing his drawers.

9:13... watch as Eli opens his drawer and one by one takes out and throws all of the shorts I so neatly folded up a few days ago.

9:15... watch as Eli discovers a basket of my things and decide it's not harmful to let him take things out one by one and carry them to different spots in my room.

9:16... watch as he takes his shorts and places them all over the room.

9:17... realize he's standing still and making the pooping face. Seriously? We just had a poopy diaper.

9:20... clean up MASSIVE poopy diaper while distracting Eli with his ball..monkeys...dog.

9:25... take eli out to the living room and put him down... SCREAMING....realize he is now tired and wants to be held. Leave him there so i can get rid of the diaper, wash my hands, finish cleaning up papaya.

9:27.... come back to crying baby.. pick him up and take him over to read stories. Read 3 books...throw three books from the shelf....read 1... fling one...read one....watch as he takes five more down.... watch as he decides standing on top of his books are a fun idea.

9:40.... decide we'll try coloring a picture for a few people. Find the crayons and the paper... spend the next 10 minutes saying "no, not in the mouth" "over here...the paper, not the floor" "don't eat the paper" "i said don't eat the paper" "not in the mouth" "not on the floor" and then decide coloring time is over. Pack up the crayons and put them away.

9:55... realize eli is chewing something. Tackle him and do the finger sweep despite the sharp dagger teeth, get bit a few times, then rescue the piece of soggy paper he was chewing on.

10:00... carry the tired baby (who is now flailing to get out of my arms) to his crib for nap time. 10:05... listen as he is singing/talking to himself, wondering if he's going to go to sleep.

10:15. Ahhh. silence. Look around the room at the 22 books on the ground, the unpacked bags from yesterday, the dishes, the farm animals, the balls, the tractors... and decide to finish my breakfast.

10:20... finish breakfast. Decide to forgo shower and get online instead.

And that, my friends, was a typical morning in the Flores house :)

Crazy Boy

Anyone have any tips for getting a 14 month old to sit quietly in church? ...pause.... I didn't think so. Tonight was an adventure!!! (We try to go to church on Saturday nights so we can go as a family - because I work on Sundays). He actually sat still in his stroller with only minimal yelling since I gave him a new book about every 30 seconds... but then the natives were getting restless and I decided to take him out of his stroller. BIG mistake. He was EVERYWHERE. Luckily, he took time every now and again to flirt with the ladies in the back row and dance for his old man friend in the back. It's getting REALLY hard to contain him now that he knows how to un-contain himself. :)

Today he learned how to kick the ball. Yes, it appears at this stage that he is merely trying to stand ON the ball, but in attempting to do so, he actually kicked it a few times. Fun. He also learned that he can throw his fire truck across the room. The poor neighbors down below.

He was super excited about reading his train book and his plane book tonight. He's turning into such a boy!

Yesterday we went up to visit Tita Rachna, Tito Nick and Dexter and all of us took a trip to the pool. Eli wasn't too sure about the baby pool except for when his new 2 year old friend came over to play... and he DEFINITELY was terrified of the waterslide... but he really had fun in the big pool bouncing and floating with mommy. I didn't get a chance to put him in his blow up raft/boat thing - can't wait to try that next time. When we went back to Dexter's house, the boys had great fun trying to steal toys from each other, push each other on the big cars and run after each other. Dexter kept trying to hug (we'll call it hugging) eli, and eli was not too keen with that idea. Haha.

Let the adventures continue!

The adventures continue!

Wow - this child is seriously like a sponge right now. It's like I can't teach him things fast enough. He's trying to copy all of the words we're saying...and sometimes gets them! He can now tell us what a cow, sheep and tiger say. When he sees his cow or sheep, he'll run over saying "mooo" or "baaaaa." When he wakes up in the morning or gets ready for bed, he now ASKS for his bottle. As soon as I take him out of his crib in the morning, he says "Baba" (bottle). We tried a sippy cup this morning in place of the baba, but that didn't go over so hot. He only drank an ounce. Ah well... we'll keep trying. Grandma taught him how to say Hippo ("Opo!") and when he sees his hippo stuffed animal, he runs over to it saying "opo! opo!"

He can also now say (though by no means perfectly) orange, truck, riley (haha... it doesn't come out sounding exactly like riley, but it's close). He says "bapde" for bathtub and for tractor. We were at a friend's house the other night and they had a ride-on mower in their garage. he RAN over to it squealing "bapde! bapde!!" When I put him on the seat, he was SOOOOO excited. He's turned into a real truck boy and loves pushing around all of his trucks.

Last night he surprised me by saying "ball" when he saw his meatball (yeah - good luck for me in trying to get him to eat those and not throw them now) and also by saying it when he saw a picture of a ball in a book. I'm glad he's able to recognize the 2D images!

He likes to chase riley around EVERYWHERE now. He starts squealing with delight whenever he sees her and chases her around until she hides. I'm surprised she lets him get so close to her. He's definitely into trying to grab her tail right now.

His new favorite thing to do in the tub is take his watering can, put it up on the ledge (mommy gets wet a lot of the time cause it falls on her) and then put the lid on. He's pretty good at lining up lids! Whenever he gets it on, he screams and claps. Then we knock it over and do it again...and again...and again. Last night he surprised me by grabbing one of his letters and saying "letter!" He's repeated the word before, but this was unprovoked.

This morning was super cute... he ran over to his books and grabbed his new favorite truck book... handed it to me and stood there waiting for me to read it. I asked him "Do you want to get in my lap?" and he came over and sat in my lap. Did he really understand me? I don't know, but it's pretty fascinating to see!

This morning while I was getting dressed, he passed the time by opening and closing three of his drawers and emptying them out. He pointed at his shorts drawer and said "shorts." Freaky.

We had a super fun weekend! Sunday, we headed over to Tita Rachna's house for best buddy Dexter's first birthday! Yaaaay! Eli had great fun running around with the balloons, hanging out in the pool, eating fruit from everyone's plates, playing trucks with Dex and refusing to take his nap. :) After the party, we went to Tito Jerome's place in Jersey to have dinner (yum!) and watch the fireworks. Eli was all decked out in his red, white and blue and passed the hour long wait for the fireworks by walking around making new friends. He loves talking to anyone and everyone and still screams if he doesn't get the attention he wants. He also lets out a girly scream whenever he sees a kid or stroller. He runs up to them and wants to play. He also had GREAT fun walking around wearing Tito Kris's hat... he loves putting on big people hats and taking them off...putting them on.... He likes walking around with them obstructing his vision.

The fireworks were great fun! Eli sat on Daddy's shoulders (and for a few minutes on Mommy's) and was mesmerized the whole time. We were a few miles away from the actual fireworks, so they weren't too loud and were by no means scary. It made for a super late night but it was fun!

It's July!

I can't believe it's July 1st. I'm loving spending the summer with Eli and am afraid it's going to go by way to quickly! Noooooo.

Today was a super fun day. Because of the generosity of my dear friend Wendy, season ticket holder for the Yankees, I got to take Eli to a game today! It was my first time in the new stadium (LOVE IT) and my first time taking Eli to a game! We went with my friend Bridget and her 2 year old daughter, Tara. We got there a little late (I find it nearly impossible to get to places on time these days) and I was truthfully only expecting Eli to last 2 innings or so. I'm happy to report we sat in our seats until the 7th inning!!! He had great fun playing with Tara (who wanted to hold him and endlessly touch his cheeks and give him kisses...super cute!), standing up on his chair to scream at the top of his lungs at the people behind us, eating his first soft (er...slightly hard) pretzel, clapping (randomly...rarely at the right time) and pointing at the jumbo-tron.

In the 7th inning, we went to walk around, which lasted for a while until we found the stairs.... All he wants to do these days is go up and down stairs (he could be there for an hour if I'd let him). So we hightailed it out of there and headed for the Yankee Museum. To get there, we had to take a super long ramp, which is usually super boring... but it was definitely Eli's favorite part of the day. He LOVES running up and down ramps these days, so for him, this was like.... the ultimate ramp heaven. lol. I'd try to hold his hand cause he was running really fast and I didn't want him to hit the concrete, but every time I did, he would stop, pry my fingers off, then turn around and take off again. It wasn't super crowded, so I let him go. He did great! No falls! When we got to the museum, he had GREAT fun running around and trying to look behind the displays and climb underneath the ball display. We posed for some pictures in front of the trophies and then headed back into the stadium. We were having a mini-meltdown and were about to leave when we heard da-na-na-na-na... Mariano's music!!! The whole stadium jumped to it's feet... and we turned around and came right back. We watched the inning...and the Yankees won! WOOHOO!

I carried him the whole way there and back...so my biceps were BURNING. Good workout!

Other favorite things of note these days....

-pulling all of the dishtowels down from where they are supposed to be hanging and twirling them around

-reaching for things on the table that were previously unreachable... he's taller and can reach the edges of the dining room table and anything that's up on the shelf in the living room. This is how he got the remote control one day and tried to order movies on demand.

-trying to squeeze his head into small spaces

-trying to help mommy cook by standing behind her and holding onto both legs so she can't walk anywhere

-opening any drawer that has clothes in it and removing all of the clothes. Silly drawers! Why are the clothes INside...he wonders.

One day last week after a nap, he all of a sudden got quiet. I assumed (HA) he had fallen back asleep. A few minutes later, I heard talking and went in... to find that he had reached his box of diapers, had pulled them all into the crib with him and was opening them and flinging them around. Yup - changed the furniture around after THAT one.

He's starting to copy us more and more and it's really cute when you can see the wheels turning as he's trying to say what we say. His vocabulary now consists of "mama" "Dada" "baba" (for which he is referring to his bottle), "up down" (He says them together), moo, water, ball, shoe, sock and truck.

He still LOVES LOVES LOVES his fire truck (carries it everywhere) and his tractor with his farm animals (both presents from his aunts!). He carries his little farm animals around all day and even fell asleep holding his little plastic cow tonight. He also LOVES playing with his basketball and playground ball. He has a pretty forceful little throw, too - it shocks me sometimes.

Mom is driving up from Maryland tomorrow to babysit for the day - we're super excited to see her!

Summer is here!

Summer is here and I am so excited to share it with my little man. Last summer, Eli was pretty much a cute looking blob who couldn't really do much other than poop and smile. Now, we have a whole world of fun summer stuff to explore!

Today was my first solo day with Eli in more than a month, and we've made the most of it. He woke up early (how come he only sleeps in on the days Daddy is watching him?) and we went for a morning walk so we could move the car (booo to alternate side street parking.... yaay to the thought that ONE day, I will have my own driveway). Nap one was short, but I was able to make some banana/granola/walnut muffins for Daddy and co-workers. (I'm on a baking kick right now. I especially enjoy baking things I don't like so that I'm not tempted to eat them). After lunch, we headed to the park for a long overdue playdate with Sawyer. It was SO cute when they saw each other. Eli literally screamed with glee and started laughing. They have a lot of fun together. We brought Eli's mini blue stroller and they took turns pushing each other's strollers around the field. He still prefers the pink one, I think, but we won't tell Daddy that. :) There were some little boys playing ball nearby and Eli ran right over and introduced himself ("AHHHHHHH!") and joined right in. I love that he's such a social little guy and hope that continues.

We went to the playground and climbed up and down and up and down the slide. He now LOVES slides and ramps and stairs. The other night when we were at Lolo and Lola's house, he literally spent about 30 minutes just climbing up and down the steps. He can't quite figure out how to get down yet, so it's good he has mommy or daddy there to hold onto! But I digress...back to the park. We were caught in a HUGE downpour, but it was kind of fun running through the rain. And we didn't even melt. Truth is, it helped to cool us off cause it was really hot out there! (Yay summer!).

Our new favorite discovery of the day is putting our fire truck up on the coffee table and then pushing it off so it goes crashing to the ground. We then carry the fire truck to a new location, push it on the ground for 5 seconds, and then carry it back to the coffee table...repeat. GREAT fun. (Sorry neighbors downstairs!) We also really enjoy unpacking the contents of the under part of the stroller today and have done it about 5 times today. Mommy learned that we can no longer keep snacks in little ziplock bags and we are now attempting to chew through the plastic to get to the cheerios/snacks. Lovely. Good thing we have some fun snack containers.

Our favorite word (other than the ever popular "Dada") is ball, and we say it whenever we pick up or see one of our 4 balls. Eli got Daddy a mini basketball for father's day, but because it's a little heavier than the other balls, he usually ends up throwing it behind him.

I thought he left a destructive path when he played before... HAAA...that was NOTHING compared to how quickly he can turn this place upside down now.

Still eating like a champ! This morning for breakfast, he had a banana, an orange, a piece of toast and some cheerios. When you aren't moving fast enough (most of the time he eats faster than I can cut), he screams "NAAAA" and points at whatever food you are keeping from him. I don't usually get to eat until after he's done now, cause if I stop to take a bite of my own food, he's already done with his food. One day he'll learn how to chew properly, right?

He can now consistently point to his nose (but usually sticks his finger UP it...greeeat) when asked and is starting to be able to do ear and eye. The eye part is creepy, though, cause it looks like he's poking his eye too hard. Also, if you ask him "What does a cow say?" he'll reply "moooo." Super fun.

One more thing - whenever he sees a dog these days, he makes his mouth into a little circle and says "OOOOOO" while pointing at the dog. Super cute.

:)

In California!

We survived our first plane ride as a family to California! A 5 hr 45 min flight that I was absolutely dreading turned out to be totally manageable, thanks to my brave little traveler. I couldn't fathom how a child who can't sit in my lap for more than 5 minutes was going to do it, but he made it.... 2 naps and about 5 mini-meltdowns later, we were in LA, ready to see family.

Staying with Tita Carol has been wonderful. She lives in Brentwood (west LA), not too far from Santa Monica. It's been SO great to meet and see family and we're so glad we made the trip.

I'm tired and don't want to make this a long post... just wanted to update with a few things before I forget them!

-Eli is 13 months old today!!!! (Happy Birthday, Grandma!)

-About 5 days ago, Eli started doing the cutest thing.... when he picks up my phone, he'll hold it up to his ear and walk around babbling, as if he's really having a conversation. I guess he's seen me and Mike talk on the phone enough times that he learned how to mimic it! He'll also hold it up to his ear if you say "Hello!"

-About a week ago, Eli all of a sudden turned into a mama's boy. My child now spends part of his day standing at my feet crying, begging for me to hold him. My child who previously would go to anyone acts like I am dismembering him if I hand him to someone other than me. On the plane ride, I was the lucky ONLY person he would allow to hold him. This will hopefully pass.

-Auntie jenn taught Eli "Hands up!" and "Near.....Far." hands up comes in quite handy when it's time to put him in the high chair. It's also a fun party trick. Near and far is just super cute. If you say neeeeear, he'll walk up and put his forehead up to yours. Say faaaaar and he'll back up. Too cute. I also taught him to put his hands on his head whenever i say "Oh my goodness!"

-His favorite thing in LIFE right now is carrying around the little green disposable diaper bags after I've changed his diaper.

-He does NOT like tomatoes.

-His favorite word at the moment (ours too) is "Nanda." Sometimes it sounds like he's saying Nada. :)

Ok...off to bed - just wanted to jot some things down as I remembered them.

First Haircut!!!

Tonight, Eli got his first haircut! Woohoo! Mike has been against it because he truly liked Eli's rock star hair. I didn't mind it too much until the last couple weeks.... it's been really getting in his eyes and has been hard for him to see.

So yesterday, Mike agreed to let me get his haircut... if he did it. I didn't know that he was a good barber... but he told me that in his college days, all of his friends would come to him for touch-ups.

We put eli in his high chair and put him directly in front of the TV... with Sesame Street playing. He was INSTANTLy engrossed and was even laughing at Grover, dancing with Elmo and trying to sing with Big Bird. It was the cutest thing ever. I still don't want him watching tv until he's 2, but when he's 2, it'll be fun to watch Sesame Street with him! I also now have renewed hope that he'll do ok on the plane if we let him watch a movie :)

Mike did an AMAZING job. I loooooove it. He can see now!!!! He looks super cute. And we're not going to have to pay for any haircuts until Eli gets old enough to care. Yaaaay!

We're off to CT tomorrow to visit with Jenn! We get to spend the whole week with her before she continues on her world travels. Yay!