Unstoppable

Wow - this kid is UNSTOPPABLE. I knew it would be tough when he started crawling, but maaaan. I'm going to have to start taking naps again. He started crawling on Saturday, January 9th, three days before he turned 8 months old. He was so proud of himself when he figured it out. And what did he go straight for? The dirty stroller wheels. For some reason, those are just fascinating to him. Now, no matter how far I put them away from him or how much I distract him, he still goes right for them...at lightening speed. Looks like we're going to have to find a new place to put the stroller.

His "crawl" is adorable. He still can't figure out how to get around in quadraped, so he lowers himself to his belly and drags himself. He refuses to use his left leg... he just holds it up in the air and it goes along for the ride. The PT in me so wants to fix it, but pffft - he's doing fine. Maybe he's a future soccer star and is just protecting his kicking leg. :)

This Saturday, the 23rd, he went from being manageable to Mr. Squirm/High Energy crazy boy. I can't even hold him... he just squirms his way out. If I were to let him, he'd fling himself mid-air.... and would probably land and keep going without batting an eye.

He's also pulling up on everything. Yesterday when Daddy put him down to sleep at night, he went in there after 15 minutes of screaming to find out that he was standing up in his crib. Uh oh. Just don't try to climb out yet, little buddy! He loves crawling over to me and pulling up on me, too. He loves standing at the coffee table or at the couch... but hasn't yet figured out how to cruise while standing.

Last week was the first time we left Eli to go on vacation! Mike and I went to Vegas for three days and Eli had fun staying with Grandma in Maryland. He was a perfect angel (according to Grandma) and they had great fun looking at Bob, sitting in the high chair and looking in the backyard at the birdies, reading stories, taking out all of Grandma's CDs from her drawer and opening and closing the cabinets.

Two nights ago, when I was putting Eli to bed, I noticed that he's getting his top left tooth! I can definitely see it! He was fine until yesterday afternoon...he became Mr. Upset crankypants and has pretty much been that way since. Poor little guy. It's hard to tell...he might be getting both at the same time.

Yesterday, we had great fun hanging out with Tita Rachna and Dexter! The boys enjoy hitting each other in the face, trying to poke each other's eyes out, pulling each other's heads, rolling on top of each other and holding hands. It's so fun to see them together. Rachna is now back at work full time, so I'm hoping we'll still be able to get the boys together regularly.

Food-wise, he's doing great. He likes everything so far...except for Avocado. We'll keep trying, though! We just started trying more finger foods. Today he had a few teeny bits of honeydew and for a snack, I gave him some peas. When snack time was over, I was amazed that so many peas were missing from his tray.... when I lifted him out, I found out why. There were a bunch mashed all over the seatbelt and he was sitting on about 5. Nice.

Ok... over and out for now!

Eli's First Christmas and New Year's!

I keep forgetting to update... mostly because I use Facebook a lot to add pictures and tell Eli stories. But I remembered tonight so here I am!

Eli's first Christmas was great! He loved opening presents.... especially tearing the wrapping paper, transferring it back and forth from hand to hand, and trying to put it in his mouth. Eating the boxes was also a big hit. We gave him three books about the real meaning of Christmas (which will mean more to him over the next few years, but I wanted him to have them for his first Christmas), a wooden spoon from Ikea, and a few 1st Christmas ornaments. He got lots of great toys, clothes, and ornaments from friends and relatives.... and I need to remember to write thank you notes SOON! It was so much fun being able to have baby Eli with us this Christmas!

On the 30th, we got a GREAT GREAT surprise... Jenn flew out from Korea so she could see Eli! So happy they finally got to meet. They bonded instantly and it was so, so great to see them together. The visit was about 36 hours but the best Christmas present I ever could have asked for.

For New Year's, we went over to Mike's sister's house like we always do. I love getting to spend that day with them all...so much fun! We put Eli to bed late (around 9) and then got a fun surprise.... he woke up at 11:45! So we got to put a hat on him, give him a noisemaker, and have him join in the fun. I wonder if he thinks that's what happens every night when he's sleeping. It was really wonderful to be able to ring in the new year with both of my boys. :)

He's been really happy these last few days. He's on the briiiiiiink of crawling... he now is able to get up on all 4s and rock back and forth. And he drags himself from his play mat over to the wall so he can try to chew on the corner of my closet. Rolling is still his preferred method of getting around, but he's getting close!!! He loooves standing and holding onto things and I put the legs on his little activity table yesterday so he can stand and play. He loves to "dance" while he's standing, which is super cute. His current #1 fascination is the zipper on my fleece jacket... he loves to play with it. Coming in a close second are the buttons on my shirt, followed by light switches. He still loves looking at the cats and it is soooo cute to see him smile and laugh at them. I love that he still gives us "kisses" and he cracks himself up when he does it.

Eli is a great eater! Right now he has an 8oz bottle when he wakes up, then breakfast (a fruit mixed with cereal) an hour later... then two more bottles... then dinner (a veggie) and a bottle before bed. I'm wondering if we're ready to move to three meals a day. I'm really having a great time making food for him... baby cookbooks are fun and inspiring and are filled with combos I would have never come up with... like what I made tonight (Parsnips and apples, Cauliflower and Sweet Potatoes...). I love letting him try new things! So far he loves everything except avocado (third try tonight), green beans, and pumpkin.

Yaaay 2010!!!

7 months old!

I can hardly believe my little baby is 7 months old today! I feel like 6 months is still little...but 7...7 is big! He's getting closer and closer to a year! I was standing in front of my tree tonight, thinking back to last year when Mike and I took our "family" picture with me, him, Riley and Cliffy. Amazing how much can change in a year.

Eli is becoming quite the squirmy little guy! It's getting harder to hold him cause he just wants to squirm everywhere! Explore, explore, explore. It's so fun to see how the little things we don't even THINK about....like how the numbers in the elevator light up.... just thrill this kid.

So this week, I discovered that when I laugh at Eli, he laughs back. Super cute...especially when he's trying to be mr. sad cranky eli. I love tricking him into laughing. :) There's not a day that goes by that I don't think about how lucky I am to have this kid.

Eli's favorite things at this age are: chewing the covers off of his books, squealing as loud as he can, pretending to cough, getting as much slobber on mommy's face as possible (I love Eli kisses!), pretending to wake up at 5am, singing loudly during the quiet moments in church, running his fingers through Mommy's hair, rolling all over the living room, eating the remote control, pulling his hat over his face and just being CUTE. :)

Yay Food!

So far, Eli loves food! It's so much fun to feed him. I hate that we have to wait 2-3 days before introducing new foods.. I wish I could just sit down and feed him tons of different things to see what he likes. We started with rice cereal (likes), then carrots (likes), then sweet potatoes (starting to like them more), then oatmeal (likes more than rice cereal), then pumpkin (haaaaated it), then squash (LOVES!), then green beans (dislikes). I'm making my own food because I tried it and it's REALLY easy. I thought it would be much harder or annoying, but it's SO easy! For sweet potatoes, I baked one potato, then blended it up, added some water and wala! Done! One sweet potato was EIGHT servings of food for him. I'm doing the whole...freeze the food in the ice cube tray and serve it later thing. It's great! Four carrots made 3 servings. I think this is definitely the cheapest way to go. I love my magic bullet...it's blending everything up perfectly! Tonight, we move on to peas. I have a feeling he's not going to go for them, but we'll see. :) I have carrots on standby.

6 months old!

It's been a fun past two weeks!!! First of all, the one tooth is really noticeable now (hard to get a picture cause he hides it). Two days ago, when I was feeling to see how sharp the tooth was, I felt another one next door! Woohoo! He didn't complain about that one coming in at all... such a brave little guy. So now he has his two bottom teeth! Can't wait til they show up in pictures. :)

Last week, Eli finally rolled from his back to his belly (he'd previously only been doing belly to back) on his own! Woohoo! Before he NEVER liked to be on his side...now he's spending a lot more time there, especially when Mommy is trying to change his diaper. :) He's yet to become a steamrolling maniac... he'll pretty much just roll over once and be content with his new position. FINE by me. Buys me a little more time before he's unstoppable.

His new favorite thing to do is floor swim. When we put him on his belly now, he loves lifting both arms and both legs, flailing as quick as he possibly can. He lasts about 5 seconds, puts them down to rest, and then goes again. It's super cute. I can totally see the energy this kid is going to have when he starts crawling and it's really scary. :)

Last week, on his 6 month birthday, we fed Eli for the first time! (Nowadays, all of the literature and pediatric societies strongly encourage waiting until 6 months to eat so their digestive systems are better developed). One teaspoon of rice cereal to four teaspoons of formula pretty much felt like I was feeding him his formula with a spoon... but it was still super fun! The first face he gave us was priceless... but then he proceeded to gobble the rest of it up. Mmmm. I'm waiting til today's doc appointment to give him the next food, because there are a million different opinions about the proper "order" to feed the baby....and I just want to get her take on it. Most likely, we will be giving him carrots, since that's the veggie mommy ate most when she was pregnant and he might already like it. :) I'm super excited about making his food and did a trial run with the carrots today. Yay!

He's really doing great! Mike and I are so, so, so thankful that we have such a great kid. As one of my patients told me yeterday, God gives you the good one first so that you're encouraged to have more.

The tooth is coming

It's been a busy week! First of all, I noticed on Sunday (Nov 1st) that Eli's first tooth is coming in! At first, it was just a big red bump... last night, I could see the actual top of the tooth. Eli's been with his Grandparents during the day for the last two days and they said he wasn't fussing at all. Could it be that I have a kid who doesn't cry when his first tooth comes in? We'll see. I think the worst is yet to come.

Our trip to Maryland was super fun!!! We got to hang out with Grandma, Aunt Rosie, Emily, Uncle Tom, Great Grandma, Aunt Kathy, Stacey and the twins! It was a busy three days but super fun ones. Eli had a lot of firsts.... first time in the leaves, first time carving pumpkins (er...he was asleep...), first time getting dressed up in his little monkey outfit! He was an ADORABLE monkey. Eli also got to meet his friends, Jonah and Gabe, who were born on the same day as Dexter! Now he has two more buddies to add to his posse. It was close to the day when he met them, so he had a big meltdown. Nothing like three screaming children to make you lose your noodle.

On Halloween, we went trick-or-treating with Eli's friend, Sonali. She was dressed as a ladybug and Eli the monkey.... super cute. We went out to a street that was all decorated and spooky... with the TONS of people there, the kids were just staring with wide eyes the whole time. They were so entranced by everything that was going on that neither of them tried to take off their hats! Yay! We went back to Sonali's building and went trick-or-treating to about 5 apartments. For Eli's first door, Mike let him lean over to the candy bowl and pick whatever he wanted. Hahaa... wouldn't you know it, my son picked the giant plastic spider that was on top of the bowl. Hahaha. Good choice, Eli. Go for the big ticket item. :)

I'm filling in for someone at work and decided to go in on Monday and Tuesday. Eli got to be with his Grandparents and I got to spend the whole day working with Mike. Monday night, I had my workout class in the city, so I came home solo and Mike went to spend the night with the baby. I was 50% happy cause I got to have a whole night of ME time and 50% sad cause I really missed my boys. It was definitely a strange combo of emotions. Tuesday was a really hard day because I missed Eli sooooo much.

I'm amazed every single day at the new things Eli can do. He's picking up skills so quickly these days... it's just remarkable to see that all unfold before my eyes. He's doing better with his sitting...especially when distracted by a fun toy! I'm so looking forward to these next three days with him before I have to go back to work!

It's almost Monkey Time!!

I am so so so excited about Halloween! Can't wait to see Eli in his adorable Monkey outfit! I've resisted the temptation to put him in it to see what he looks like. I can't wait to see!

I feel like every day this week has been filled with big changes. On Friday, he started holding his bottle all my himself! We just have to help him out with the very end. He's getting much better at sitting and balancing himself when he starts to teeter. He's reaching for EVERYTHING right now.... he just wants to touch (and put in his mouth, of course) everything he comes near. He loves looking at the cats and was actually petting Riley (without grabbing her hair like he did the first time) and laughing. Whenever the cats walk past him, he stops whatever he is doing to watch them. They are starting to come over to him (not up to him, but closer) now, too.

Tito Tommy came over this week so that Mike and I could go out to see a movie (Whip it!). It was so fun and we love knowing that Eli is in good hands. :)

He's still a great sleeper.... averaging about 11.5 hours a night. Tonight he was WIPED out and fell asleep before he could even finish his bottle. Completely limp while I was putting him in his jammies. So cute.

Our friend Julie is having her 2nd baby boy tomorrow - can't wait to hear what his name is! Another friend for Eli!

Eli's favorite activities this week: trying to fit Mrs. Seahorse in his mouth, playing with his keys, screaming and squealing while putting his keys in his mouth, fitting Mr. Cow's entire head into his mouth, grabbing books so he can bite them, gumming plastic ring toys as hard as he can, covering his face with blankets (yes, he needs to be watched), and trying to pull the skin off of mommy's neck. :) I love this kid!!!