Mommy Tales 2/28/2006

Another Tuesday with Elijah, another set of wonderful memories and lots of fun! Here are the highlights!

• Eli had some cheerios with lunch and I put some on his tray to see if he could pick them up. He mostly just chased them around the tray, but occasionally I’d hear a little “crunch” and see that he got one in his mouth! It reminded me of a saying of my brother’s – even a blind squirrel finds a nut every once in a while!
• After cleaning up Eli from eating lunch, he was happily playing in his highchair while I cleaned the countertops. I was talking to him and singing, and turned around to clean the stovetop, when I hear a “clunk” and Eli starting to babble. I turn around and the little stinker has managed to grab hold of the decorative cloth I have on the middle of the island and pulled the wire fruit basket that was on top of the cloth onto his highchair tray! He just looks at me and grins, rocking the fruit basket back and forth with one hand, and hitting the pears in the basket with the other! Guess we really have to be sure everything is out of reach – even the cloths under things!
• Bath time! Splashes, bubbles, hilarity . . . see my other post!
• I was getting ready to go to my Bible study so Eli and I were upstairs in our bedroom while I changed, and Elijah discovered he can pull the bottom drawer of my nightstand open. After a few minutes of opening and closing fun, Elijah pulled himself up to his knees! Yeah! That’s the first time he’s done that!

Tooth Number 4 (this time for real!)

Okay, so my post earlier about Eli having his fourth tooth wasn't exactly accurate. I thought I saw a fourth tooth. What I actually saw was the back corner of his third tooth, "the fang," coming in.

Now, though, Elijah officially does have four teeth. I noticed last week (February 24th for the book) that the fang on the other side of Eli's mouth was coming in! So now he still has no middle front teeth, but instead has a fang on each side. And he's constantly trying to get your fingers/toes/arm/chin/nose in his mouth . . . hmm, maybe he's really a vampire?

Dual napping

Eli is pretty much down to just 2 naps a day these days. He'll generally go down around 9:00 (plus or minus half an hour) and sleep for 1.5 hours or so, and then go down once more sometime in the afternoon and sleep for around 1 to 1.5 hours. Missy and I are actually liking the 2 reasonably long naps better than the 3 shorter ones he was taking before; it gives us a better chance to get something substantial done around the house while he is sleeping, or just to relax a little bit!

Eli's also sick *again* today. He has a bit of congestion in his lungs, which had him coughing a fair bit last night. Missy ended sitting up with him for a few hours during the night to help him sleep more easily. Missy noticed that one of the other baby girls in Eli's daycare had pretty much the same cough when Missy picked Eli up from the daycare yesterday. We're both really looking forward to when Missy can be finished with her job so we no longer have to take Eli to day care, where it seems that so often at least one of the other babies there is sick.

Shutterfly Photo Contest – Phhhhhh!

I got an e-mail today about entering the Shutterfly Photo Contest (we order our pictures through them and love the quality and service). So I picked my favorite picture of Elijah and typed up a very sweet note about the picture and what it conveys about him (and it had to be fewer than 450 characters). I submitted my picture, sent out e-mails to people to vote for the picture and then went and viewed it on Shutterfly’s contest pages. Only to find out that how many characters they give you to write a description is not how many characters they display!!!!! So my ode to Elijah was truncated and sounded dumb, instead of incredibly sweet. So ppppppphhhhhhhh on Shutterfly. :P

Anyway, here is the picture and what I originally said (and a link to the contest if you’d like to vote for Elijah’s picture).

This portrait is of my son, Elijah, and was taken during a diaper change that quickly turned into a rolling over practice session! This picture has been one of my favorites ever since that day and captures everything I love most about Elijah – the laughter and sparkle in his eyes, his joyful smile, and his sweet disposition. On a down day just looking at this picture renews my spirit and fills it with the same unrestrained joy that Elijah radiates with every smile.

Vote for Eli!

Let the Child-Proofing Begin . . .

Tuesday afternoon it finally happened -- Elijah discovered how to open the kitchen cabinets. I was making dinner and Eli was scooting all around the place (it really is amazing how quickly he's picked up on how to get himself around!) and playing with toys and his highchair when he saw me open a cabinet, scooted over, and reopened it himself. Fortunately it was the Tupperware cabinet so he couldn't do any damage (to himself or the Tupperware!). He kept opening the door and closing it, and then decided to pull all the Tupperware out and pushed it around the floor for a while. It was so cute!


Of course the inevitable happened and one of the doors pinched his fingers a little. He cried out and turned towards me, lifting up his arms and saying, "mamamamamama." That's the first time I've heard him using a word in context before -- so does that count as his first word? He didn't repeat it again so I'm not sure!

He was fine after a hug and kiss and wanted to get down and play right away again. He went straight back to the cabinet (the hair of the dog that bit you, right?) and then figured out the cabinet next to that one as well. He also discovered the gate blocking the garage entry and laundry room area today and spent at least 15 minutes scooting back and forth across the kitchen to go and hit it. Needless to say, childproofing this place is high on the list of things to get done!

Mobile!

Eli's still getting around doing his "scoot" thing instead of really crawling, but he's becoming more and more mobile! Today, for the first time, while Missy, Eli, and I were around the house, Eli a couple of times scooted off on his own into a different room, and Missy or I was obligated to follow him to keep an eye on him. Our boy is becoming a little bit more independent!

Creepin' and Crawlin' -- Right Out of Our Pants!

On Saturday when I got home from my BSF leader’s meeting and fellowship, Jon had Elijah out of his pajamas and dressed in his tough little Gap jeans and an adorable long-sleeved polo-type shirt. Eli looked so cute!

As per usual, Elijah wanted to scoot all over the place and explore, so we put him down on the floor. I was doing dishes in the kitchen while Eli played, and he made his way into the living room to play with more toys. I looked over and saw, lying in the doorway between the kitchen and the living room, Eli’s jeans. But no Eli. Hmm. Jon put Eli’s pants back on, and Eli made his way back into the kitchen. At which point Jon notices that Eli’s pants are getting lower and lower as he’s scooting across the floor! He looks like one of those rappers who wear their pants so low you can see their boxers – or the top of their diapers (and cute Sesame Street characters) in this case.

Anyway, the pants get pulled up again and Eli continues on his way, this time making a beeline for the bathroom (where Dad has re-located). Halfway there he encounters the rug under the table and yep, you guessed it!, the pants are completely off in about three scoots. He crawled right out of his pants and left them lying neatly behind him, still buttoned and zipped! Thank goodness he kept his diaper on! :)

Uhm, Dad? Aren’t you forgetting something?

I couldn’t resist posting this, it was so cute. Jon was getting Elijah ready for bed on Friday night and I happened to be sitting in the chair in Elijah’s room talking to him while he was changing Eli into his pajamas. We’re talking about our day and Jon starts zipping up Eli’s footie pajamas, then stops and starts laughing. I look over and see that Jon had Eli half-zipped into his pjs WITHOUT A DIAPER ON! We both just started cracking up. The mattress pad says it’s “water-proof” but I don’t think we really want to put it through that extreme of a test!

Bedtime Routine

Missy and I have a nice "bedtime routine" worked out for putting Eli to bed at night. These days, he goes down to bed very easily, which is very nice!

Around 6:30, we start getting ready for bed. This can involve 10-15 minutes of jumping in the Jumperoo to burn off some energy, and bathtime if a bath is needed (which is generally every 2 or 3 days).

At 7:00, the actual bedtime routine starts. Eli gets a fresh diaper and changed into his pajammas. Then we sit in the glider chair and read two or three books as a bedtime story.

After story time is over, we turn off all of the lights except the bathroom light across the hall with the door mostly closed to act as a "night light" (more so that Missy and I can see what we're doing than for Eli's benefit!). We also turn on Eli's bedtime music as this point -- this is the same relaxation music that we originally used for Missy's delivery of Eli! The music we use is Natural Stress Relief by the Solitudes -- it's simple, gentle music combined with water sounds (streams, ocean waves, gentle rain).

Finally, we feed Eli a bottle of formula while rocking him to sleep. When I'm putting Eli down, I'll generally talk to him quietly for the first minute or two about our day and pray a little bit with him -- generally in thanks for the good day we had -- and then just rock quietly with him until he is mostly asleep.

At first, he wouldn't always go to sleep right away after we put him in his crib, but now he is almost always happy to just fall asleep right away after his bottle is done and we've rocked him in the glider chair for a few more minutes. It has really worked out great!

Snip snip.There goes Eli's hair!

Well, it finally had to happen. Elijah had his first haircut today. He was really starting to look shaggy, and the last straw was when he woke up from his nap with his "bangs" stuck to the boogers in his nose. Ick. The extra hair had to go, and go fast!

Mom jumped into action, diverted Elijah's attention with books, and got out the big scissors! Snip the back, the edges, the bangs, and voila, in less than 5 minutes Elijah looked presentable again. He didn't even act interested in the big scissors once the whole time he was so engrossed in what he was doing.

I saved all the little pieces I cut off to put in his baby book (sniff sniff). And as a bonus Eli looks pretty good so I didn't mess up too much!

Tooth Number 4!

I was changing Eli’s pants and saw another tooth on the bottom side of his gums. Another one on the top – and, again, not a front tooth. It’s the tooth even farther towards the back of his mouth, right next to “the fang,” as we’ve taken to calling it. Eli's getting teeth fast and furious here -- which makes it easier to understand why he's been so uncomfortable and fanatically chewing everything in site for the last few weeks!

Peek-a-boo, Potholder!

I was talking to Jon over Google Talk this morning while Eli was just playing on the floor. I looked over and he had found a rubber potholder which was in the office for some reason. He would lift it up over his head and then lower it to cover his eyes, and then lift it up and grin. He did this over and over – not looking at me, mind you, just to himself. I finally said, “Peek-a-boo!” one of the times that he did it and he started laughing. What a goof-a-loo. I guess if Mom’s not going to entertain him he has to entertain himself somehow!

Elijah's a Headbanger? Oh No!

I was putting Elijah down for a nap on Saturday (which he wasn’t too happy about), when he discovered that when you hit the railing on the front of his crib that it shakes and makes a cool sound. Even cooler is when you do it with your head. Apparently he didn’t want to hit his head too hard though, because he kept leaning his way back then moving it really fast towards the bars but stopping it right before it hit them, then he would just tap the bars with his head softly. He kept doing this over and over – I thought he was going to whack his head hard and learn a lesson about that, but he just kept stopping himself short and then softly hitting the bars with his forehead.

He thought it was pretty cool to smoosh his nose against the bars and reach his hands through too. No sleeping going on, like Mommy wanted, just playing going on in the crib this afternoon!

Has Elijah Been Watching Yogi Bear?

Eli was doing his “army crawl” on the floor on Wednesday with Grandma Amanda, and was most motivated to crawl towards his toy octopus, previously called “Mr. Pentapus” by us (he’s an octopus that came with his activity gym mat, but the creature only has 5 legs, not 8, so we started calling him pentapus . . . you get the drift). Elijah was feeling a lot better after being sick, and had started babbling non-stop as well. We noticed about 3 or 4 times that he would look at the octopus and make a string of sounds which, I swear, and Grandma can back me up on this, sounded like, “Hey boo boo.” I am not joking at all. Now I’m not sure whether to call the toy Mr. Pentapus as usual or start calling him Hey Boo Boo! Guess we’ll have to keep our ears alert to see what Eli decides to call it from now on!

Tooth Number Three!

Elijah got his first tooth in December, on the bottom, and his next tooth right next to it on the bottom in January (around the 16th or so), and we noticed last weekend, January 28th, that he’s getting another tooth! This time it’s on the top though, and it's not the top front tooth, it's the top eye tooth on his right side. So he’s getting a little vampire tooth! We can start calling him Count Droolcula now. (Mom's so witty, hehe). :)

The Look of Love . . .

Last night Elijah slept well until about 10:00, when something started bothering him and he wanted to be cuddled back to sleep. I held him on my chest, reclining in our glider, and before falling back asleep he had his head on my shoulder looking at me, with the most adoring and peaceful little smile as he studied my face. It reminded me of the times when he was little and would finish breastfeeding and would lay, snug and secure, in my arms with a completely satisfied little grin on his face. But this time he was looking at me – with a smile and gaze that, as I reflect on it, can best be described as pure love. And I realized, as I was holding him and seeing that perfect little face, that’s the way I was looking at him too – with a completely contented and joyful little smile of pure love for my son.

After just a minute or two of studying me, Elijah went to sleep, but right into REM sleep though, which I don’t think I’ve ever seen him do. His breathing would be erratic – first fast and then slow and then fast again – and his hands and legs would twitch a little occasionally. I could see his eyes moving back and forth and all around, and could tell he was dreaming. He had his head on my shoulder and I could see him get the cutest smiles on his face. Sometimes he’d grin really big, and look like a little angel, and then other times he’d have fast little smiles and then go back to normal. Occasionally he’d get a scowl on his face too. It was precious I just wanted to hold him all night and watch my little angel sleep. Another memory to hold on to in my heart!

Scoot!

Eli's reached a new milestone -- he is starting to become mobile! Yesterday for the first time, while Missy and "Gramma 'Manda" (my mom) were with Eli, he started to scoot across the floor a short distance to reach one of his toys. He would lay on his stomach facing the toy he wanted, reach out with both arms and press down on the carpet to gain a grip via friction and pull himself forward, while also pushing a little bit with his legs. Doing this, Eli would be able to creep forward a couple of inches at a time, and after a few tries, reach the toy he wanted!

He continued to do this after I got home from work so I could see, and again this morning before we headed off to day care.

Even though I know this is the beginning of the end of the easy days of setting Eli down on the floor nearby and knowing he won't go anywhere to get himself into trouble, I still think this is really cool! My son can make himself go! :-)

This does mean that effective immediately, I can no longer set Eli down on the floor upstairs without thinking about whether he might make his way over to the top of the stairs and tumble down! I'd better get those gates put up!