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!