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!