Turtle Monkey

I am several days behind on entries. There will be a Happy Birthday entry coming soon!

Mark, my mom and I all went to the aquarium on Friday, September 26. Elias was his usual observant self. He pointed to everything and loved looking at all the pretty colors and interesting new animals! We saw some really cool things, like a scuba diver cleaning out a tank and an octopus in a box with a ball. And of course there were beautifully colorful things like coral and the sea nettle wall.

A couple more photos of Elias and the aquarium:

Even more are on Flickr.

Mark took a bunch of videos of Elias yesterday. Unfortunately, they’re all pretty dark because the lighting in our apartment sucks, so turn up your brightness if needed.

These in particular show Elias and Leah (our cat) interacting. It seems he likes Leah at least a small bit more than Teyla (Leah is softer and bigger, so that might have something to do with it.) Leah is so gentle and patient with him and loves hanging around him even though he likes grabbing her paws and fur; I wish she liked us as much as she does him.

You can view all the videos uploaded today (one is from late last month) over on the Flickr Video Set.

Elias is turning into such a little boy right in front of my eyes. I haven’t found the opportunity to take a lot of pictures because every fourteen seconds I have to pry him off of something he shouldn’t be touching. I am not sure there’s a way to fully baby proof an apartment with as many electronics in it as we have. The bedroom is the safest place, but he keeps going for the diaper genie, the standing fan and his changing table drawers. I know I can get locks for the drawers, but I don’t know what to do about the other two.

He’s starting to pull himself up to stand on everything. He will walk with our help and readjust his legs somewhat when he’s standing, but he still doesn’t get the concept of cruising or walking. It seems like it’s going to happen soon though.

Elias loves to offer us things. He’ll hold up a toy, his pacifier, some food, whatever and reach it out toward us. Sometimes he says, “Da!” at the same time. He absolutely loves to feed me Cheerios.

He’s really into playing games. Right now his favorite game is to turn himself over when I’m trying to change him and crawl over to the light switch to turn the light on and off. He has this toy with three buttons on it that play a variety of sounds and songs. Usually he’ll mash the buttons over and over again without regard to what is playing. Last night though, every time the “itsy bitsy spider” started to play, he’d whip the trunk of his body around to look expectedly at me and Mark, waiting for us to sing and do the song’s hand movements.

Mark and I have really been blessed to have such an easy-going boy. He sleeps well, eats well and is as independent as an infant could be expected to be. He’s a happy baby who loves to explore and loves other people. There are two other boys at his daycare around the same age and I cannot tell you how adorable they all are playing together.