Turtle Monkey

This is the sun hat Mark got for Elias for the RenFest tomorrow. He doesn’t seem to mind it being on at all! Another scary thing is that it says 12 months up and it fits Elias perfectly.

I can’t wait for the festival tomorrow. This is the first time we’re going to be taking Elias out all day (or at least that’s the intention) so I’m nervous! I hope to get a lot of photos and videos!

Elias started wildly bouncing around in his exersaucer. I think he’s even banged his head on the keyboard a few times, but he seems to be having fun.

Please ignore my big fat self. This is the ball drop/ring stacker toy we recently got for Elias. I don’t know how long it will be before he starts stacking the rings, but we honestly didn’t expect him to get the hang of the ball drop so quickly. He loves holding the balls and jingling them. Here, he definitely seemed to be deliberate in his action to drop the ball in the hole.

There are two more new videos on Flickr, one showing Elias playing with his new train toy here and one showing him banging on everything in sight with his red cup here.

Also, I created a new set specifically for Elias’ videos, which can be found here.

Elias is doing really well. He has a runny nose and a mild cough, but otherwise he’s healthy for a change. He’s teething something awful. We got a fish teether toy switcharoo for his exersaucer and he’s been going to town on it. Last night, there were streams of drool pouring out of his mouth and the front of his shirt was sopping wet. We haven’t been able to feel any additional teeth poking through and the four he has don’t appear to be growing in any more, so I’m not sure what’s going on. Elias is more fussy than usual, though he’s just not a very fussy baby at all unless he’s tired.

The boy LOVES to sleep. Unless he’s sick, he almost always sleeps through the night. We put him down to bed usually between 7-8pm. I usually join him around 11-12. Before he started teething, he was starting to stay asleep during this time, or waking once between 10-11. Since he started teething he’ll usually wake up at least once an hour for some extra comfort. I haven’t been giving him pain reliever because he doesn’t seem so bothered by it that he can’t do without.

A lot of baby references mention that babies around this age go through some intense mood swings and can get cranky if you take a toy away from them or they otherwise don’t get what they want and not need. I’ve noticed this with Elias. He loves our cell phones and will try to grab them at every opportunity. We let him play with them sometimes, as long as he doesn’t try to put it in his mouth. Sometimes he plays and plays without putting an object in his mouth, sometimes he can’t even think of playing with an object unless it’s in his mouth and usually it’s a mixture of the two. If he’s not in the mood to play without putting the phone in his mouth, we’ll eventually have to take it away from him. Usually we can then distract him with another object (have I mentioned he loves red cups? Red specifically) or activity.

But when he’s tired, the corners of his lips curl under and quiver, tears come to his eyes and he responds as if his whole entire world is crushed. There is nothing, nothing on this planet that will replace the hole left behind by the phone, which he can no longer have. You know, a mother never likes it when her baby is crying, but seeing this sort of crankiness, it is hard not to laugh. This isn’t an entirely bad thing; he sends very clear signals such as this when he’s tired, so I know exactly when it’s the right time to put him to sleep. I know that when something like this happens, the moment I put him in bed and tuck a blanket around him he’s going to start drifting off.

I love watching him fall asleep. Sometimes he’s obviously tired, but still has some pent up energy. We’ll lay in bed as he plays with his hands, my hands, my face, reaches out for his stuffed Yertle the Turtle; plays with his pacifier by taking it out, examining it, turning it upside down and popping it back in. I’ll stroke his hair and the side of his face and rub his tummy or hold his hands and he’ll gradually succumb to sleep. His eyes roll around as his lids grow heavy despite his best efforts at keeping them open. They’ll close for several seconds, pop back open and repeat the process several times until they finally keep closed. It is rare for him to be so overstimulated that he just can’t get to sleep. That usually happens when friends are over; I guess he wants to stay up and observe them.

I really feel lucky with how well Elias has slept since birth. I keep waiting for his sleep patterns to change, but they only improve. I feel like I’m on borrowed time and any day now he’s going to decide that sleeping is for losers and it’d be better to stay awake even if the world is a lot more annoying for him if he’s tired. It’s like a ticking time bomb.

I gave permission for Elias’ daycare to start offering him some food during the day. Any vegetable, fruit or grain should be okay. One of the teachers started listing some foods asking if they were okay. Bananas, applesauce, carrots, crackers, etc. Yes. Then another teacher asked, “How about cheese?” I thought it was kind of funny. Is cheese a vegetable, fruit or grain or even contain any of those things? I was polite with her (why wouldn’t I be?) and asked for nothing with milk, eggs or sugar. We’re still not very consistent about offering him food at home, but we’re getting better. He still doesn’t seem to love anything we feed him. Last night I got some Cheerios and placed a couple handfuls on his highchair tray this morning. He batted at them and picked up a few (he has a clumsy pincer grasp, but it’s getting more refined), but didn’t seem to want to put any in his mouth. I turned my head for a moment, and when I looked at him again he had a “food face” with his mouth half open and I could see a Cheerio sitting on his tongue. He started chewing and moving the Cheerio around in his mouth. After about five minutes, the entire Cheerio was finally dissolved and swallowed.

Elias is getting very coordinated with his hands. He easily passes objects between hands and as I mentioned, he’s starting to work on his pincer (thumb and index finger) grip. He just recently started lifting his hands up in the air (halfway) if he wants to be picked up, which we find incredibly adorable. In fact, we find everything he does to be incredibly adorable. I’m in constant amazement. Seeing his brain work and solve little baby life-puzzles is fantastic. It’s hard to look at him and not be incredibly excited about the life ahead of him. I try not to because I know it’ll all come too soon. He is just an absolutely perfect baby.

Elias has been a little lazy about sitting up on his own. We know he has the strength and coordination to do it, but it seemed like he had little interest. We got him several toys to help encourage him to sit up on his own and/or crawl: the Fisher Price Amazing Animals Sing and Go Choo Choo, Tiny Love Musical Stack and Play and Tiny Love Activity Ball.

So far, he likes playing with all of them. Last night we sat on the living room floor together playing with the train toy and it did seem to encourage him to sit up on his own, as he would hold onto it like he does the handlebar of the shopping cart to keep himself upright. He still didn’t sit up on his own without tipping over for more than a few minutes at a time. Tonight we started out on the floor with the train toy and he was sitting on his own without my help at all for a good 20 minutes or so without starting to tip. He quickly figured out that when the green smoke stack is pressed, a song is played. He pressed it almost continuously for several minutes.

When he exhausted the train toy, we tried the activity ball. I gave him a red cup at the same time and he had fun banging it against the different surfaces of the activity ball. (Also when you smack/tap the ball, it makes one of five digital “wacky” sounds.) Elias loves banging on just about everything now. All in all, we played on the floor together for a good hour or so. Most of the time he was sitting up on his own, but after that initial 20 minute stint, he took frequent breaks leaning back into my lap between sitting up sessions.

You can see all the photos I uploaded today over on Flickr.