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.

While in Texas, Mark and I took Elias to the Dallas World Aquarium. We’ve been there once before together and I just love the place. Most of it is a 3 story rainforest you walk your way around. Elias seemed to enjoy himself and liked looking all over the place. There were a few tanks that were eye level with his stroller, so he got a cool view. I highly recommend going there if you’re ever in Dallas. Very relaxing.

See all the pictures I took at the Dallas World Aquarium on Flickr.

We just got back from Texas last week. We were there visiting Mark’s family from July 2 - 8. Traveling always seems to make time pass by so quickly.

I think overall, Elias really enjoyed the trip. The trip out there (from the time we left our house until we got to Cleburne) took about 6 hours total and Elias was perfect through the whole thing. He did get cranky when we were at Mark’s parents’ house or at the hotel. I am not sure if this was because his normal daycare/nap routine was disrupted, if he was still feeling a little sick from his illness before the trip or something else. His eczema and dry skin really flared up while in Texas and no amount of Aquaphor or lotion could remedy the problem, which I’m sure did not improve his mood any.

I feel bad for Mark’s family because they didn’t get to spend a lot of time with my calm, relaxed, happy baby, but rather the cranky baby who took his place. He wasn’t non-stop tears or anything, but he wasn’t completely himself.

Here are some photos from our trip. There are still more photos to come, but I wanted to provide a quick update. He’s on the verge of several milestones and I think the next couple of months will be the most exciting yet.

Here’s Elias in his stroller at the rental car plaza at DFW. I can’t believe how calm he was during this whole entire process:

The 4th of July was very fun and probably Elias’ least cranky day overall. After napping almost the entire day, we went to Mark’s brother’s house because the Cleburne fireworks could be seen in his front lawn. There were several other groups of people there and several younger children. All of them seemed to hover around Elias and enjoy interacting with him. When we went out front to sit on the lawn, one of Kathy’s friends, Sherri, took Elias into her lap and he sat there calmly until he eventually drifted off:

Mark’s mom bought a little inflatable pool for Elias to splash around in. Oddly, he wasn’t too interested in splashing in it, but he did enjoy picking up the little plastic balls that were thrown in. He was a Mr. Crankypants and before long, got sick of being in the pool.

There are more photos posted on Flickr here. More to come in the next few days.

Mark brought Elias in this afternoon to visit me at work. While we didn’t get to see everyone I’d wanted to see (stupid meetings), Elias met lots of my coworkers and smiled at every single one of them except for a blonde woman. We noted that it wasn’t the first blonde woman for whom Elias refused to smile; Mark took him to Publix once and he smiled at everyone except one blonde cashier.

I have no idea why he doesn’t find blondes funny. He’s seen very few blonde people in his life and none at all until he was a few months old. Would that even make a difference?

He spent so much energy flirting with anyone who spent more than a few seconds looking at him that he was pooped for the ride home and fell asleep.

I know I owe y’all some photos. I suck about getting out the camera, but I’ll try to be better this week. Until there are photos, how about a summary of Elias’ recent accomplishments?

Friday evening Elias started squealing in delight or just to hear himself squeal. If he’s in a good mood, he squeals almost nonstop. We think this may be the precursor to the laugh. He’s also using consonants a lot more.

For almost a week now, we’ve been putting Elias down to bed around 8pm. Without fail, I will need to spend at least an hour back there total nursing him to sleep or going back in there to calm him, but it’s been working out very well. Hopefully one day soon he’ll just drift right on back to sleep when he wakes himself up instead of calling out for me.

We decided to go out to lunch yesterday, more for the experience of taking Elias out to lunch with us than for the lunch itself. He did very well at the restaurant and amused himself by staring at the passerbys and ceiling fans. Naturally, almost as soon as we all got settled, he started to poop. I’d just changed him before we left and used cloth since I didn’t think we’d be gone for much longer than an hour. I could have brought cloth to change him into, but the diaper bag is already packed with disposables for daycare so I didn’t bother.

So I had my first experience changing a poopy diaper in a public restroom. Thankfully, I was alone through most of his change. On the Border’s changing tables are very clean-looking though (yes, I did use a liner and my own changing pad on top!) and the whole experience wasn’t entirely unpleasant.

Elias sat in his carseat for a little while after that (enough for me to finish more than half my meal) and then voiced his displeasure. He was more than happy to be held by me or Mark, so we took turns passing him back and forth while we finished our meals.

I don’t know why I have a phobia of taking Elias out with us. I guess I just feel like I don’t have the best grasp for how to deal with him, still. And I’m scared he’ll be fussy, but he never is more than we can handle.

Elias is still showing no desire to roll over. That wasn’t even a milestone on the list of ones to check off when we went to the doctor though, so no one is very concerned about this. He’s been strengthening his back muscles and more than once now, he’s corrected his own posture we hold him sitting upright in our laps.

Elias is also finally reaching out and grabbing things with purpose, though his aim is not very good.

It feels this past month has been a little slow developmentally. He’s been spending a lot of time trying to perfect his skills. It definitely seems we’re on the cusp of another developmental spurt, which many resources mention happening at this time anyway. I hope it doesn’t disrupt his sleep patterns too much, but I can’t wait to see what he does this month!