Just some details

I still haven't gotten to the Michigan and earlier posts, but I wanted to share a few cute anecdotes before I forgot them. It's late so these aren't organized in any particular fashion.

Elliott is now blowing me a kiss before John takes him up to bed. Hi mimicked this the first time we did it last night and tonight did it again and got a real kick out of it. He doesn't perfectly touch his mouth - sort of half-mouth, half-cheek, and of course the mimic with missed aim just makes it that much cuter.

Elliott has elaborate pretend conversations now with anything that remotely resembles a telephone. He waits for replies and sounds like he's asking questions as well as offering clear affirmations. A budding empathic listener?

Today we had a playdate with Susan, and she had a musical toy. Elliott mimicked one of its little tunes in perfect pitch and rhythm. It was like a three or four-note ba-ba-ba-ba kind of thing (which means he got the "words" right, too). Susan looked up at me, as amazed as I was. It's nice to have someone with a background in musical theater think my kid's ear is as good as I do. While playing with that toy, Elliott also rocked a lot with his whole body in a way I haven't seen before. She thought it was clearly an attempt to dance. We think Elliott looks really long at home, but he's a lot shorter than Sawyer. He does, however, have much chunkier legs than Sawyer.

During Elliott's craniosacral appointment, he pulled off some tape on a makeshift shaker toy she had. It's nice when someone who works with lots of kids comment on his dexterity and fine motor skills: "you're the first one who's ever done that!" So, we're not walking or speaking words (except for that weird Czech/Hungarian thing he's got going on), but we can sing and use our fingers. I also think he wanted to pretend sign when I sang the ABC song, which I often do signing the letters. That's really the only time I've seen much hand movement outside of clapping, the incomplete pass move and the hand-up militaristic gesture (sometimes open palm, sometimes with pointer finger extended).

Elliott is much more interested in books lately. He's been enjoying looking at them on his own for a while, but now he's more likely to hold up a book for me to read.

Elliott takes his cod liver oil straight these days and licks the spoon. He's eating a lot -- all with his hands. He's more interested in utensils, though, so I think we could start encouraging that more. He likes to "dip" his cracker or carrot or whatever he's eating into a bowl, so I often give him the hummus container when it's almost finished. He gets a real kick out of the real thing. He's really enjoying raw goat milk cheese, though I haven't recently heard him say "cheese" like I got him to a week or two ago. We've started introducing some nuts, and I think he's doing fine with them. He even tried some fresh pesto with raw garlic; I only gave him a few tastes and I don't think he would have eaten a ton, but he did try a second and maybe third time. The next day he grabbed a big chunk of my Lara bar, and I let him have it. I think it had almond and walnut (and date). He ate the whole chunk. So this week I made some cookies mostly out of almond flour and some rice flour (and grated carrot and zucchini), and we've both been enjoying them. They're sweetened with applesauce, a little molasses, a few drops of stevia and a little bit of honey.

There is an obsession with tops these days. He wants the top to water bottles to play with and then put back on. If it gets stuck on he gets upset and hands it out to me to loosen so he can take it off again. He wants to put the lid on any plastic container. He can get his hand around the whole lid to the sunflower butter jar and wants to try to screw it back on.

Shape puzzles are getting easier. He's been able to put the basic shapes in the right spot on the one with knobs for a few weeks, but now he doesn't even have to think about it and easily turns the piece to fit. We inherited several more puzzles from my sister and he seems to like them and does well with them.

It's impossible to keep this boy quiet at the library. Or anywhere. He is such a shrieker! And I only mean with delight; he doesn't much fuss out in public unless he wants something I won't let him have -- my phone, the car keys, a computer terminal.

Water is definitely on Elliott's hit list, along with dogs, electronic devices of all kinds, and people with faces. He loves to stand and get sprayed while I shower, and he enjoyed kiddie pools at my parents' house and friend Adele's pool. Filling cups with water and pouring them out is fascinating to him. We don't really have tub toys, so this is new.

Rolling and throwing a ball have gotten smoother. He seems to have a lot more control now, and he really enjoyed passing the ball back and forth with Mia, our 3-year-old neighbor who is moving at the end of this week. Whenever she's outside when we pull up in the car, he just screams down the sidewalk at her. We'll really miss having her and her parents around, but we hope the new toddler boy who's moving in will be fun to play with.

We are tending toward taking one three-hour nap a day, usually 1:00-4:00ish. I do mean we. Elliott gave John a good fight this weekend. John won, but it made me feel like trying to get him to sleep without nursing is not going to work easily in the near future. I don't feel like dealing with the kind of door-pounding and screams John reported. On Sunday while I was jogging, John gave up and took Elliott for a walk. He fell asleep on our block and transferred well to the bed. When I've transferred him from the car to the bed lately, I can't do it without him grabbing at my shirt, even if he seemed to be snoring as I carried him up the stairs. Sometimes I can sneak away after he's in a deep sleep, but most of the time I'm tired enough that I just sleep the whole time, too. The only problem is when I stay up too late and then he wakes up early for some reason. We were having 8:30 a.m. wake-ups but the past few days have been before 7:30 a.m. He's going to bed later, between 8:00 and 9:00. He's so happy in the evening and really enjoys playing with John, so we don't push him too early. The other night we tried too early and he was doing laps around the bedroom, crawling all over the futon and our mattress, back and forth. John came down bleary-eyed quite some time later: "That took forever."

While I got my hair cut this morning, Elliott sat in his stroller and observed happily for most of the time, just until the blow dryer came out. Then he wanted to stand up in the stroller, so I held him on my lap for the last few minutes. The stylist is a mom, and it's a quiet salon, so it's much easier to just bring Elliott than deal with a sitter for such a short time. All the time to make the house presentable and prepare snacks for him and then have him cling to me while I explain things to the sitter... right now it's just not worth it for a 30-45 min appt. When I have a two-hour acupuncture and massage appt., that's worth bringing in the sitter. A neighborhood mom and I might try some playdates in the hope of doing some swapping at some point, and I'm going to try using a high school student who lives just around the block. Our great sitter, Doris, has three kids who are out of school for the summer, so she can't come very often for a while. Last time she was here, Elliott was playing so happily when I came home he just waved and smiled at me and kept playing while I made lunch and chatted with Doris. It feels really nice to not have Elliott whine and cling to me as soon as I get home.

When John left for work yesterday, Elliott cried really hard and just sat there looking out the door. It was sad but also really sweet.

It's 1:53 and he's waking up, so off to bed I go.

First Steps!

Elliott took his first steps tonight! John washed his hands after dinner and set him down on the floor where he remained standing and took two mini shuffle-steps that I didn't see. John exclaimed; I looked over; Elliott remained standing and then took two more steps, small but John says more substantial than the first two. He seemed pretty pleased with himself then and after he sat down. We were a little surprised at how excited we were!

A little while later we captured one more step on video, but I was too close and holding out a hand, so he just squatted and reached for it, then taking several confident steps holding lightly onto my finger.

It was fun!

Michigan in June

We had a great time in Michigan. Our flight was easy, and Elliott made lots of friends. Barb pickes us up at the airport with Aunt Fran's old car seat installed and ready to go. We had a nice lunch and then Elliott and I took a nap. After that, my K College friend Julie came over with her daughter, Mary (3 yrs) and son Graham (3 months). It was great to see him at almost the same age Elliott was last year when we visited.

We had dinner -- Elliott had a great appetite again! -- and then headed to Plymouth to catch cousin Jacob's baseball game. It was a beautiful night, and we had fun catching up with Leslie, Matt and Ruthilah. Elliott enjoyed the evening, especially watching a little girl blow bubbles. His latest obsession is tops -- he loves to put the top back on a water bottle and take it off again. If it gets threaded a little, he can't twist it off, so he whines until someone takes it off for him. He still doesn't drink well out of a cup or water bottle on his own, but he likes to pretend drink out of a water bottle. He has, however, became a straw/sippy cup pro, and he often follows a big drink with a breathy sigh that makes it sound like he just tossed back a shot of whiskey.

I can't seem to get photos to post in an order that makes much sense or move them around all that well. So I'll just post a few more and do some writing later.

Mid-June

India's party to go here

Standing and Clapping

Last Friday we had playgroup at our Jessica and baby Sam's house. It was 97 degrees out but felt cool in the shady back yard. Elliott didn't really want to go in the little pool, but he had a blast splashing in it and watching his friends play around. Notice the clapping while solo standing. He also enjoyed lots of watermelon. The next day he ate even more watermelon at the BirthCare picnic where he did happily go into a little pool filled with plastic balls, and we saw our music teacher, who is a BirthCare dad. Sunday night we had another nice meal outside in Shirlington where Elliott charmed passersby -- including John's new manager at work! -- with his smiles.

Teeth and teetering

I thought I would just post a quick note to say that Elliott now has both top two molars, and the bottom ones look ready to poke through any day. Fortunately he hasn't been too upset about it -- just drooling more and sticking his hands in his mouth, which is a little annoying when he happens to be nursing at the time. He thinks the homeopathic teething tablets are a real treat and gets excited when he see the bottle. Did I already write that? Who can keep track any more?

The other fun thing is that Elliott has gotten more interested in walking. Today I was holding his hands and it felt totally different -- instead of my holding his weight, he was really propelling himself and just using me for balance. So then I walked him with one hand and he did fine. After that he stood still in place for longer than he has in the past and seemed pretty pleased with himself. This was right after music class in the late afternoon on a day when we'd jogged in the morning with my friend Karey and baby Henry and taken a three-hour nap in the early afternoon.

It's June

Wow, time is flying! This is actually a photo from earlier in May, but it shows how much fun we can have. As anyone who calls us on the phone during waking hours can attest, Elliott loves to "talk" and laugh, especially if he can get his hands on the phone and make the lights beep and the face turn orange.

I wanted to add a few things after yesterday's longer update post. The sitter today said she could have parked Elliott outside in front of the school playground for an hour. He loves watching other kids and apparently just sat there in the stroller clapping his hands. I've known this, but hearing a mother of three say it has me reconsidering a part-time home day care option where he will be around other children. Our sitter, Doris, won't be available as much in the summer or next school year, and though we may have found an evening sitter, I think it would be nice to have a regular daytime thing, even if it's for only half of one day. In September we will start Elliott in a cooperative preschool 9:30-12:30 at the Unitarian church where we got married, just one day a week. They usually have three adults to six children under age two (at the beginning of the year). We have Elliott on a day when most of the kids are on the older side. But it might be nice to also have another person who could watch him if I need an appointment on a different day of the week, and it might be nice to be able to be in my house during that time. Today I got a teeth cleaning and then spent two hours at a restaurant with wireless Internet. It was really nice. When I came home, Elliott had been asleep for an hour, and he stayed asleep until I made noise that woke him up.

Things change so quickly that I forget them if I don't write often enough. Right now Elliott's favorite food is watermelon. He is also enjoying raw goat milk cheese (we think he's doing fine with it but he hadn't eaten it in big quantities until this evening), rice crackers (a must for any outing, especially the vegetable ones - sigh), sunflower seed butter on rice cake, chicken apple sausage (he'll eat a whole link), rice pasta, hummus, peas, carrot, celery, banana, and apple. He will take his cod liver oil straight from the spoon and will eat a little coconut milk if I feed it to him that way. He still doesn't much like sweet potatoes and rejects some foods but usually will try most anything that's put on his tray if we leave it there long enough after he's eaten the stuff he wants - egg, spinach, turkey, zucchini. We think he's gained some weight, and people tell us he looks bigger and taller, but he's still small for his age. We're due for an appt soon. I've been taking a cooking class based on Nourishing Traditions and hope to make more things from scratch in the near future (including nut butter and ketchup). Also, this week we will start getting our CSA share, and I'm looking forward to having reason to try new vegetables.

Memorial Day

We had a nice holiday weekend at home. On Saturday we met up with the Dunbars at Huntley Meadows Park. It really felt like summer - hot and sticky. Elliott was not as excited about all the snapping turtles, snakes, and geese as three-year-old Teaghan was. In fact, he got whiny and was reaching for me. So John handed over the Ergo and I put Elliott on my front. I nursed him as we walked -- first time trying that -- and he actually fell asleep. That's the first time in many months he's fallen asleep for me in a carrier, though the babysitter has luck with the sling. I guess I just usually don't have the patience for that anymore. If he's on my back it's because I'm busy with cooking or laundry and need to make sure he's safe and not tugging at my heels. If it's time to sleep, I'm heading straight for where I want him to be - the bed.

The faucet in the bathroom at the Nature Center woke him up, and then he enjoyed our picnic. He and John took turns offering each other carrot and water.

On Monday we had Adrian and Stef over for brunch and later met up with Karey, Tyler and Henry at a jazz festival in Fort Ward Park. These boys play together differently now -- they want whatever the other one has. It didn't seem quite as troublesome as Elliott's interactions with Joey on that front, but Elliott did upset Henry with his in-your-face happy squeals.

Random Spring Updates

The photo upload only just started working again after I had just posted a few photos at the old blog. Go there to see a few more, but the text update is here at Blogger.


Here are some updates on our little guy. More photos will have to wait until tomorrow as it's now rather late.

Elliott has cut his first molar, the top left, and the other three are on their way - the gums look swollen and about to burst. He is doing pretty well most of the time. If he is really whiny and chewing on his hands a lot, I'll give him some homeopathic teething tablets. He seems to think they are candy and gets a kick out of putting them in his mouth by himself. After a few times he started to laugh just when I got out the bottle.

Elliott's language is changing - we still don't have any words or signs that we recognize, but he has found the sounds M and N, and his "talking" just sounds different. The babysitter claims he has repeated several words for her, and my friend Katie and I both heard Elliott say "squishy" after Katie talked about a particular sippy cup straw being "squishy." At home, he has taken to using a motion that looks like "incomplete pass" for anything. It might be his way of copying the sign for "all done," but he does it even when he wants more of something, like watermelon. He puts both arms from the center of his body out to his sides. Of course, he also is doing this kind of conducting when playing with a certain toy, so we don't really know what to think.

The other day I sing-sang "more please" along with the signs for "more" and "please." I sort of moved his hands, and after that he kind of did the sign for "please" (hand in circle on chest) and sort of sang "mo." I laughed and clapped, and so did he, (and I gave him more banana), but we haven't seen that again.

He continues to enjoy music. He signs along with CDs, with the piano, with us when we sing "wash, wash, wash your hands, wash your hands together, la la la la la la la..." He likes to play his new xylophone a lot, especially when music is playing, but any time will do. The back of it has a sort of washboard thing he also likes as a percussion instrument. We think his rhythm is really good, and so does his Music Together teacher. He just seems to find the beat really well. So far that's his best trick. No words, no steps, but "pick up your sticks and go like this" - that one he's onto.

He does allow himself to be walked around more, and he's cruising holding onto just the wall sometimes where he used to sit down and crawl to the next thing with a leg - table, chair, person. I thought we wouldn't get much use out of parks until he was walking, especially since he has a limited interest in baby swings. However, last week, I was proven wrong. We went to a park with water sprays and other playground equipment. He loved getting sprayed and then later cruised along a concrete wall quite a long ways, crawled around and enjoyed climbing up a play structure until we got pretty high. I think we were both surprised to be so high off the ground. We took the slide back down. He doesn't seem annoyed that he can't walk and is still pretty darn happy most of the time (see below on shrieking). Today John took him to the mall while I was at a cooking class, and apparently Elliott enjoyed crawling all over -- and outside of -- the soft play area, which was filled with older kids and a few little ones.

Elliott shows absolutely no interest in weaning. I wasn't planning on moving in that direction soon anyway, but I've had two friends recently say their sons (same age) just stopped being interested. Not this cowboy. He loves nursing and will do it from any direction or position he can. He once again lets me read while he nurses, takes a break to play with the remote control or look at a book on the couch while I continue to read, then nurses some more... so it works for me, but it's a little surprising how much he still loves it so much even though he's eating a lot more food and he's also doing much better with separation from me.

The other night after our last nursing, Elliott actually reached up for John to take him up to bed. And he's started waving to me after I tell him and sign "good night" and "sleep" well. Some days he whines or pouts, but he's tending more toward just waving good night. It's super sweet.

Also pretty adorable are his hugs. He really likes to put his arms around our necks. John said Elliott gave him a big bear hug around his middle the other day, too.

Elliott is able to bring other kids to tears because he just gets too close in their face and shrieks with glee. This happened with Henry, Kai, Joey -- all same-age kids who are bigger than Elliott and with a two-year-old boy at music class, too. His shrieks really can be ear-splitting. He's never that loud when he's upset, but boy, if he's happy, watch out!

A new and less charming development is the fighting over toys. Elliott pried neighbor Mia's hands off of her doll's stroller the other day so he could push it. Mia is three years old. She just kind of looked at him in disbelief, let him go and then later, when he was onto something else (like picking at grass) she clarified, "My stroller." Another day Elliott tried to pry age-mate Joey's hands off of a tiny rocking chair. Thing is, Joey is bigger and can walk on his own, but that doesn't seem to matter to our scrappy Elroy. When Joey was over at our house and then when we went to his pool, he and Elliott were getting close to wrestling position fighting over toys. And of course both have some fingernails on them, so there were some red marks. This is a new adventure, this seriously needing to watch for unsafe behavior, not to mention trying to show that sharing really can work. I think I need to crack open that developmental psych book.

Elliott still enjoys dogs, so we walk or jog on the path across the creek from the dog park. He sits forward in his stroller watching the dogs go after a ball in the water as though he's a fan hoping for a home run. We had another successful dinner al fresco at the Indian restaurant nearby. He at most of the pappadum; I hope they were right that it was just lentil flour and had no wheat. In any case, it was kind of spicy, but he kept eating it, and he let us eat. It's great to be able to walk there in just about 20 minutes and have so much great people watching. We saw two neighbors, two people from music class, and another family I know from attaching parenting meetings.

The old blog with a few more photos is http://www.geocities.com/haneyjessica/

Elliott's Hair

Here is Elliott's Bozo the Clown look.

Visit to North Carolina

We had a great visit with Courtney and Brian and their son, Mack. He's eight months old and also a redhead. Mack seems to be performing craniosacral therapy on Elliott at their house, but at Duke Gardens the boys were oblivious to each other until we sat down in the shade and Elliott kept trying to take Mack's toys.

Mother's Day

We had a great visit with Barb over Mother's Day weekend. John and I got to go out to dinner on Friday night, and Barb babysat Saturday while I went to a yoga workshop and John played Ultimate. Elliott and Barb enjoyed lots of walks together. On Sunday we made a nice brunch of rice flour pancakes. Later I got to go for a long run knowing Elliott had two people to entertain him. We all went out to an early dinner at Lebanese Taverna. Elliott loved sitting outside and watching the birds hop around. He tried lots of different foods, too! After eating, we did a little bit of shopping. It was a great weekend!

Lactivism

Here we are at the nurse-in on Capitol Hill on May 10. In the crowd shot you can see friend Krystal in the pink shirt with son Diego, whose shirt says, "I still take my milk fresh from the tap." The two of them are probably going to be in Mothering Magazine. The other photo is with friend Sarah and son Kai, whose shirt says, "I'm a boob man." Elliott's says "Got breastmilk?"

Congresswoman Maloney (D-NY) reintroduced her Breastfeeding Promotion Act. See http://maloney.house.gov/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=1337&Itemid=61
for more info.

It was fun to be with so many other mamas amid the suits on the marble terrace of the congressional office building (I forget which one - the one furthest up the hill on a hot day!) We were going to take the Metro but ended up driving into the District, parking near the museum of the American Indian and walking up Capitol Hill. Elliott enjoyed taking it all in from his stroller, and I was one of the only women not wearing her baby in a carrier! We took a very short tour through the museum on the way back before our meter expired, and then Elliott fell asleep in the car minutes later.

Catching up: mid-May

It's been a long time since we've written. First here is a photo of Elliott after he'd dumped out most of a box of crispy brown rice.