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/