November and early December recap

The exciting news this week in our family is that Elliott has a new cousin: Georgia Ruth Solstice Lawther. She was born on December 22 at Charlotte and Jerome’s home in Brunswick, Maine. It sounds like she and her family are doing great, and she has lots of dark brown hair and eyebrows!

Before I started writing more about Elliott’s recent activities, I wanted to at least post some photos from Grandma B’s visit back in November. They had lots of fun together. One afternoon she and Joey’s Oma played with Elliott and Joey (and dog Maizy) while I went out with Katie and her new baby, Tony to run a few errands. (A fun coincidence is that Katie’s mom lives in Ann Arbor and attends the church where Barb and Roland got married. )

Joey is a week younger than Elliott and lives just a mile away. He and Elliott have similar temperaments, but Joey is a few months ahead in development (language mostly, but also other things like the biting phase). It’s been interesting to see Elliott start doing something that Katie had described a few months earlier – same stages, different timeline. Even though Elliott and Joey have always been excited to see one another, they also set each other off a bit. These days they are doing a better job of playing with – or at least near – each other without incident (grabbing, biting, having a fit about a toy). They pass toys back and forth now, and last time Katie visited, they gave each other a great hug and kiss. However, during the playdate, Elliott seemed more interested in baby Tony than in Joey. I could not keep my son from toddling over to Tony sleeping in his car seat. He kept waving and crouching down to say hi, pointing at Tony and saying “baby sleep” and then moving in closer to try to touch Tony’s ear or give him a hug.