9 months old...

Here is a super image/media-heavy post in honor of Eli entering into his 9 month of life on this past Saturday.  He is into e.v.e.r.y.t.h.i.n.g. these days.  He's getting a little ornery and never wants to sit still.  Which is fine.  Within reason.

He weighed 20 lbs 14 oz at his check up on Monday and was 29 1/2 inches long.

As far as interests, his favorite things to play with are keys and the carbon monoxide detector.

....

Really though, he doesn't sit and play with any of his toys too much.  He's way more into climbing the back of the couch and pulling the curtains.  He also delights in ripping apart magazines.

Dog toys are okay with him, too.

His sleeping is still all over the place.  It's getting a little more predictable as he generally sleeps until 7 or 8.  And I can generally expect him to wake up 2-3 times a night still.  But it's getting better.  He has also graduated to a pretty regular hour-long nap, which is preferable to his 30 minuters of previous months.

I don't exclusively breastfeed anymore.  He has formula bottles pretty often and I think that helps with keeping his belly full and sleeping longer.  As far as solids, he's had a lot, and he's liked it all.  He's had apples, pears, blueberries, bananas, butternut squash, sweet potato, russet potato, peas, carrots, zucchini, avocado, cottage cheese, and just had yogurt for the first time today.  I was introducing a new food every couple days after he first started eating solids at 6 months 2 weeks, but I kind of dropped the ball after vacation because I was just buying jar food.  Also I hate going to the grocery store but finally went yesterday so I have cantaloupe and broccoli for him to try next :)

Mobility - still army crawls.  He doesn't seem to see any need in crawling on all fours.  He gets where he wants.

As far as words, he says Mama.  Not sure if he knows it exclusively applies to me, but he does say it a lot when I'm around and he wants him, but I don't think he has totally figured out that I am mama.  He says ba, ta, pa, and some other not exactly easy to figure out syllables.  He has said "da" a few times but mamamamama is definitely the clearest and most regular of his babblings.

Aaand I think that's it.  Sorry I totally dropped the ball on month 8.

7 months old!

Yesterday was Eli's 7 month mark and  I took him to visit his great-grandparents.  My grandpa has had a crap ton of terrible health problems this past year so we try and see him when we can.  

As of 7 months, Eli is still not sleeping well.  The kid is constantly congested and I can rarely leave him to cry it out because it ends in gagging which begets more crying and ends in a fully awake babe.  Ugh.

As for naps, I never know what's going to happen.  He takes a nap about 1-1/2 hours after waking just because he slept so little.  His naps are generally 30-40 minutes and he takes anywhere from 2-4 a day. Sometimes there's an hour nap but that is definitely an exception to the rule.

He is eating more solid food, right now twice a day, once in the morning and once in the late evening.  His first solid other than rice and oatmeal cereals was sweet potato.  He has also had apple, pear, and peas.

In the past month, he has become a rolling fiend.  He wields his weight well.  He is also the nosiest baby, always grabbing and reaching for EVERYTHING.  Literally everything.  He wants it.  He needs it.  He is less into his exersaucer because it limits his ability to grab things he shouldn't have.

Eli is also sitting up pretty well now!  In probably the past week and a half, his balance has really improved and he can maintain a sitting position even when looking behind him and reaching for things that aren't directly in front of him.  He also sits straight up and not leaning forward.  This comes in especially convenient during bath time.

I keep waiting for real "babbling".  He babbles a bit; mostly he just yells (so much yelling) or makes one syllable noises that may or may not have vowel and consonant sounds.  Everything I read says he should be stringing together more complex consonant/vowel combinations but he doesn't do too much that seems like he's trying to convey a thought.  He will exchange sounds sometimes though. Ha.

He is also gigantic, still.  I haven't weighed him on my own but he is wearing 9 month clothes still, 12 months if it is one piece.

sometimes you win, but mostly you lose

Last night Eli was up every hour again.

That's all.

sweet potato

Yesterday Eli had his first taste of non-cereal, non milk-mixed food.  Sweet potato!  I pureed it with pear juice because we were at my mom's (doing laundry, our laundry machine/dryer and currently disconnected while our basement is being renovated).  He was entirely unsure of what to think about this new food.  The texture was new and we were still getting used to pear juice so I think that might be why he wasn't too sure.  

Today we tried sweet potato again.  We made it at home with milk and the texture was much smoother and based on Eli's reaction, more palatable.  He gobbled it down with similar vigor to his cereals.

By the way, he cut his second tooth yesterday, as well.

And he slept 7 hours straight last night.

PROGRESS.

first solid food!

....kind of.

Rice cereal is a lot like slightly grainy milk, at least the way I made it the first time.   We fed him his first bowl on Saturday morning and he has had it every morning since, though today I am going to wait until evening to feed him in hopes that it keeps his belly full through the night and maybe sleep for longer stretches.  WE'LL SEE.

Obviously we took pictures of this milestone.   Lots of pictures.

Here I am offering him his first taste.

Here he is pleased with the results.

He definitely thought he should be the one to hold the spoon.

See.

About halfway through, Rob took over.  Eli showed no bias.

He thoroughly enjoyed the entire experience.

Until next food....

6 months old!

Well, here we are at the half-way mark of Eli's first year.  I cannot believe how fast it goes.  People aren't exaggerating about kids growing up too fast.  They are FOR REAL.

Eli had his 6 month check up yesterday morning at 8:50 and we found out he weighs 19 pounds 2 ounces and is 28 inches long.  His head circumference is 42.5 centimeters, if you possibly care about that.

Anyway.

This past month has been BRUTAL.  

Eli caught a cold at the end of December/beginning of January and it completely destroyed any hope that his 5 hour sleep stretches at night were giving me.  Now I was lucky if he slept 2 hours straight during the night (it was usually about 45 minutes).  I took him to the doctor on January 2 just to make sure he didn't have anything more serious and the doctor did confirm it was just a cold, and recommended saline drops to help break up his congestion.  They helped slightly.  We put a humidifier in his room at that point, too.  And eventually added Vick's baby rub into the mix.

Well,  come February, ALL of his cold symptoms were still in play and he was still barely sleeping, so I called the doctor again.  He had an appointment for February 6th and we found out he had an ear infection and were prescribed amoxicillin for 10 days.

After one week of antibiotics Eli didn't seem to be doing much better.  In fact, now he was pulling on his OTHER ear and I was freaking out, so I called the doctor again.  We went in that day (February 12) and while Eli was free and clear of ear infections, we found out he had a VIRAL INFECTION in his throat.   It was mild, thankfully, but the blister was on his right side which was why he was pulling on his right ear, most likely, Dr. Herman told us.

Unfortunately there is nothing you can really do about a virus but he told me I could give him infant's motrin, which I picked up on the way home.  When we got home, Eli was fussing around and I decided to peek into his mouth and found he had finally cut his first lower incisor.  We had suspected him teething for months and so I had kinda thought his cold symptoms were being exacerbated by teething symptoms.  

Here we are a week later and he received a clean bill of health at his check up so now I'm  going to be trying to enforce sleep a little more.  I've completely backed off the last month and a half since crying it out was impossible (drainage and gagging and that whole bit) and I felt so guilty if I didn't immediately respond to his cries.  He has been spending the first part of the night in his crib and then somewhere along the line I bring him in and he sleeps the rest of the night on me.

NOW, moving on.

At 6 months old Eli's favorite things are...

+ his exersaucer!  he can spend a lot of time in there entertaining himself

+ baths/water!  he is really into splashing and trying to grab the water as it comes out of the faucet.

+ reaching/grabbing!  this baby is going after EVERYTHING.  

+ rolling!  last week he did a fully successful roll from back to tummy and he has been going crazy with it ever since.  sadly, this means i can't just lay him on the floor anymore while i try and get things done.  he has also been preferring to sleep on his stomach since he learned this new trick.

+ simon!  sometimes i think simon is eli's favorite person in our family.

+ the vacuum cleaner!  he delights in my efforts to keep our floors swept.

Things Eli may or may not enjoy...

+ reading!  he likes to eat the book, not look at it.

+ sesame street!  he seems to enjoy it when there are kids talking/kids singing but otherwise he ignores the tv.

Here's hoping the next month is at least a little easier than the last, at least as far as sleep goes.  It's kind of amazing how *little* you can handle when you haven't slept properly in half a year.

Still worth it.

5 months old!

Eli became 5 months old on January 18th!

Some things Eli is up to at this time...

Loves:

1. being in the exersaucer
2. silly faces/noises
3. bath time
4. mirrors
5. playing with his feet
6. squawking
7. being on his *back* in his activity gym
8. car rides
9. simon/macy/small living things that move in general
10. chewing on literally anything that will fit in his mouth
11. watching people talk
12. books (chewing on, of course)
13. sitting in the bumbo

He has not yet rolled from his back to his front.  He has rolled front to back a total of 9 times.  He has to be reeeeally motivated to do it.  Otherwise he's pretty content on his back and can't be bothered to roll around.

He has also been practicing "sitting up".  He can tripod sit for a few seconds and sometimes can balance himself the old fashioned way but obviously, being only 5 months old, he just tips over, haha.  I'm hoping he can sit up ;ong enough for his 6 month photos, which I am working on scheduling!

Eli on his 5 month birthday!

Here is a pretty crappy job on a panorama of Eli's room as it currently stands.  I ignored currently standards and got some crib bedding with a bumper pad.  In his case, I am more worried about his leg getting stuck in the bars than suffocating, as he was waking up many nights kicking the side of his crib.  Plus it's super cute and I got the entire set for $35 at Once Upon a Child!

Also, still no tooth yet, and he hasn't had any solid foods.  I'm planning on starting that after talking with his pediatrician about the best options at his 6 month checkup!

*Also to note, I recently received a mother/baby scale and according to it Eli weighs TWENTY POUNDS. if that's true, he gained almost 3 entire pounds in about a month and a week.

*Correction: He weighs 18.8 pounds.  I tried it a few more times.  It makes more sense, especially since he has had a cold this ENTIRE month so far and hasn't been eating as much as usual.