in 12... and in 7

In 12 days my Precious One will be one year old. I can't believe it. Sometimes if I think about it too much, I just want to hold him and cry. Where did the time go? He's a toddler now, and life is great in toddler-land, but it means he isn't a baby anymore. I know, I know. He'll always be my baby and all that jazz, but it's both fun and a little weepy to watch him grow up so fast.

And in 7 days we're having his birthday party. Here. At our teeny-tiny lily pad of a house where we'll all be sitting on top of each other and parking in neighbors' parking spots. Oh well. He only turns one once, right?

I've been stressing out a bit about the party details, even though it won't be a big deal of a party. Parties always make me nervous. So many things to worry about, and what if no one comes? What if they come but they aren't entertained? I looked a long time for a theme, but nothing seemed right. So I decided to find some invitation inspiration and go with that, so here's our non-theme... blue and green and orange pennant flags, inspired by this invitation I made (but the general flag idea I jacked from tinyprints.com):

I've been sewing pennant flags to use as decoration and my goodness, am I sick of the project. I love them though. It isn't a really difficult project, just a little tedious and heaven knows I don't have a lot of time I can do it when Eli isn't trying to stick his sweet little almost-one-year-old fingers under my moving needle. I have to finish the rest this weekend... so I hope the hubs doesn't think he gets to nap all day.

I wanted to make him a birthday crown like one I saw on etsy, so I went to it. Well, I'm not good at guessing dimensions, because it's huge. It's adjustable around his head, but it's just sort of giant in general. I wanted to make it big enough that he could wear it for subsequent birthdays (hence the E instead of a 1) but he might be wearing this until he's well into adulthood. Oh well. I'm not starting over, because my fingers were practically bleeding from all the hand stitching, and besides, he won't leave it on anyway. So why double my wasted time?

Action shots in seven days!

a little valentining

We had a nice Valentiney Sunday. Josh brought me some beautiful roses, and Eli was cute. His cuteness is one of my favorite gifts.

Noah and I made valentines and some pretty heart cookies to celebrate. We went to church, took naps, ate lunch and dinner and cookies and whoopie pies. And went to bed with stomachaches...

Today I had a cookie for breakfast and after lunch I had some chocolate hearts I got on the V-Day clearance rack at Target. And I'd go for a run, but we're in the process of getting 6-9 more inches of snow.

ubf!

Eli's first word is official: it's up.

Just this week I decided to start really teaching him to say it to give him an option rather than standing at my feet (or knees when I'm sitting) and screaming bloody murder at me. Since he's never been very interested in mimicking, I was kind of surprised he picked it up. I think it just took him a few times to realize it worked, and that was the key.

I was waiting to hear it a little more, and unprompted, before I decided if it was an accident or truly his first word. But yesterday he said it to me four times--three of them unprompted--and twice today--once to get out of bed and once to get out of the high chair after breakfast.

It sounds like this: ubf!

Eli had his first unbalanced meal today--Chick-Fil-A. A little chicken, a little waffle fry.

After being trapped in the house all these snowy days, Eli and I cleared off the car and went for a snowy, slippery ride to the mall. We walked a little, played a little, ate a little. Eli had his first ride in a coin-operated fire truck.

Have I mentioned he's walking? I think maybe I failed to post about that a few weeks ago when he took his first steps--now he's walking exclusively. He seems to have sworn off crawling for good.

He's getting to be such a big boy! He's doing so many big-boy things now... eating table food, walking around (practically running now!), and even getting to be a pretty good sleeper. He has a couple toys he really loves, and he carries one book around everywhere and loves when I read it to him. He loves watching Signing Time and smiles big when he hears the music come on.

I can't believe his birthday is coming up so soon. In a way it seems like yesterday that we brought him home.

Sicky Pants

Eli has bronchitis. Mommy too! We're tired at our house.

We took a trip home to my parents' to visit while my sister was visiting. We had a nice time, butone night Eli went to bed with a cough and woke up wheezing. After holding him all night I took him to Urgent Care in the morning and he had a breathing treatment. He sure didn't like it! Once we got home from our trip, I took him back to the pediatrician and he had another--but this time he slept through it. Poor guy is so tired and worn out! He's sleeping a lot, eating a little, and watching a ton of TV.

I think we're on our way back to normal, but it's been a long week so far.

ten months

Okay, so I've had some computer issues lately. Here I am!

Well, to double your pleasure, I not only have Eli's 10-month picture, but also his first haircut! I sat him down to take his 10-month picture and when I looked at the photos, I realized just how badly he needed his shaggy hair trimmed up. So we loaded up in the car and got him a nice new haircut! He was amazingly good, and I was pleased with the outcome. He was pleased with the sucker.

Happy 10 months! :)

family portraits

We had some pictures taken yesterday. Eli wasn't especially cooperative, but Noah was surprisingly good.

In other news, Eli and I have colds. Darn it! Poor kid has had so many colds already in his few months of life, and I seem to always catch them from him, too... woe is we!

8 months

Eli is 8 months old today!

fall at home

I was hanging out with the boys the other day and really wanted to take them to a pumpkin patch, but to my surprise, I found out they aren't open on weekdays. So we went to the Walmart "patch" (i.e., giant box of dirty pumpkins) and "picked" a couple.

Noah had fun painting his, but Eli just wanted to eat both the paint and the pumpkin stem, so I had to help him a little with his. The design was totally his idea, though.

After I (finally) got Eli to take a nap, Noah and I ate some pumpkin-face quesadillas and dipped some pretzels in chocolate to make them pretty and yummy.

After Eli woke up, I tried really hard to get a photo together with both of them looking and smiling, but I'm thinking that might not happen until they're in their teens.

7 months

Eli turned 7 months while we were at my parents' this last week. I'm finally getting his picture up! It's getting much more difficult to capture this shot now that he's wiggling away from me and distracted by just about everything. Asking a baby to do four things at once (i.e., sit still, hold sign, look at camera, and smile to boot!) is a little ridiculous, I guess.

He's officially on the move--we are crawling and pulling up to standing. Lowering the crib mattress is on my to-do list for today and Josh is in the process of making some cool-looking baby gates for the two sets of stairs. Here's a little crummy video (from my crummy-video-taking phone) of some crawling. We're going much faster now!

His new thing is skipping his naps, which he's attempting to do at the moment.

30-something daddy

Today is Josh's 33rd birthday, so even though he had to go to work a little bit (surprise!) we tried to have a little bit of a celebratory day.

Eli and I worked hard making a birthday cake. Okay, he just sat in the high chair and played with Sophie and posed for this picture.

We also made some meatloaf "cupcakes" with mashed-potato "icing."

A little cake and snuggling helped to ring in another year of this life!

stats

Even though Eli turned 6 months last Friday, he had his 6-month check-up today. At 18lb7.5oz and 28 3/4 inches long, he is in the 75th (weight) and 95th (height) percentiles.

Hard to believe he was ever my tiny boy in preemie clothes!

Eli, 2 days old

Eli, 6 months old

(not) sleepy time

I dressed the boys in matching PJs for the first time tonight. Noah had these already and I found them in Eli's size at a consignment store so I had to get them.

Even though they're dressed for bed, they're not actually ready for bed. Why? Well, because they both slept an insane amount of time today. Josh put Noah down for his nap at 1pm. At 4:15 he put Eli down for a nap, and Noah was still sleeping. At 7:15, they were both still asleep! And Eli took a 3.5-hour nap earlier in the day, too. So I had to wake them both, and needless to say, no one here is ready for bed but us parents. Eli will be ready soon, but it almost seems like torture to make Noah go back to bed any time soon when he just took a six-hour nap.

What should we do with our evening? I guess we won't be catching up on our marathon of old episodes of Oz. Nothing like a little prison love for the innocent eyes of a child.

a very merry half-birthday

... to Eli!

He turned 6 months old today!

Here are a couple pictures of our day.

first boo-boo

Eli was sitting on the floor near where Noah was playing when he toppled over and hit his head on one of Noah's toys. I didn't think he hit that hard, so I was surprised when he started crying and we saw that he was bleeding. It was already looking blue with a big bump so I got some ice (well, chocolate chips from the freezer, haha) to hold on his head for a little while and it really worked. It doesn't look bad at all now. But it sure was sad at the time!

moving up

Edit: We returned this seat for the My Ride 65. We love it!

We moved Eli into a convertible carseat this week. He's almost outgrown his carrier and he's so heavy I could hardly carry it anymore anyway. Plus, he hated it, so I was ready. We went with the Safety 1st Uptown since it had great reviews, has an 8 year life span, and was a great deal at $65 at Big Lots! It took awhile to get it all adjusted right, but he seems comfortable now.

He proved he was ready to be out of the carrier in his first big-boy ride in a shopping cart!

tickle tickle

Recently Eli has started tickling me. Not on purpose, but I'm still ticklish.

I took my sleepy little boy upstairs and sat down in the rocking chair with him. I usually wrap up his arms to help him settle down, but this time I only covered up the arm on the outside; the arm under him and against me was free. I started to feed him his bottle and with his precious eyes closed as he cuddled up to me, I felt his little fingers opening and closing and rubbing my side. At first I just smiled and hugged him closer. But then it started to tickle. The more I tried not to laugh, the more ticklish I became. I was trying to laugh quietly but it was causing me to wiggle around to try to get away from his tickling fingers, all while trying to keep him quiet and sleepy. Now this is happening any time his arms aren't wrapped up, so I pretty much have to keep him swaddled to feed and rock him.

These are the moments I want to remember when my little boy grows up. When I think of his earliest days I don't want to just remember the screaming and sleepless nights. We have moments like this every day, but I don't always make a point to write them down or sit and recall them and smile.

But I want to.

staying put

After a crazy week with everything up in the air, we aren't going to Texas. Josh is staying here and life has settled back down to our normal crazy. Whew!

Something kind of popular in baby circles these days is the amber teething necklace. Apparently Baltic amber has natural properties that make it an anti-inflammatory when worn against the skin. I couldn't decide if I believed it or not (Josh calls it voodoo), but I got him one Friday morning and since Friday evening he has been in a much better mood. We'll take it. I hope it really is helping with the teething pain. I wish they sold some that somehow look less girly, but I guess I can only ask for a happy baby and not a well-accessorized baby!

5 months

Eli turned 5 months old today!

I've been meaning to post something lately but I kept putting it off. I told myself I had to post on his 5-month date anyway, so that was my deadline. So here I am for a big old update.

First of all, what I meant to come and tell you all was that on Thursday, July 31, Eli woke up a different baby. Goodbye, colic! For two weeks he was a completely different kid... happy, smiling, laughing, showing interest in toys, using his hands, and just so much more content. I was certain it was over and I was so happy to know I had survived 4.5 months of colic. But the last week he's been pretty miserable again... I am really hoping it's just teething or something and not a reversion.

In spite of his preemie status, he's been hitting his milestones a-ok. He's rolling both back to front and front to back and he's so close to sitting up unaided. I've been using sign language for "milk" with him since he was about 2 months old and he definitely recognizes it now. I can't wait for the first time he actually "tells" me what he wants! He's scooting himself backward and around in circles, so I'm waiting for a crawl. No teeth yet but they just have to be coming, as fussy and slobbery as he is.

We've had a bit of company lately! Eli got to meet lots of family, take his first trip to the zoo, and go swimming for the first time. I think he liked all of these things.

He and I both had nasty colds for over a week. Mine has morphed into allergies since my nemesis ragweed has finally come to town. My cold is gone but Eli's nose is still a snot machine, so I wonder if he might have my allergies. I didn't think they developed that young but I guess I'll have to read up on it.

And in the latest news, Josh is leaving us on Monday for two months to go to Texas for work. He'll come home to visit now and then, but it's probably going to be a long and difficult time for us. I'm a little afraid, since Eli is not the easiest baby to care for all hours of the day and night without any help. And I hate that Daddy is going to miss milestones. These are important months!

breaking and entering

I went out on the back patio today to get some sun on my legs and to keep Eli happy (he loves it outside).

We sat out there for about an hour when he started fussing and acting hungry.

So I got our things together to go in and the door wouldn't open. It's a sliding glass door and the stick in the door had fallen down and locked us out.

So I gathered up the baby and we walked around to the front, hoping the door would be unlocked. It wasn't! And of course I was NOT dressed in a way I wanted the public to see me, since I was trying to get some sun on my awful legs (there will be no picture of this!). I tore the screen off the kitchen window but when I got to the window, it was locked. So were all the others (a good thing, I guess!). I couldn't call anyone, because my phone was in the house. Even if I could, Josh was at work and I drove him, so he couldn't help me, and no one has another key anyway.

So I realized I was going to have to crawl in the basement window. First I had to lug a bunch of 50-pound bags of sand away from the window, and then I had to break the window AND the frame, since it had a center bar and the window was already pretty small for me to fit through. So I beat it to death with the weapon shown below and tried to get all the glass pieces out of the window.

Then I remembered I wasn't wearing any shoes, so how was I going to jump down to the basement floor covered with shattered glass? Ugh!! So I tossed the cushion from one of the deck chairs down there, hoping it would be in the right place, since I couldn't see anything in there. Then I lowered myself down in, gingerly feeling around with my feet hoping NOT to find glass.

I managed to get in with just a bunch of scrapes and a lot of dirt all over me. I ran back upstairs to rescue Eli, who of course was screaming during the whole operation. I was sure I was going to get arrested either for breaking into my own house or leaving my baby outside screaming alone!

We are safe inside with full bellies now. Eli's doing his favorite thing, watching tv.