11 months old

Wow. It's hard to believe it's been almost a year. Here he is, 11 months (and a couple days) old.

"Christopher Columbus"

Exploration of the apartment is now in full swing. First it was just the living room, then the dining room, then the kitchen. A few days ago Elijah took off down our very long hallway and turned into the bathroom. The bathroom has become one of the most fun places to hang out. Today he discovered the toilet lid and everything that's hiding beneath it. I was there just in time to get him out of the bathroom before he took a dive into his private swimming pool.

P.S. "The new world" that Elijah is discovering has, of course, been already "discovered" and inhabited by others way before he was even aware there was a world out there to discover.

standing up

Elijah has known how to pull himself up to standing for a couple of weeks now, but he felt content to just stand on his knees next to a couch, a chair, or a coffee table. He would remain standing if we stood him up next to something, but he did not really want to do it himself. Until today. All of a sudden, pulling up to standing became the thing to do. And not just that. Once he pulls himself up, he likes to hold on with just one hand, steady himself, and then very slowly and cautiously let go. He balances for just a second, and then either grabs something for support or plops down on the floor. Still, I was so proud of him I almost cried :)

favorite colors

Every morning (and sometimes after naps when I remember), we spend some time looking at books. This is our first activity of the day, since that's when Elijah is quietest. One of our favorites is a book called Happy Baby Colors. If the amount of time spent per page has anything to do with his color preferences, then blue, pink, and gray are his favorites. He usually briefly pauses on the blue page, spends a little time touching a picture of a flower or yogurt on the pink page, and just stares for a while at the gray page (I think he is staring at a big teddy bear there). But he quickly turns the pages for all the other colors.

library boy

When Elijah crawls up to a book shelf and starts touching the books, we just watch and remain in stand by mode. When he starts licking my The Bread Bible book, we discourage him. But when the books start getting pulled off the shelf and thrown on the floor, Daddy takes the baby away, saying, "You can't check these books out, you don't have a library card!"

Not any more! Elijah now does have a library card! In order to sign him up for baby story time (called Baby Business), our local city library requires that the child have their own library card. Now the only person in the family without one is Daddy.

We attended the first half hour session this morning. We sang songs, recited nursery rhymes, had story time and made a craft. OK, Mommy really made the craft (a three-piece snowman that had to be glued together and then decorated with stickers), but Elijah helped chew on it. And, while all other children were contentedly sitting in their mothers' laps during most of the time, Elijah felt compelled to crawl around non-stop.

spoon wielder

In honor of All Saints day we had a special dinner: hamloaf (in case you don't know what that is, here's a recipe; we use pork instead of turkey, but otherwise it's identical), mashed potatoes, and home made french rolls (we were missing a vegetable to make it a well rounded meal, but I was too tired after a day of cooking, so we decided potatoes would have to pass for a vegetable this time.) However, what made the meal really special was our first spoon experience with Elijah. He and I picked up some baby bowls at the store during our morning walk, so as soon as he was done with his hamloaf (which he absolutely loved; thanks for the recipe, Doris!), we placed a bowl of mashed potatoes in front of him and handed him a spoon. We thought mashed potatoes would be a good dish for this. Elijah will only eat the things he likes, and he likes mashed potatoes. The spoon was discarded almost immediately, the bowl was turned upside down after just a few seconds (fortunately, the potatoes landed on the tray, and not on the new carpet), after which Elijah proceeded to eat the potatoes with his hands. I would have never in my wildest dreams considered mashed potatoes to be finger food, but whatever works!

the longest nap

Yesterday Elijah and I went to visit some friends on the north side of Chicago. We left the house in the morning, and my plan was to be there by the time Elijah would want to take his first nap, so he could sleep in my arms. We were going to head home shortly after lunch, so he could take his second nap in his crib.

Well, as usual, things didn't go the way I planned. It took a little longer to get up north, and the humming of the engine lulled Elijah to sleep in the car for about 45 minutes (not a good nap). On the way back he once again fell asleep for about 30 minutes and woke up as soon as we got off the highway. Once we came home, I was thinking about keeping him up for a couple hours and then putting him to bed for the night early. But he curled up in my arms, put his thumb in his mouth, and I saw his eyes rolling back, which pretty much means "All I really want to do is be put to bed right now." It is not unusual for him to go down for his second nap as late as 3:30 pm, and still go to bed between 6 and 7. So, without much hesitation, I put him down, and he was asleep within 15 minutes. The time was 3 pm.

When we sat down to dinner around 5 pm, Elijah was still asleep. The dinner was over, the dishes were done, but the boy still slept. Daddy went back to church to work on his sermon, and I did some work at home, and still Elijah slept. When our bed time rolled around, he still hasn't woken up. We checked up on him one more time and turned in for the night.

We found Elijah at 6 am the next morning quietly sitting in his crib. His diaper was so full you'd think he had rocks in there, and he needed a bath pretty badly. But other than that, after 15 hours of continuous sleep, we had one quiet, happy, rested, HUNGRY baby.

All of this happened on the eve of All Saints day, so, needless to say, we did not go trick-or-treating (not like were planning on it anyway). But if someone asked us what Elijah was on his first Halloween, we could say that he was, somewhat literally, a sleeping beauty.

mac & cheese

A couple of days ago Elijah was introduced to the finest of our home cuisine: macaroni and cheese. None of the boxed stuff for us! Only the finest cheddar cheese will ever touch our macaroni. The recipe comes to us from Ryan's paternal grandmother via Ryan's mom. Ryan's mom tells a story of dropping off Ryan and his younger brother at a baby sitter's, and the baby sitter asking what the boys like to eat. "Do they like mac & cheese?" "Oh, yes, they LOVE mac & cheese!" Needless to say, neither Ryan nor his brother wanted anything to do with the mac & cheese that the baby sitter made for them out of the box. The little detail that the boys have ever only had home made macaroni and cheese did not get communicated to the baby sitter :)

We are proud to present to you a new macaroni and cheese snob in the making. The video was taken after he consumed about a ton of this delicious dish, so he may not look very excited about it here. When I tried to take another video the next day earlier during the meal time, my batteries ran out, and by the time they were recharged, there was no mac & cheese left. But even if Elijah may seem to you less than absolutely excited about what he is eating, trust me, he loved it!



P.S. For those of you familiar with this outstanding recipe, in case you are wondering how Elijah handled all the hot stuff we put on it, we made a pepper-less corner just for him.