cold food

Elijah is not feeling well these days. We are not sure if he is sick, or if he is teething, or both. Regardless of the cause, when he is not feeling well, he does not eat. He won't even eat cheese! We did, however, stumble into a couple of things he consented to consume. Yesterday it was cold whole wheat noodles. Today - green beans (warm for lunch, cold for dinner).

hamsters

When Elijah doesn't want to eat something, he closes his eyes (or just leaves tiny slits open) and shakes his head so as to make it difficult for us to aim for his mouth. On the first day of our visit to Michigan, DeAnna, a 10 year old animal lover, brought up one of her 5 hamsters to show to Elijah. As she brought it closer to his face to make sure he got a good look, Elijah closed his eyes and shook his head, as if saying, "No, thank you, I really don't want a hamster for dinner!"

A couple days later, another hamster made an appearance in the living room. DeAnna put a towel on the floor to protect the carpet. Elijah didn't care much for the hamster, but he did want to be on the towel as if it was layed out for him!

hello ducky

My good friend Doris invented this game for Elijah one morning while we were visiting them in Michigan about a week ago, and it was an immediate hit! The first time the game was played, we thought Elijah would go on forever! Doris was afraid she'd have to sit there for the next ten hours saying "Hello Ducky! Good-bye Ducky!", and rightly so. Below is but a short snippet of how the game is played.

baby piano

Not a Mozart yet, but you have to start somewhere.

puppies

While visiting friends and family in Michigan last week, we had an outing at the pet store. Looks like at least some of the puppies recognized Elijah to be of about the same age, and Elijah definitely enjoyed running up and down the isle. Meanwhile, I am enjoying not having to carry my 27 lbs son everywhere we go.

box climbing

Climbing a box may not be very exciting for an adult, but it's enough of a challenge for a baby to keep him occupied for a while. And even though I don't personally get into box climbing that much, I do enjoy watching someone else do it. :)

yummy blueberries

Elijah loves blueberries. It was a love from first taste. Even when he refused to eat during his teething bout (to the point where we were wondering if he had simply forgotten how to sign "more"), he asked for more blueberries as soon as he tasted them. Fresh are preferable (and he is a blessed boy to have fresh blueberries in the middle of February), but he'll settle for dried in a heartbeat as well.

Today was a day of snacks. He recently mastered the sign for "eat", and is now in control of when he gets a snack. He started asking for snacks in the morning, shortly after breakfast, and had two by lunch time. First we indulged in some graham crackers, but the second snack consisted entirely of dried blueberries. Well... almost.

As I sat on the couch and he proudly walked back and forth, he'd come back signing "more" every time he'd finish chewing a mouthful of blueberries, and sometimes way earlier. At some point he decided to "ride a horse" on my leg. As I rocked him up and down and he giggled with a mouthful of blueberries, something small fell out onto my knee. I picked it up and put it back into his mouth. Then I thought it was weird that the thing was somewhat whitish-greenish, like the inside of a fresh blueberry, except it was a little hard, like a proper self-respecting dried blueberry should be. And then it hit me. It was a booger! It must have fallen out of his nose. And I fed it to him!!

Perhaps it was merely coincidental that he did not ask for any more blueberries after that :) .