walking proof

Here it is, the first video capturing some of Elijah's first steps. He's much better even by now, improving by leaps and bounds daily! He can also stand up without needing furniture or a wall for support. But that would have to be another video for another day :)

we have a walker!

It's happening! Day by day, step by step, we are getting closer to independent walking. So far we've seen him take about three small steps by himself. We try to encourage him to walk towards us, but he gets so excited to reach his destination that he wants to plunge head first into our arms before he actually gets there :) The shrill squeals of delight he makes while trying to walk are precious! It maybe a while before I am able to capture the new walker on video, so you'll just have to take my word for it for now.

thirteen months old

The tradition of taking a picture over Daddy's shoulder each month came to an end. It was fun while it lasted, but it did eventually get a little old. So, there's no thirteen months old picture in the post. But for those of you who were expecting one, here's a consolation prize: a Tabblo. Tabblo is a pretty cool online service. I was expecting it to take me half a day to put together this poster, but it only took half an hour or so. You can also order posters you make (look for a "Purchase" link at the top), but I would caution you that the quality is not as good as I had hoped, although it's not totally terrible. The company is pretty new, and I think they did a great job. Hopefully their printing services will soon catch up with the quality of their online application.

Christmas 2006

This year we stayed home for Christmas. Partially becuase it's not easy to travel with a baby, but mostly because Ryan had to be at church for Christmas Eve service. Grandpa and Grandma Ferguson came to celebrate with us. After opening a million presents, Elijah got a chance to play his favorite game.



After a nap and more play with new toys, we all enjoyed BBQ brisket and cheesy potatoes.

shake your head

Shaking his head means several things for Elijah. He can shake his head to make it difficult for us to get food in his mouth when he doesn't want it. It can mean that he is in a playful mood. Sometimes he shakes his head for no apparent reason. But he always shakes his head when he is hanging out with his blue bear, especially if the bear also shakes his head!

salt rain

Now that Elijah can stand pretty well, he is interested in what's happening up high, like the dining table, for example. He grabs the edge of the table with his hands and tries to pull up to get a better view. It's adorable! Once in a while he finds something within reach. A few days ago he reached for the salt shaker. My emphatic "No" in two different languages across the room had no effect, neither did a sign for "no". He picked up the salt shaker, stretched out his arm over the carpet, and turned it upside down. If I ever had any doubt in gravity, this was a confirmation that it still works pretty well. The salt poured out like rain. I rushed to rescue the carpet, but by the time I crossed the room, we had a nice white powdery "puddle" on the floor.

P.S. You have to love the vacuum cleaners!

twelve months checkup

Weight: 25.5 lbs
Height: 31 inches
75th percentile

first birthday

Looking back. We celebrated Elijah's first birthday yesterday. It seems like it was just yesterday that we came home from the hospital with a tiny baby in our arms, whose tender skin was irritated by the diaper and was slightly bleeding, so we let him go without a diaper for an hour and he pooped on me. We thought his cries were so loud that we took him out of the bedroom and sat in the living room so as to not wake up the neighbors above us. Little did we know that those cries were nothing compared to the glass-shaking screams he would be capable of a year later.


Off to a good start. I thought we'd take him to have a professional picture taken, but he fell even before breakfast and ended up with a huge red mark under his eye, so a trip to a professional photographer had to be postponed till the bruise heals.

Gifts. After breakfast we opened gifts. He caught on pretty quickly. A couple of times he tried to eat the wrapping paper, but Daddy took it away promptly.


The box in the video contained clothes, which he threw over his shoulder and proceeded to play with the box :)

(Cup)cake


We debated for a while whether to give him cake on his birthday. He wouldn't have known any better, and he probably didn't need the sugar rush. Plus, we didn't want him to know that cake existed. After all, we are trying to train the young taste buds to like the things that are good for him (it's going well so far - he prefers vegetables to pretty much anything except cheese, with broccoli and green beans being all time favorites). We felt there was no reason for him to know that cottage cheese is different from ice cream and wheat bread is not the same thing as chocolate cake. But in the end we (ok, I) broke down and gave him a carrot cake cupcake. To say that he loved it would be a gross understatement.



He had the cupcake after his second nap a couple of hours before dinner. He still ate pretty well at dinner, but once in a while he'd start screaming. The same thing happened today at breakfast. We think he remembers the cupcake and is wondering why he can't have that instead of the Malt-O-Meal. Sorry, Bud, but your next cupcake is at least a year away, and then only maybe. :)

first steps

At almost one Elijah is almost walking. And he has a little attitude :)



Also, I've been experimenting with two video sites: YouTube and vSocial. Although YouTube is by far better known than vSocial, and has been recently acquired by Google, my vote goes to vSocial. The quality of my videos is much better there, and audio doesn't have an annoying delay the way it does on YouTube.

three more teeth

So far Elijah has gotten by with 5 teeth: two front ones on the top and three on the bottom. After several weeks of heavy drooling and a couple days of fever about two weeks ago, he has something to show for all this struggle. A fourth bottom tooth cut through recently and was discovered today by Daddy's hawk eye. Two more on the top are clearly on their way. So now he'll have a complete set of eight teeth: four on the top and four on the bottom. Meanwhile we shy away from him when he approaches our legs with an open mouth - he is biting on anyone and anything he can get a hold of.

grandma's little helper

Elijah's first Thanksgiving (outside of the womb) was marked by a trip to Arizona to visit Grandma Shannon. It was in the 80's outside, so we took walks, watched Cody (the dog) fetch a stick (Elijah loves dogs, but is, unfortunately, allergic to them), explored kitchen cupboards, and had all kinds of fun with brand new toys. Mashed potatoes, stuffing, and green beans were his favorite at Thanksgiving dinner. And since we don't have a dishwasher at home, Elijah closely examined grandma's.

Elijah's Christmas 2006 list

OK, this is Elijah's Christmas list, which can also be used as his birthday list. However, it doesn't have to be used at all. Since Elijah can't type yet (he is learning typing next month), I typed it up for him. The list will be periodically updated as needed.

1. Discovery toys (he already has the cups called "Measure Up", an earlier version of "Hammer Away," and "Stacktivities")
2. Books (by Sandra Boynton (he already has Moo, Baa, La-La-La), or from this list, or from this list, or any other of you favorite baby board books, or books in Russian).
3. Dinosaur, Dalmatian, Teddy Bear, or plain hooded towels
4. A bouncy ball 4-6 inches in diameter. He has a large one and likes to play with it, but it's a little too big for him and hard to hold on to.
5. HotWheels cars, or any other cars that are small enough for little hands.
6. Diapers (Pampers Cruisers size 4)
   

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.