cookie monster

When Ryan was little, he had a Cookie Monster. Now Elijah (like father, like son) has one too! Once in a while the cookie monster comes alive in Daddy's hands.

touch and feel

Last time we tried to read a book, Elijah was mostly interested in sucking on it. But times have changed! He is now able to somewhat concentrate on what's on the actual pages, although he still makes attempts to explore the book with his mouth. Yet he has discovered a new tool for exploration as well - his index finger! And it works perfectly for Touch and Feel books. His favorite page is in the Pets book - a cat. He loves to pull on the cat's whiskers (pieces of fishing line).

It's fun to see him recognize distinct shapes on a page. In another book we have (Who Lives In The Pond) he likes to point at small pink things (a snail and a salamander). They are marginal unimportant characters in the book, but each time we turn a page that has one of them on it, his tries to scrape it off with his index finger.

eight months old

We celebrated Elijah's eighth month birthday by heading to our favorite park (it also happens to be the one within walking distance, which makes it our park of choice in the absence of a car). Once again, the day was beautiful, the park mostly quiet (at least when we arrived), the swing empty. We had a picnic lunch right there, although Elijah was more interested in watching other kids (who filled the play ground by lunch time) swing, than eat. So most of the food ended up on his face.

In the evening, when Daddy came home, we took our official picture. Here it is.

dessert

Eating solids has been an adventure for us. After Elijah's initial love of rice cereal and bananas, we offered him peaches. He made the funniest faces and we about died laughing, but the sad result was that he refused to take solids for at least two months after that. He would make a face when he'd just see the spoon, long before anything reached his mouth. Finally, a couple weeks ago, we had a fresh start. This time we offered vegetables, and he fell in love with them! We usually start him with a container of sweet potatoes, squash or green beans each night for dinner, after which we offer bananas or apple sauce for "dessert". The veggies go down pretty well, but he would let us know he is done after just a few spoons of fruit. (When he thinks it's more fun to blow food out through pursed lips than to swallow it, we know he is done!) We thought that perhaps he was too full by that time, until one day we gave him fruit first. He ate a couple spoonfuls and was done. That didn't seem right, as he usually eats at least one container. We then offered some veggies, and he ate them up! From now on, vegetables are served for dessert! The only thing he still can't make friends with are green peas.

This is a video of Elijah eating peaches on June 15th, 2006.

life is beautiful

Life with a young baby can be challenging at times. It's not always a walk in a park, but today it was :)

My plan was to have Elijah sit in his stroller at a nearby playground and watch bigger kids play while I read The Economist. But no one else was at the park. Well, almost nobody. There was a dad with a girl of what looked like about 5 years old, plus a couple people (looked like a grandfather with a granddaughter) played tennis a little way off. They were pretty bad, but didn't care a bit and apparently thoroughly enjoyed themselves. Good for them!

Having nothing for Elijah to look at, I had to take it upon myself to entertain him. He spent a little time in a swing, rode a small iron horse, walked a little, and then decided he was tired. I held him in my arms and paced back and forth for a while. It was a beautiful day. A sunny blue sky, a cool breeze, a quiet park, green trees, a squeaky swing, tiny shoes, small steps, a precious little baby boy with blue eyes, a content mother. What else does one need?* Life is beautiful.

The peace was so overwhelming that I couldn't help but hum a little to myself (I indulge myself in singing once in a while, but only when no one can hear, as I really can't carry a tune in a paper bag):

If you want to live life free,
Take your time, go slowly.
Do few things, but do them well.
Little joys are holy.

*All right, one also needs a job, a place to live, something to eat and to wear, and preferably health insurance. But other than that?

tooth #2

We discovered tooth #2 yesterday. We knew it was coming a couple days ago, but could feel its sharpness with our fingers yesterday. It's one of the top front teeth (his right side). While Ryan was trying to feel it again today, Elijah dug his bottom one into Ryan's finger. Ouch!

music lover

One of Elijah's favorite music pieces is Benedictine chant. It's a two volume album. We keep one disk in the car, so that when he gets restless, we just turn it on and Elijah freezes right away, listening. The other CD is kept at home, for all of our listening pleasure.

tooth #1

Yes, we have our first tooth! I could feel it yesterday when Elijah was sucking (or, rather, biting) on my knuckle, but he didn't let me look closely. Today, however, we were able to look and see a tiny little white line in the middle of his lower gum. Razor sharp!

a walk that never happened

Living among boxes for three plus weeks has been a challenge. One of the results is that some things I planned never happened. For example, early in our life at the new apartment Elijah and I were hoping to go on a walk. It used to be that a walk was a matter of tying my shoes and getting out the door. Not any more. Now we need a stroller, a diaper bag, a bottle of water for me, a toy for the baby, a hat for each of us, and the list goes on. Finding all of this among a stack of boxes triples the effort involved. It took me at least thirty minutes to get everything ready, but for the life of me I could not find Elijah's hat! I did, however, find my bandana. When we finally got outside, I couldn't open the stroller with just one hand (something came off while it was being transported from the old apartment), and Elijah screamed in my ear while I was holding him with my other arm. The walk had to be called off, but I figured I'd at least take a picture.

sitting up

I promised a picture of Elijah sitting up a few weeks ago. Here it is. It's still in the old apartment. Elijah learned to sit on the bed as pictured (he practiced with Daddy every morning for a while). He also learned that falling down from sitting position is fun and soft. He still throws himself back with reckless abandon when sitting on the floor. To minimize brain damage, I usually surround him with pillows for now :)

sleepy feet

I am not sure if feet can be sleepy. I know eyes can, but feet? In any case, here's proof that I sneak into my child's bedroom when he is asleep and take pictures of his feet. It may seem a little weird, but I can't help myself. I just find it too precious to go unphotographed.

seven months old

Here we go, Elijah's seven months old picture. Note the presence of hair! It may be short, but it is unmistakably there! :)

hats off!

Elijah figured out how to take off his hat. It took him a few days to perfect his technique, but he is now quite good at it. He is usually supposed to wear a hat when we go outside on walks, but it appears that he came to a conclusion that hats are overrated, and likes to take his off and throw it overboard. After that the events usually unfold as follows: we run the hat over with the stroller, go for a while without it, then I notice the hat is missing, and we spend the next several minutes retracing our steps looking for the hat. Once the hat is found, it goes back on Elijah's head, and everything starts over.

fourteen days without the internet

We moved to a new apartment! Whether the move was successful or not is a matter of oppinion, but the fact is that all three of us are now reasonably settled in our new home.

It took Elijah a couple of weeks to get used to his new bedroom separate from his parents. The poor child had a rough first night, and perhaps that set the tone for the next two weeks. We didn't make it in on our first day till after 10 pm, which means he was woken up several times after his usual bed time (to get into the car and then to get out of it - he is such a light sleeper sometimes). Once in the new apartment, it took several attempts to put him back to sleep. One of them was a brilliant idea to put him on the floor on his mattrass. He, of course, rolled off of it unto the floor minutes after we left him there sound asleep.

I had all kinds of plans for finding parks, mothers' groups and things to do with babies in the area. Turns out, you (or at least I) can't do much without the internet. I couldn't buy books I wanted, couldn't look up stores near by, or do much of anything for fourteen days! The theme song for me during those two weeks became this (think "internet" where it says "you"):

I can't stop thinking about you,
I can't imagine living without you!

milk carton

Every morning we have breakfast as a family. Elijah, actually, eats first. It's easier that way :) Once he is done, Ryan and I sit down to a bowl of oatmeal with raisins and some milk. Since Elijah is usually very calm and rested in the morning, he quietly plays with whatever toy we give him until we are done and ready to start the day.

Not so during dinner. He is at the end of his day and the end of his rope. He demands attention. No toy satisfies him. Then one day we stumbled upon an ... empty Organic Valley milk carton. I guess it doesn't really matter that it was Organic Valley milk, but the milk is good, so why not mention the brand? Elijah usually wants to get a hold of whatever is on the table, and that time it was the milk carton. A milk carton is not a knife, not a fork, nor Daddy's tea, nor Mommy's Russian salami, so we didn't really mind him playing with it. And what a find it was! It's big enough to keep Elijah's attention, hard enough to grab to keep it challenging, and parts of it are easy to suck on. Best of all, he loves it! We've had a number of peaceful dinners since.

koala kare bear

Turns out, Elijah only likes his changing table, and he is not fooled when he has to be changed on one of those Koala Kare Bear changing stations in public restrooms. We learned it the hard way.

Since we are moving to a new apartment (and what now feels like a new life) early July, we have been making it a point to spend some time with friends living on the north side of Chicago (we are moving to the south side). Tonight we went to Chipotle with my co-worker Bob. While en route, Elijah was making sounds of what seemed like hard straining. We had a guess of what he was doing, and we were right. It wasn't just the diaper, it was his clothes and the car seat that got dirty as well. Chipotle, to my surprise, did not have a changing station, so I had to take Elijah to a Corner Bakery next door.

This was our very first time changing the diaper in a public restroom. The moment I laid him down, he started screaming so loud, I was afraid people were going to come to check out what was going on. My (what I considered to be) comforting whispers had no effect, and I was a little too self-conscious to sing him my Russian cartoon songs. I ended up having to hold the naked screaming child with one arm and clean him with my free hand, all the way hoping he wouldn't pee on me. After all, I still hadn't had dinner at that point. I also learned that those changing station aren't big enough to lay the dirty diaper and wipes out of baby's reach. The thought of other people's diapers getting turned over by their baby's kicking was enough to give Elijah a soap bath.

My dinner, but the way, was delicious. Thanks Bob!

six months checkup

Weight: 19 lb 12 oz
Height: 26.5 inches (according to the doctor's records, Elijah only grew 0.5 inches in the last time, but we all agreed that there's a good chance one of the previous measurements was off).
Head circumference: can't remember (those mind-erasing pregnancy hormones are not all gone yet :-))

We can't wait till Elijah is over 20 lbs, so that we can legally turn his car seat and face it forward. The poor kid doesn't fit in it any more facing backwards. His legs are bent and his feed are pushing against the back seat.

He's been sleeping and eating like crazy in the last couple of days, so we are guessing he is growing. At this rate he'll probably hit 20 lbs before the week is over!

Elijah's first "bonk"

I knew it was going to happen sooner or later. My little baby was going to get hurt one way or another. And so he did. He was practicing sitting on the floor (he is getting quite good at it) and was doing so well. I was right there watching him like a hawk, making sure I'd catch him if he lost his balance. But he didn't need my help. He was busy chewing and shaking his toys. Then, for a few short seconds, I looked away to answer Ryan. The next thing I saw was Elijah's head heading for the floor, and then "bonk!" and a scream. Oh, no! My child will be brain damaged for life!

He cried for less than 2 minutes, and was once again a happy baby sucking his thumb. And it looks like he is going to be just fine.

P.S. Come to think of it, this wasn't the first time he was hurt. A few weeks ago he got pinched by a high chair buckle.

official picture

Help us choose the official six months old picture. Which one should it be: the tongue or the smile? Cast your vote by leaving a comment!

six months old

Elijah turned 6 months today! To celebrate the event, North Park Covenant Church threw a block party complete with food, games, and other attractions! (OK, the party was planned independently of Elijah's big day and just happened to be today, so what?) We spent almost three hours outside - the longest he's ever been outside in one stretch. The activity all around kept our curious boy awake for a while, but he finally crashed in his new backpack carrier (thanks Jim and Norma!)

He also learned how to sit by himself in the last few days with a lot of help from Daddy and hours of practice. He is not always entirely stable yet, but he's getting there. I'll try to post a picture when I get one. Stay tuned!