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!

watch your watch

If you have a watch, you'd better watch it. Elijah loves watches. If he sees one on your wrist, he will work hard to get it, because he just absolutely must have it! It doesn't matter if it's a fancy watch or not, expensive or cheap, as long as it's within reach.

not embearrassed (or is he?)

wilson

Elijah's new favorite (competing with his keys) is a toy that's good for many things: it makes noise, it has a convenient holding handle, it has a face to look at, and "hair" to suck on. We call it Wilson, after Tom Hanks' island companion from the movie Castaway. Tom Hanks' Wilson started as the first image, and ended up as the second. Elijah's Wilson is starting out as shown on the picture. We'll see what it ends up like ;)

a moving toy

One of Elijah's outfits has feet that look like a ducky's head, complete with yellow fuzzies, blue eyes, and a red beak (click on the picture to get a better view). Each time he wears it, his attention is caught by these two bright moving objects, and he is very curious about what those things are. He reaches for them and tries to grab them with his hand. However, the two duckies are very devious. They keep moving, which makes it hard to grab them. This can get very frustrating, especially if you are five months old and absolutely must have the thing you want, yet lack the hand-eye coordination to make it happen.

two boys

A (former) co-worker came to the office the other day to say good-bye and to show off her four months old baby boy Calvin. He was born just 6 weeks after Elijah. Taking the opportunity, Elijah visited Mommy's work as well, and made a debut at the IS department. The last time the two boys were in such close proximity of each other was back in November before either of them was born. As you can see on the picture, Calvin has by far more hair, and his fingers seem to be a preferred snack.

Who knows, in 18 years Calvin and Elijah might end up as roommates at North Park, but they both have a lot of ground to cover before that (minor things like sitting, walking and talking would be good).

he rolled over!

Well, he sort of rolled over. Ryan put him down on his back. Next time he looked Elijah was playing on his side, as he has been doing for a while. The next time Ryan looked, Elijah was playing on his tummy. We think it was more of an accident rather than a purposeful "I want to be on my tummy so I am going to roll over now" kind of thing. He probably wanted to look at something, arched his back, and ended up on his tummy. He has previously rolled over from his tummy onto his back, but that really was an accident, as he just lost his balance and then looked very surprised to find himself flipping on his back. That was a while ago when grandma from Russia was visiting us. Yet, the fact remains. Today is the official first roll-over day.

a gift from grandma

Before leaving for Russia, Grandma left Elijah a monetary gift to be spent on a walker. After researching what's available on the market, we decided that we are not going to pay a fortune for cheap plastic junk which didn't do what we wanted anyway. Instead, we invested into a "wrap" pictured here. We could've bought a brand name one, or went on eBay and bought a used one for half the price. Instead, we went to Ten Thousand Villages in hopes to buy a good piece of cloth for cheap, and ended up spending way too much money on five yards of very good quality material (again, see picture).

This should now enable us to carry Elijah while cooking without risking to burn him. Even though riding on Daddy's back doesn't keep him happy forever (especially not in the evening when he is at the end of his rope), it does a much better job than the high chair (or even the changing table - sorry Cherith, but the metaphysical connection you were claiming is starting to wear off :-))

five months old

Here it is, the official five months old picture.

love of tables

Lying on your back or sitting in a high chair, or even being on the changing table, is not nearly as much fun as standing at a coffee table or sitting on Mom or Dad's lap at the kitchen table. That's what Elijah is up to these days. He wants to stand as much as possible, and if he can be near a table, all the better. Just think, who whouldn't want that? It's so much fun to bang on the table with your arms (we wonder if it ever hurts), to grab and pull placemats, or just sit around like a big boy.

what is your mouth good for?

As it turns out, there are plenty of fun things you can do with your mouth. For example, you can tighten your lips a little, open your mouth just a bit, and blow through the lips. You can vocalize or not, depending on the mood. This is especially fun if you have some rice cereal in your mouth. If the consistency is right, i.e. your parents didn't make it too thick again, but nice and soupy, you can achieve a great spraying effect! You can also get your parents to say your name in unison, "Elijah!", when you do that.

Another fun thing you can do is pull your lower lip in between your gums. Then you can suck on it if you want. It's not as good as a burpcloth or Daddy's t-shirt, but it will do in a pinch. If you get tired sucking your lower lip, you can always switch to your fingers. The great thing about sucking your fingers is that there are a lot of combinations, so you never get bored.

You can also stick your tongue out of your mouth. You can do it a little bit or a lot, and you can keep your tongue flat or like a little sausage. This is best done when your Dad is holding you facing him and also sticks out his tongue. Then you can both sit there with your tongues out for a while, staring at each other.

When you nurse, or rather when you are almost done, you can firmly squeeze your gums and then pull your head back without letting go. If you do that, however, you risk loosing your nursing privileges till the next feeding. After you are really done nursing, it's fun to smack your lips for a while.

After a long day of exploring what all you can do with your mouth, you can curl up in your Mom's arms in a semi dark bedroom, and fall asleep after your last meal of the day. Then you can smile in your sleep, and your mother will think that you are the most precious thing ever. She will then put you in your crib, and spend the rest of the evening blogging about you.

who is in the mirror?

Before giving Elijah a bath, we put him in front of a bathroom mirror for a minute or two. He first looks everywhere but in the mirror: the floor, the ceiling, the shower curtain, Daddy, the mirror frame. Then, finally, he notices people in the mirror, and ultimately himself. Once his real eyes meet the eyes of his reflection, he smiles and squeals with delight! It makes his parents crack up :) I wonder if he realizes who is in the mirror (I doubt it), or if he thinks there's another person his size in the house. I also wonder if this is how the love of self begins :)

a trying day

Daddy had a difficult day yesterday. To put it in literary terms:
Mr Hyde (Elijah awake) – loud, squirmy, cranky, and manifestly unhelpful in attaining the quiet zen day full of opportunities for restful reflection that Daddy wanted.
Dr Jekyll (Elijah asleep) – a cute little sleeping cherub around 7 p.m. Zen still elusive.

To our wonder and amazement, the new day revealed a new leap in his development. He (once again) seemed bigger, and passed his keys from one hand to another while lying on the bed this morning like it was no big deal! (It's not, but we're so easily amused: we often pass keys from one hand to the other in front of each other for hours on end; never a dull moment!)

This post is the product of an iterative editorial process. Thanks Marvin.

rice cereal

After we fed Elijah a jar of baby bananas (which I consider not worth the money - mashing an organic banana with a fork will do just fine from now on), I decided to do some research online (better late than never). Turns out, it is recommended you feed your child rice cereal for a while before introducing fruits and vegetables. Who would have thought! While I don't think it's that big of a deal, Elijah will be eating rice cereal for a little bit. We mix it with yummy Mommy's milk that has been sitting in the freezer for a few months for just such an occasion. It's perfect! It's not good enough to be eaten by itself as it won't fill him up (turns out the makeup of the milk changes as the baby grows, becoming more filling for them), but it's great to be mixed with cereal for a little (or a large) afternoon snack!

apple sauce and bananas

That's right, we started Elijah on solid foods. We are not really trying to get more food into him, it was just an experiment to see what he'd do. Books say it's good to start slow, give the baby a spoonful or two just to get him used to different textures. We thought we'd get him used to various tastes now before he actually needs them, so that when he is ready for larger quantities it would be an easier transition. We gave him a little bit of apple sauce from our own big jar (not baby food) a couple days ago. He didn't seem to mind it very much. Yesterday he ate some baby food bananas, and seemed to like it. The jar said to refrigerate it after opening for two to three days. I made a mental note to throw out whatever is left on Sunday night.

This evening we pulled the jar of bananas out and sat Elijah in his high chair. He appeared to want the food. A spoonful after spoonful went into his mouth, and he kept opening his mouth. Just yesterday it looked like he wasn't quite connecting opening his mouth with food ending up on his tongue, but today he knew what he needed to do. After half the jar was gone, I told Ryan that I thought babies were only going to take a spoonful or two at first. Ryan's reply was, "That was yesterday!" Today our boy is ready to eat it all! He probably would have if we let him. I don't expect there to be anything left for me to throw out on Sunday night.

When we were feeding Elijah bananas tonight, he started to lean over to his side. We would try to pull him up, and he would lean over again, so that his head would touch the arm rest of his chair. It was so cute and so funny! It's like he is used to eating lying on his side, and he just couldn't fathom doing it any other way. I grabbed the camera to take a picture, but (Murphy's law) the battery was out juice. By the time I put in new batteries, Ryan had the child already straightened out. However, here's another video that was taken a day or two earlier.

tradition

A tradition was born after I took a particularly good picture of Elijah over Daddy's sholder on his first month birthday. Here are the first four months worth of birthday pictures. The plan is to take a picture like this every month till he turns a year, and then once a year on his birthday for as long as he doesn't mind.

tipping the scales - again

Four months checkup:
Weight - almost 18 lbs,
Height - 26 inches,
95th percentile.

grandma from russia

A grandma from Russia came to visit Elijah for a couple of weeks, and what a blast we had! Grandma (locally known as babulya - a diminutive for a well known Russian word babushka) was thrilled to spend time with her first grandson, who seemed a little overwhelmed by her presence the very first night, but quickly adapted and loved every minute of interaction afterwards.

Elijah and Babulya went on walks, sang songs, had tea at the kitchen table, enjoyed tummy time, watched passing cars out of the window, and just plain hung out together.






We miss grandma now that she's gone back to St. Petersburg.

baptism

Elijah was baptized on Easter Sunday, April 17th, 2006, following an ancient Christian tradition. He was baptized at North Park Covenant Church by pastor Paul Corner (one of Ryan's former classmates). Peter and Tina Norland (our neighbors and friends) became Elijah's God parents. Elijah was sick that day, so Mommy had to take him home for a nap immediately after the baptism ceremony was over. She didn't get to listen to the sermon nor join the hallelujah chorus at the end (probably for the best ;) )