Still-Life-Like.

Another milestone

2011-02-27T09:56:00.000-08:00

Eli is officially old enough to give yard work chores to! We need to embrace this time before he starts asking for things in exchange for his toiling, like an allowance or some other such nonsense. Our yard was far overdue for a little raking and if I have a blister or two on my hands it was totally worth watching Eli swagger around the yard in those big gloves. He rakes in short bursts and then runs and jumps in the piles, which I guess is the whole point when you're 3. I love that we live in a place where there are big piles of leaves to jump in. I did it growing up and am glad he gets a shot too.

3 year check up/tv addiction/guns

2010-12-06T20:09:00.000-08:00

3 year check up/ tv addiction/guns

Eli's television obsession grew to new heights over the Thanksgiving break. We were off any sort of schedule and Eli was practically begging to watch it A LOT. When he returned home on Sunday, he was quite frustrated when we wouldn't turn it on. He returned home a day after Bill and I b/c he couldn't bare to leave Nana, Papa and his cousin, Grady. He said "I'm sad. I don't want to leave Nana and Papa's" and cried uncontrollably when Bill was packing the car. He also really liked the extra tall blow-up mattress they got for him to sleep on. Sunday night Bill said that he climbed on top of the coffee table, crouched down, raised his hands as if pleading to God and asked "why am I not watching tv right now. I watch tv not all the time."

Eli also has a new obsession with guns. He has moved to the playground with 3-5 year old kids and its a whole new world. Bill picked up Eli recently and he and 2 other boys were building w/ Duplos. In the car Bill asked what he was building and he said "we were making a gun to shoot things." Bill told him that he didn't like guns because they are dangerous and they hurt people. Eli said "Dad toy guns don't hurt people. They're pretend. Blocks don't hurt people. They're pretend."

On our way to watch the Hillsborough Christmas parade, Eli said he was "shooting the trees." When told that I don't like guns and that they hurt people he said "I can't hurt them because they don't have eyes." When I said it is a plant and we don't want to hurt plants, he said "you're a mean mommy. Can I shoot the grass?"

At his annual check up today, he was 40.25 inches tall (95th percentile) and 35.8 lbs (75-90th percentile). Since birth he's been in the 75th percentile in both areas so he's jumped a little bit. Bill said Eli performed all the tasks the developmental checklist requested. Apparently threatening to run away is not on the checklist, but if it were, we could check it off today. He came out of his room several times tonight at bedtime and he did not like it when I stopped conversing with him about it. He said "I'm going to run away." I keep trying to convince myself that it is good that he is such a clear communicator. He also says incredibly sweet things like "you're my favorite mommy" and all the times he says the unsolicited "I love you." Tonight in the pet store he was looking at a guinea pig and said "look at this little fella." It's a lot of fun to read The Grinch Who Stole Christmas with him. He's memorized a lot of it and cracks up every time he says "Who-hash." We get him to eat these days by telling him different foods are Who-hash. Please let me know if anyone has tricks for making washing your hands and putting on your coat fun and interesting.

Until next time, happy holidays!

3!!!!!!!!!!!

2010-11-29T07:20:00.000-08:00

Eli is 3! He made it in spite of himself trying to do every dangerous thing he can think of. I know every parent thinks their child is funny and hyper but seriously, Eli is crazier than the other kids. I've seen other kids match his energy level on occasion but it never lasts. He can sustain it all day. It's amazing. Running and yelling ALL DAY. No hyperbole, no exaggeration. It's exhausting trying to find ways to channel that energy. :)
He got 4 different-sized Buzz Lightyears for his birthday. One for all occasions. A small plush one, a large plush one, a small one that makes noises and a large one with all the gadgetry and buttons. Loud, too. It's all about Toy Story and Cars at the moment. You can see from the pics above the awesome job Mommy did on the cake this year! It's such a cool tradition to have her customizing a cake for him. Quite impressive. Now we are gearing up for Christmas and I think this is going to be a fun one! He's really aware of it, the tree and decorations and presents. We got a tree last night in record time because Eli was making the shopping process as challenging as possible. Tonight we are let him decorate it. This ought to be good.

A Dash of Halloween

2010-10-29T18:32:00.000-07:00

What a great couple of months its been! Eli has celebrated his cousin Grady's 1st birthday and the birth of his first female cousin. Lily's arrival has spurred lots of questions about being a "brudder." We're sorry to disappoint you Eli, but there are no plans for a brudder or sister any time soon. It's all about you! Speaking of you, you love to sing except during music class. Eli makes it about 15 minutes into music class and then it is obvious he would rather be running, jumping or anything physical. Not only does he want to be moving, he wants to be moving fast. It is only fitting that he will be Dash from The Incredibles for Halloween. On Monday Eli moves across the hall at daycare and will be on the playground with the big kids.

Almost 3!

2010-10-05T10:34:00.000-07:00

You should see the looks on people's faces when they ask how old Eli is and I tell them 2. He's a big kid and does act older than he is, unless he's throwing a tantrum on the floor because he can't watch Super Why. There are a lot of big things around the corner for a kid his age. We have Halloween in a few short weeks. The front-runner for his costume is the aforementioned Super Why, followed by a spacesuit and a big dinosaur. We'll see what wins out. I know one thing for sure, we are going to get something at the last possible second when we know what the weather will be like. We learned that lesson last year.

Eli's 3rd birthday is right around the corner as well. It feels like he's been with us a lot longer than 3 years. I'm still blown away by him constantly. Little kids are incredible with how they take in information and learn about the world around them. He's also been really sweet lately and has surprisingly good manners. All that time spent making him say please and thank you to us is finally sinking in! He usually wakes us up in the mornings by crawling on the bed and giving hugs and kisses. How cool is that? Last night he woke up in the middle of the night and came to our room, wanting to sleep with us. I got him some milk and put him back to bed. When he laid down he said, "Are there monsters?" I said, "No, just your family." "Will you sing me a song?" So I sang him the theme from Thomas the Tank Engine. Then I heard a little sleepy voice from the dark say, "Good night, dad. I love you, dad." I have to document these moments so that in 10 years when we are having battles over haircuts and allowances I know there's a sweet boy in there somewhere. :)

The Little Mermaid. Are you kidding me?

2010-09-09T18:10:00.000-07:00

The end of summer marks the end of Eli's time in the younger 2 year old classroom. Ms. Aurelia and Ms. Angela eased Eli into life at Hope Valley Preschool. We give them credit for potty training Eli, but most importantly they are patient, positive and caring people. So Eli moved to his new class last Monday and today is the first day he went w/out a complaint. He told us at the dinner table last night that he was not going to cry today and he didn't! His new teachers are also great and the lead teacher played the Wool E. Bull song this morning when he arrived to gain his positive attention. Thank you Ms. Toko! Ms. Toko also made a comment about Eli being a future Harvard grad. As soon as I told Nana and Papa about that comment, Eli asked me to find him (his version of hide and seek). He looked at me and told me he was hiding, walked 5 steps, crouched down while still peering at me and said "find me Mommy." Yep, that's our Harvard grad.

We had a great weekend with our family at Pamlico. Aunt Kathryn started her first year teaching. She handed over a slew of Disney princess books to share w/ our 5 year old cousin. It will be a miracle if we can relinquish those books from his vice-grip. He LOVES The Little Mermaid. During the car ride home from Pamlico, he exclaimed "I have 2 mermaids (books)!" I should also mention that we attended Bill's company's picnic where a balloon extraordinaire made things for the kids. Once Eli saw a girl w/ fairy wings, he was in love... with the fairy wings. After patiently waiting for 20 minutes he received a special pair of fairy wings.

He says funny things all the time. For instance Bill helped Eli put on his gorilla pajamas last night. Bill said "look at all these Elis on your pajamas." Eli contested and Bill kept saying "no, they're Elis." Eli smiled and said "are you kidding me Daddy?" He's also made me aware of the embarrassing things that I do. One example is that he walked inside on a really hot day, put his hands on his hips and said "whew." It was such an adult thing to do and am now aware which adult he learned it from. I'm apparently exasperated at least 3 times a day.

2010-08-16T18:11:00.000-07:00

Lately, we have been working with Eli on his letters. It's an easy game since they are everywhere. Sometimes we write a letter on each of his hands before sending him to daycare. He loves it, he thinks he is getting stamps. When I go to pick him up he always has those same letters on his hands but in a different color. I can envision exactly how it happened, too. Eli goes to the potty and then has to wash his hands. He freaks out because he realizes that, in all likelihood, he will lose his letter Bs in the washing process. In order to appease him they rewrite the letters on his hands. More than once I noticed letters on other kids' hands as well. :) I have tried to start him with writing some using this great little dry erase writing book my mom got for us. You can tell from the video that he's a natural if we can just get him to sit still long enough to do it.

The force is strong with this one.

2010-07-28T18:22:00.000-07:00

Ever since I explained what the lightsaber on Eli's Star Wars shirt was he has been all about them. Rather than have him grab the swiffer to swing it around as a lightsaber, I made a couple rudimentary ones out of watercolor paper. They only stayed intact for a few days but despite their falling apart, he and I are still battling the cookie monster in the never-ending war to keep him away from the toy box. I love this kid's imagination. With him, a blanket suddenly becomes a kitchen where we make spaghetti or a chair suddenly becomes a riding lawnmower for us to use. He is at a really fun stage right now except for the last 3 days of getting up and walking into our room at the crack of dawn. If only we could Jedi mindtrick him into staying in bed til 7.

Summer fun

2010-07-07T10:41:00.000-07:00

Big Boy Beds and Sleepy Heads

2010-06-30T05:40:00.001-07:00

I know its ridiculous and probably unsafe, but Eli has been sleeping in his crib up until now. He loves it and why mess with a good thing? He sleeps from 7:30-8pm until 6:30 or 7 am and never tries to get out. We knew our days were numbered because he has started wearing underwear. Diapers will soon be off our grocery list! Tonight Eli did not want to wear a diaper to bed. I told him he needed to sleep in his big boy bed before he could sleep in his underwear. Tonight was the first night he said he wanted to sleep in the toddler bed, so I went with it. We did the same bedtime routine (reading books, brushing teeth, singing songs, saying 'Night, night. Sleep tight. I love you') and I didn't hear another peep. I'm not crazy enough to think it will be this easy every night, but for now, I'm very grateful. What will the morning have in store for us?

How could he not crash at night? The kid doesn't stop moving! Yesterday he paused during one of our afternoon walks and when asked what he was doing, he replied "I'm relaxing." It was odd to see him stop even if it was just for 30 seconds. Of course I thought he was having an "accident." The word "accident" takes on a whole new meaning when potty training a toddler. I won't go into all the trials and tribulations, though I will say that road trips are much more interesting and lengthy.

We're also seeing a more sensitive side to Eli. Tonight Pepper was participating in her favorite activity, counter cruising. I sternly said "Pepper, down." Eli looked at me and said "Pepper's sad. Mommy scared Pepper. Mommy are you mad at Pepper?" This parenting thing is hard. Every moment seems to be a teachable moment for all of us and sometimes that feels like a lot of pressure. Luckily, most of the time its fun.

World Cup Fever!

2010-06-13T14:07:00.000-07:00

Eli has caught World Cup Fever! Inspired by the US team's unlikely tie against England (thanks, goalie!) Eli decided to get ready for the 3 year old leagues early. Go USA! The reason he's running around with no pants is that we are in full-on potty training mode at the moment. Why soil shorts unnecessarily? We do enough laundry as is. :) It's going pretty well so far but we have a little ways to go. After this stage comes the toddler bed and I can't begin to tell you how much Rebecca and I are dreading that. Anyway, remember this video because it won't be long before our little Pele' is abusing David Beckham's kids on the national stage.

Let's hear it for... Conjunctivitis!

2010-05-11T06:54:00.000-07:00

This little guy has been through it the last couple of weeks. The last blog chronicled his adventures getting tubes in his ears. Right on the heels of that Eli contracted conjunctivitis, which made his eye swell up like he'd gone a round or two with Mike Tyson. With the tubes, we had to put drops in his ears a couple times each day and he was not very high on that process. Well, of course the medicine we were prescribed for this were eye drops. We have had to come up with some really interesting distraction techniques to get a drop in his eye but none of those as nearly as effective as watching daddy put a drop in his own eye first (not of his medicine but Visine). The things we do for our kids.

In just a few short days, Eli will officially be 2 1/2 years old! If you ask him, he'll tell you he's 3. I can't believe some of the stuff he is saying these days. It is amazing to have conversations with him because he will constantly surprise you with something. We recently went on a trip to Charlotte in which Eli kept urging me to drive faster. I tried to explain the speed limit to him and how we need to stay at a certain speed. At that very moment, a car passed us going at least 80 mph and Eli said, "He's going faster." What do you say to that? I couldn't stop laughing. A couple days ago he pointed to the sky and said, "Look, Daddy, an enormous airplane!" Enormous? It's times like that when I realize he is hearing EVERYTHING we say. Guess I better watch my colorful descriptions of bad drivers on the road. :)

Totally tubular.

2010-04-29T20:29:00.000-07:00

Poor Eli had to be taken to the hospital to have tubes put in his ears. Originally, they gave us a 12:15 surgery time, which meant he would have to miss two meals and cut into naptime. We were pretty annoyed by that knowing that the morning would most likely prove brutal to get through. We were fortunate on two fronts, the hospital bumped our time up an hour and Eli was totally amazing all morning. He didn't complain about being hungry once. In fact, the only thing he really complained about at all was the hospital smock he had to wear for the surgery. He wasn't a fan of that at all. The doctors said he didn't fuss at all, just looked curious about everything. Sure, he was a little cranky when he came out of it but who doesn't feel that way after being put to sleep. We tried to feed him when we got done but he just ended up puking all over the kitchen floor. He went down for his nap and after sleeping for 4 hours he was like his old self again. This video was taken shortly after. What a little trooper. :)

The Era of the Boo-Boo

2010-04-13T07:13:00.000-07:00

Eli is an adventurous little guy willing to sacrifice his body in the name of fun. Lately, the spills and tumbles have become more spectacular as Eli gains confidence in his coordination. Unfortunately, this all leads to scratches, bleeding and band-aids. Since he associated band-aids with getting shots for a while he was not a fan. He has scratches all down his back right now from a couple falls, scratches on both knees, and a fat lip from slipping and going face first into the water fountain at his school. I was actually there for that and it was awful. I thought he had knocked some teeth out. There was blood everywhere. Seeing your 2 year old like that is traumatic. In true Eli form he bounced back quicker from it than I expected. He will almost completely forget about the boo-boos until bath time and then it's all about, "No let the water touch my boo-boo!" Ever tried giving a kid a bath without water touching his knees or lower back? Yeah, good luck with that. :)

HEY, MR. ELEPHANT!

2010-03-23T06:28:00.000-07:00

Last weekend we packed up the car and headed to the Asheboro Zoo early Saturday morning. We met our cousins there and had a blast cruising around and seeing the animals. Finally, we found a place with enough stimulation to keep Eli busy! :) The protocol for seeing each animal never varied; Eli would run up to the fence or divider and yell, "Hey, Mr. Elephant!" or "Hey, Mr. Lion!" Then he would turn to us and ask, "What's he doing?"

I think one of the funnest parts of the day for him was watching the adults have to repeated shoo away the geese that kept approaching us in the picnic area trying to get at our food. The kids thought it was the height of hilarity, their moms and dads running, clapping, and howling to get the geese to scram. We must guard our pimento cheese with our lives!

The other thing that he really loved doing was running over the big floor vents in the aviary, which is reflected in the second photo above. They were like giant fans under the floor blowing up and they were spaced out all over the aviary. Of course Eli looked at some birds but then it became all about standing on a fan and running to the next one. Look at the joy on that kid's face. Good stuff.

Mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy!

2010-02-15T10:15:00.000-08:00

Well, this latest phase of life with a toddler has certainly been, well, interesting. The 'Terrible Twos' might be the most appropriate moniker I've ever heard of. Eli has pretty much been a snotty mess for a month straight, with a couple ear infections and who knows what else sprinkled in there. Just this morning he told me his belly hurt. I really want to get past this winter and its germs with all speed. We don't know if it's the sickness or what, but lately he's had plenty of crazy tantrums and has taken to waking up at 5 in the morning screaming. All of this has come at the same time as a hardcore mommy phase. Some of our exchanges are downright ridiculous.

Eli: I want some milk!
Dad: Ok, I'll get you some.
Eli: NO!
Dad: You just asked me for milk.
Eli: I want mommy to get it!
Dad: Well, I've already made it. Here you go.
Eli: NO! MOMMY DO IT! *throws sippy cup across room*
Mom: *picks up milk* Here, Eli.
Eli: I don't want the milk!
Mom: Alright, I'll put it back in the fridge.
Eli: NO! I WANT MY MILK...WAAAAAAAAHHHH *15 minute tantrum ensues*

Last night was the first night he's slept past 6 am in a while, so that's a step back in the right direction. Rebecca said she thinks of moments like these as Eli basically saying, "I want to be independent! I don't want to be independent!" That rings so true and does seem to be the big struggle. Hopefully our household can get rid of all the little ailments and get back on track. There is a ray of hope for Rebecca. During one of the most recent meltdowns, Eli started screaming, "DADDY, DADDY, DADDY!" She shot me a sideways glance, cracked a smile and mouthed, "YES!" at me. Uh oh. :)

The Snowy Day

2010-01-30T14:36:00.000-08:00

Every once in a while, we actually get snow in North Carolina. The last time we really got a decent snow Eli was only about a year old and had not been walking very long. He didn't even really like the crunching sound of the snow under his feet at that point. The 2 year old incarnation of Eli was all about the snow. He did his first snow angel and we even got started on a snowman that fell by the wayside once we got out the sled. As you can see, he was a fan of the sled and the snow in general. I'm a fan of it too, until 8am Monday morning when I have to navigate these roads to work.

The last two or three weeks Eli has been fighting ear infections, which has been no fun for anyone in our house. As I type this, he is sitting in Rebecca's lap digging at his ear. He is bouncing back though and the sweet boy is making a reappearance, finally replacing the angry, whiny little demon child we have seen recently. Once this stuff is in the rearview mirror we plan on being gluttons and attacking the potty training head-on. Yikes!

I need a pick.

2010-01-15T06:46:00.000-08:00

Before and after

2010-01-12T13:16:00.000-08:00

Bill has written every blog update since this thing started and for that and many other things I am very thankful. The holidays have been busy and a bit emotional. Eli completed his time at Mrs. Linda's daycare and I definitely had the hardest time saying goodbye. Mrs. Linda did a great job teaching and caring for Eli. He was 100% ready to go from being in a daycare of 4 kids to a daycare of a lot of kids. He loves the new Preschool. We took him there for a couple of days before and after Christmas and didn't cry once. He talked about his friends and new teachers over the holidays. Christmas was really fun with our families. Eli had a great time with his cousins Jack and Grady. He loves his family and talks about them all the time. He also loves mac-n-cheese. About a week ago we were going through his nighttime routine and after he said "I yuv you Mommy," he looked right in my eyes and whispered "Mommy, I yuv mac-n-cheese." He just says the funniest things these days. The other day he said "I don't want to wear the the pants. I want to wear the jeans." Like father like son as far as jeans and t-shirts go.

Eli spent a couple of days with Nana and Papa (Bill's folks) while Bill and I spent New Year's with great friends. Thank you Nana and Papa! With the new year came a nasty cold for Eli. He turned into a little monster and we were wondering what happened to our sweet kid. He wasn't just pitiful and sad. Eli was angry with seemingly endless tantrums. We finally took him to the doc on Wednesday because we didn't know what else to do. All the conditions were right for an ear infection but it wasn't infected yet. DeeDee (my mom) came and saved us and the other kids at daycare. Friday afternoon Mom said he sat on his little stool, put his elbow on his knee and his head on his hand and declared "my ear hurts." He also said "my head broke." Since starting the antibiotic, we feel like we might be able to go out in public again. :)

I love you, Mommy.

2009-12-18T07:52:00.000-08:00

Ahh, the holidays. Christmas trees, green and red, family, gifts, and great food. Oh yeah, let's not forget communicable disease. Groups of little kids become amazing germ distributors, so if you have a toddler, he or she WILL get sick. No two ways about it. Our little guy is sick right now. It's made all the more pitiful by the fact that he can verbalize how he is feeling now. When you hear Eli, who is 100 miles an hour all the time, say something like, "Daddy, I'm really tired." at 4pm you know something is amiss. It's not all negative though... He does become a little more snuggly and last night he whispered in Rebecca's ear, totally unsolicited, "I love you, Mommy." It was so incredibly sweet that I can't believe she didn't start crying uncontrollably right then and there. Get well soon, Eli! We need you full force for the holidays.

Birthdays and Holidays

2009-12-13T19:58:00.000-08:00

Eli turned 2 in mid-November. I can't believe how much he's grown physically and mentally this year. It's hard to imagine a bigger jump in both departments at any other point in his life. We feel so incredibly fortunate to have such an awesome little guy in our lives, even though he can throw an epic tantrum occasionally. :) Rebecca made him an awesome cake, truly a work of art. Eli loves construction equipment so he was psyched to see an excavator cake on his birthday. We had quite a few people over at our house for his party and there were lots of kids running around and playing. It got off to a bit of a rocky start with a good number of people arriving before he woke up from his nap. He came out of his room to a bunch of strangers in the house and went into immediate meltdown mode. After a short stint outside he came back in and all was well.

Christmas is rapidly approaching and even though this is Eli's second Christmas it is the first one where he will be actively participating. He doesn't really understand Santa Claus but he still thinks he's cool. He helped decorate the tree this year and is a big fan of Christmas lights. We'll be in the car and he will ask us to listen to Christmas music. This year has been really interesting because we have realized that we need to start building our own Christmas traditions for Eli. Experiencing Christmas through your child makes it so much easier to get into the holiday spirit. It's going to be a lot of fun watching him tear through presents and get excited about being with family this year.

I promise we didn't teach him to sing it this way.

2009-11-13T21:23:00.000-08:00

For some reason when Eli sings the Hokey Pokey, it comes out "Do the Hokey Pokey, turn your ass around..." I swear we didn't teach it like that but we sure had to get it on film. :)

Bob The Builder

2009-11-10T07:12:00.000-08:00

I have been horrible about updating the blog lately. Life really took over for a while there. In the meantime, Eli had his second Halloween. Originally, he was going to be R2D2. The first time we put the costume on him he seemed ok with it. The second time (the day before Halloween) was not so smooth. Rebecca brought him and costume by my work so he could meet everyone. She tried to dress him in the parking lot and not only was he not having any part of it, he was screaming "Help!" at the top of his lungs. Time for plan B. As you can tell from the photo above, plan B was successful. He went as Bob the Builder from the kid cartoon of the same name. He was psyched about the tool belt from the get-go and he even won second prize in the little neighborhood costume contest! Kudos to Rebecca for the idea.

Last year I carved a Frankenstein pumpkin in honor of his first Halloween. This year I did two because it's easy and fun. One is Chewbacca and the other is Ash from The Evil Dead. I think this will become a tradition. Halloween might be my favorite holiday because it is weird, fun, not too cold, and there are no crazy obligations that go along with it. It's not about anybody or anything, really. It's just an excuse to dress up and eat candy. I can get behind that. So I'll do the pumpkins and Rebecca has taken on making his birthday cake each year. Last year she made a train cake that was awesome. This year's will be even better and made cooler by the fact that he is going to understand what it is. We are wondering whether it will upset him when we cut it apart. Who knows?

Speaking of Eli's birthday, in one week he will be 2 years old! It's been a great but tiring 2 years. We were originally planning on doing a small party for him at a park somewhere but Rebecca has since changed it to our place. She has taken to planning events at our home as a way of forcing work or cleaning to get done on the house. :) The irony is that kids are going to come over and undo a week's worth of cleaning in about 10 seconds. Hopefully the weather will be good and we can play outside. I can't believe he is going to be 2! Happy Birthday Eli!!!

Eli and his favorite book

2009-09-29T11:47:00.000-07:00

Can you tell Eli likes this book? :)

22 months old!

2009-09-18T06:50:00.000-07:00

The last couple of months have been very busy around our household. The addition we did on the house is pretty much done or, at the very least, done enough for us to move into it. It give our little boy another 400-500 square feet to run in. He loves it and so do we. Much needed space.

I have said before on this blog that Eli has a fearlessness that is both endearing and scary. Over Labor Day Weekend we got to see a new level when our 21 month old was ecstatically jumping off the pier into the Pamlico river. Bear in mind he had a life vest on and was jumping into the waiting arms of mommy, Uncle Mike, or Aunt Em. Regardless, if his cousin could do it, he should be able to as well (his cousin is a year older). I swear this kid will be skydiving by the time he's 10. I don't know where the risk-taker gene came from. I'm still scouring the family tree for that.

My favorite new thing that Eli does is jamming. He will go pick up his little Elmo guitar and then point to me and say, "Daddy, guitar!" This means I have to go get my guitar too. Then Eli says, "Daddy, jam!" That's my cue to start rocking. Eli dances around with his guitar too and he's even starting to add some vocals in there. He wrote his first song a few days ago, an ode to Papi Bill (not me, another family member). When Eli says it, it sounds like Paca Bell. The lyrics, if I remember correctly, are, "Paca Bell, Pacaa Beeeell, Paca Bell, Paca Beeeeeell." You get the point.

Only a couple more months until we officially have a 2 year old! Whoa.

Almost!

2009-08-18T07:57:00.000-07:00

Lots to report from Eli-land... Eli is now joining us at the table for family dinners! He will still use the high chair sometimes but now he gets to sit in his booster seat at the table and eat with us. He seems to enjoy it quite a bit and tends to eat well when he does. We have also figured out a new way to get him to eat more vegetables, the ready-set-go! method. Both of us get vegetables in our hands and then it's ready, set, go, we eat them! Pretty funny. When he is done eating he starts sliding his plate and cup as far away from him as he can. Very subtle, indeed.

We have also started sitting Eli on the potty to get the potty training ball rolling. He understands what it is all about and tries very hard. The other day he sat there and was obviously trying to do something. Then he looked up at us and said, "Almost!" Rebecca and I fell about the place laughing. You just never know what you're going to get from him.

Eli's new favorite book is 'The Big Book Of Things That Go." The boy loves that book like you wouldn't believe. He recognizes tons of stuff in it and tries to pronounce a lot of it. Yes, he mangles 'excavator' but you know where he's going with it. We don't expect him to really bust out with 'articulated fire truck' anytime soon but he'll point to it when we ask him where it is. He also loves Thomas the Tank Engine. I can't tell you how many times in a day we hear "Thomas Too Too Tain" around the house. Sometimes it is the first thing he says to me in the morning. This morning the first thing he said was backhoe. One thing is clear, it's time for another Big Book of Things that do something else.

Chris Webber would be proud.

2009-07-27T11:53:00.001-07:00

Eli turned 20 months old this month! It really seems like he's been part of our lives a lot longer than 20 months. We are in a prime phase right now. Even though we do get the terrible two-esque tantrum from time to time we also get a super sweet little boy who goes right to bed and sleeps through the night. He gives hugs and kisses and says 'love you' before going night-night. Now he is really into helping you do things and that helps us when it comes to everyday life. He helped me clean the den the other day while Rebecca worked in a different part of the house. I picked up some empty wrappers and paper scraps off the counter the other day to throw away and when I turned around he was standing right behind me and said 'helper.' Well, alright then. Have at it, little guy! What a great kid.

There are, of course, those times when he thinks brandishing the broom around the house like a drunk Zorro is a good idea. These times call for time-out. He knows what it is and what it means now. For example, the other day he was trying to hit something. He did it after I told him not too and I said, "Do you need to go to time out?" He replied, "Uh huh" and went and sat in the middle of the floor in his room. Even in time out he's so cute and pitiful that it's hard not to laugh sometimes.

It's been a crazy 20 months but Eli makes it all worth it. He's awesome.

Wedding Bells Are Ringing!

2009-07-15T06:57:00.000-07:00

This last month has been very busy! Rebecca's sister got married at the end of last month and everything went great! Eli and Jack were in the wedding (sort of) and got to walk down with the processional. Their Aunt Dena even had some cool little matching outfits made for them. I have to admit, when I first heard the idea I was not too keen on it. In my mind I was picturing little frilly sailor outfits with lace all over them and some ridiculous knee high socks. Obviously, from the above photo you can tell that it didn't go down like that at all. They were well-dressed, handsome little dudes. The wedding was outside and other than Eli yelling "Airplane! Airplane!" at the sky during the middle of the service he was remarkably well behaved. Rebecca and I were both in the wedding (she was a bridesmaid and I was the music) so policing duties fell on Nana, who did a wonderful job. He partied hard with the rest of us and tore up the dance floor, showing off all the moves he learned from mommy's So You Think You Can Dance episodes. Needless to say, the boy was tuckered out at the end of the day.

A Hitchhiker's Guide To Understanding Eli

2009-06-23T10:12:00.000-07:00

Eli runs his mouth 24/7 so in order to get the most out of your conversation with him, we thought we would provide a key for understanding some of his favorite words. Most of them sound like what they are supposed to but others (especially his foray into 3 syllables)... not as much. Here are the ones you might not get unless you heard them a million times a day like us.

eh pane = airplane
heh cop o = helicopter
umbaba = umbrella
wah ma mo = watermelon
ap pee talls = applesauce
bah tee = vacuum
cue come um = cucumber
mo tee bye = motorcycle
mon tore = monitor

Hope this helps!

Uh-oh! What happened?

2009-06-17T12:15:00.000-07:00

Eli said his first sentence this week! He's put together things before like "Up, please" but this past week he started saying, "Uh-oh, what happened?" It is so darn funny to hear and makes me laugh every time. He is usually sporting the facial expression in the above photo, like he really is concerned and wants to know. I guess he got so used to hearing people ask him what happened every time he said "Uh-oh" that it stuck. He is talking constantly now and while he knows a ton of words that you can make out there are just as many that have me clueless. Then there is also the random word that he will use that we have no idea how he learned it. Never a dull moment. He used to go right to sleep when we would put him down at night but now he lays awake for 30 or 40 minutes talking and singing to himself.

Separation Anxiety

2009-06-11T08:18:00.000-07:00

The title of this entry is a trifle misleading. The separation anxiety is not actually coming from Eli's end, it's coming from ours! This week our daycare is closed for a summer vacation so we have the grandparents pulling Eli duty. Rebecca and I are having to go a week without seeing him. It's tough! We know he's having a blast... Grandma Deedee took him down to Pamlico where he got to watch big, loud machines construct a new bulkhead and pier. He's fascinated by things like that and loves studying how things work. Such a curious little guy. Today he switches over to my parents at the farm, where he loves to sit and honk the horn in the little blue truck. We have been missing him like crazy and it seems so weird to roll out of bed in the morning, get dressed, and just go to work. Don't get me wrong, it's nice not to have to do all the little chores like preparing lunches or bottles but I can't wait to see him. Just a couple more days!

We have been trying to use this time to our advantage and get a lot of work done on our house. Our addition of the garage as livable space is going well and should be drywalled this afternoon. The intent was to get the outside of the house painted during this week since Rebecca and I are both free to do it but the constant rain has drowned out that plan. We have done a large chunk but like everything else with the renovation it will just take a little longer than we thought.

Jumping bean

2009-05-20T06:19:00.000-07:00

Our little boy has turned into a jumping bean. Now that he's discovered how to do it, there seems to be no end to the joy he gets out of it. It's still not the most graceful thing to look at and lots of times he ends up on the ground but he's having fun anyway. Every morning he writhes around in the crib playfully, throwing his blankets around and not wanting me to take him out. Eventually he'll get to his feet, hold on to the railing and start jumping like a little wild man. Anything cushy like a mattress or couch cushion gets an almost immediate "I must stand on this and jump" response. Gotta curb that (especially on the couch) or he's going to have some spectacular injuries. This must have been what Evel Knievel was like as a child. There's a popular phrase, "He's all boy." Now we really know what that means.

Ou-tie!

2009-05-12T05:40:00.000-07:00

(Eli summons something great and terrible from the deep)

Eli does not like being inside the house. He spends a good part of his inside time standing beside the door, pointing at it, and saying 'ou-tie.' (outside) That's all well and good, except for the fact that the outside of our house is a construction war-zone due to us adding on the garage as livable space. New parents can totally identify with how your assessment of your surroundings change once you have a little one. At one time you might have walked into the room and thought to yourself, 'oh, what a charming table' or 'love that bookshelf.' Now all I do is danger assessment. 'Where are the stairs?' 'That table is sharp, he'll definitely run into that.' Half of our front yard is like that right now; boards and nails everywhere, holes, rocks, and power tools. Yikes. Guess we will have to make more trips to the park.

We are going to the zoo this weekend so I'll be sure to put up some photos from that soon.

It's Pamlico-time again!

2009-04-28T19:26:00.000-07:00

When April rolls around and the sun starts to show itself with some regularity, you can bet that our family is thinking of heading down to Pamlico. We knew vacations to the river would be interesting this year because both Eli and his cousin Jack would be able to walk. The first installment of 'crazy little boy fest 09' went off with flying colors. The weather was absolutely perfect and the boys really enjoyed themselves as you can see from the picture above. They really get along well and have a ton of fun playing together. Eli had a little spot of a fever on the way down there but he kicked that right away. I'm glad they like it down there because they'll be going back quite a few times from now until September. It's such a cool thing to be able to vacation at a place that has been in the family for many years. Rebecca and her sisters grew up going there and now a new generation gets to have that too. Viva la Pamlico!

The last straw

2009-04-19T19:32:00.000-07:00

Today was another first for Eli. Every time one of us brings home some sort of take out or fast food Eli is all over it. He likes to go after our drinks and today I had a large water in a cup with a straw so I decided to let him go for it. After just a couple minutes of coaching he got the hang of it. He would get a little water through the straw, pause, and break into a wide grin of accomplishment afterward. That cycle got repeated dozens of times and the excitement never wore off for him. I don't think he's ever had that much water during the day. We changed a lot of diapers and I shudder to think what his pamper will be like in the morning. Anyone with a toddler will tell you how great it is to find something new that occupies their attention even for a little while. Today that something new was the straw. Long live the straw.

The Not-so-well-mannered Eli

2009-03-23T16:40:00.001-07:00

So much for the well-mannered little boy. Our daycare provider has used words such as "turkey" and "stinker" to describe him this week. He's "that" kid at daycare right now; the one doing the pushing and shoving, the one wielding the word "no" like Excalibur. He will grow out of this, right? RIGHT?! He does like to have fun though. Check out that flying high-five in the picture.

The renovations on our house have started and there is dirt and digging going on all over the place. All Eli wants to do is go outside all the time and now his favorite stoop on the house has been demolished. Luckily for us, he has developed an interest in the garden hose so we have a distraction.

The weather's turn toward Spring is great for us. With Eli getting more active physically, being able to go to the park around the corner to let him burn his energy climbing and sliding is a treat. Each time he comes down the slide he waits until he's at the bottom to say "WEEEE!" It's a little like that delay between listening to Woody Durham while watching the Heels game on TV but it's quite funny.

The Well-Mannered Eli

2009-03-11T08:02:00.000-07:00

There a lots of things about this stage in Eli's life that we love. When bedtime comes we can ask him "Is it time for night-night?" and he will say "Night-night" and walk to his bedroom door. The second you turn the light out he usually gives you a big hug and a kiss. It really is the sweetest moment of the day and Rebecca hogs it as much as possible. He also likes to read books by himself so it's fun to watch him sit on the couch like an adult and casually flip through The Giant Jam Sandwich as if it's a Cooking Light magazine.

Eli is really into cause and effect so there is a lot of experimenting going on. "I wonder what happens if I push THIS button?" "What will mommy do if I push THIS button?" While this can be exhausting he is soaking a lot in right now. His communication is getting better by leaps and bounds. Some of the words he says are starting to sound more like they are supposed to. Lately he has embraced "Thank you." It's extremely cool to ask your 15 month old if he wants a cracker and have him say "Please" followed by a "Thank You" when you give it to him. Brilliant.

App-pull-tall

2009-02-24T09:46:00.000-08:00

This morning Eli said his first 3 syllable word. He didn't seem to want to eat his toast so I asked him if he wanted some applesauce. He answered "app-pull-tall." Awesome! He is such a little sponge right now. Everything you do, no matter how mundane, he watches like a hawk. He is making connections that Rebecca and I are not even aware of. We definitely have to remind ourselves to be very conscious of what we say and do around him because it WILL get mimicked. It's very difficult, I mean, if Roy Williams can't stop himself from cussing how am I supposed to do it? I think it would be more than hilarious for Eli to bust out with a "frikkin'" or a "dagnabit" at daycare. That would be comedy gold.

New-tensils

2009-02-17T12:29:00.000-08:00

There are definitely new developments in Eli-land. The one that might be having the most impact on us right now is teething. He is having a little tooth explosion right now including some molars. I'm hoping that and a recent ear infection are the main things at play behind some of his tantrums lately. Right now, all he wants to do is go outside. He strolls up to the door and, like our dog, looks back and forth between it and us. Then he will start saying "UP!" Every once in a while he'll say "Out thigh," his word for outside. When it becomes clear to him that it is not going to happen Rebecca and I brace ourselves for the full-on meltdown.

In other, more positive news Eli is starting to get the hang of utensils. He likes to spear beans with the fork and most of the time he will bring the fork to his mouth to eat the bean. It starts out that way at first and then he realizes that he can eat faster if he spears the bean, takes it off the fork with his other hand, and shoves it into his mouth. He is good at thinking outside the box. The spoon is quite a bit messier so we are going to roll with the fork for now.

Eli: The Musical

2009-02-02T07:05:00.000-08:00

Our son loves the guitar. Every time I take it off the wall to play it he comes running over to reach for it. As you can tell from the photo he has figured out the strumming motion that produced the sound from the strings. The kid is a natural. At some point his focus inevitably turns toward the capo and then the tuning pegs which is a no-no. I wrote some music to accompany a couple of his books and songs that we sing to him all the time. He also has a little Elmo guitar of his own that he gets to rock out on in the car.

A couple of days ago he actually said the word 'guitar' while pointing at it. Very cool! It had two syllables and everything! He is starting to get the hang of making some more sounds when he talks. When he first started saying 'please' is came out as 'pee.' Now it sounds like 'peesth.' He's getting there.

Right now Eli sort of looks like Rocky after his first round with Ivan Drago. He has matching mini-shiners from repeated faceplants around the house. One of them is right above his eye from falling forward into the bookshelf. Poor little guy. We are bound to see a lot more of these with the insane amount of climbing this boy tries to do. You can't turn your head for one second. Seriously. He's a thrill seeker. At this rate he'll be skydiving at age 8.

Hugs and Kisses!

2009-01-21T11:57:00.000-08:00

Eli, Eli, Eli. Babies are smart and most of the time smarter than you give them credit for. Just the other day we were giving Eli some yogurt and he pointed to the yogurt container and said, "Baby!" We turned it around and sure enough there was a picture of a toddler on the side. Very cool. Unfortunately, these little smart moments sometimes manifest themselves in less than ideal ways, like stacking things to use as a step to get to other dangerous places. Eli is all about doing what he wants to do right now, everything and everyone else be damned. What that means is that when his wants clash with ours we are starting to see the makings of some really entertaining temper tantrums. At least you always know where you stand with him. I'm just hoping we can hurry past this stage where disobeying us is "funny" to him. All of this behavior happens to coincide with him starting to give lots of hugs and kisses. What a little manipulator! Seriously, though, there's not much sweeter than your little kid giving you a big hug and kiss before you leave in the morning.

Now there, he knows a lot of words!

2009-01-08T06:58:00.000-08:00

Eli has really blossomed verbally over the last couple of months. He has learned a lot of random words like 'ball,' 'pot,' or 'book.' His newest thing is saying animal noises. We will ask him what the cow says and he will say 'moo.' He's got the dog, cat, cow, horse, owl, sheep and rooster in his repertoire at the moment. When asked what the rooster says, he will reply 'doo da doo da doo.' Awesome. What has been really cool is the addition of some functional words that help him communicate with us. We taught him hand signs for 'more' and 'all done.' Now he usually says them and signs them at the same time. Hearing him say 'all done' is just about the cutest thing ever. "Allllllllll do!"

He is also in love with the ABC's at the moment. No matter where you are if you start singing the song he will start dancing. He dances a lot like Axl Rose from the 'Welcome to the Jungle' video. He tries to sing the ABC song and though he doesn't get very far it provides great entertainment for him. His version is basically 'A, B, D, D, D, D, D,' but he sort of has the tune right which kind of makes it funnier. The other day he picked up an envelope and Rebecca asked him if he had picked up a letter. He responded by trying to sing the ABC's. Gotta love that kid.

Christmas!

2008-12-29T05:40:00.001-08:00

Christmas. A whirlwind of flying paper, sugar cookies, breakfast casserole and 24 hours of A Christmas Story. Always fun but always draining. This Christmas was quite a bit different than last year's. Last year Eli was barely over a month old, incapable of moving or doing much of anything. He slept through most of it. This year he was running around and getting into everything. You can see from one of the photos that he helped open his own gifts this year but tearing the paper seemed to be a little more important than what was actually under it. His love of all things cleaning equipment has been well-documented and he was given a small broom by each side of the family. This, of course, made Eli wildly happy.

We spent the first two days at Rebecca's family's house and the next two days at my parents' place. Over the course of that time Eli accumulated a lot of plastic things with Elmo on them, including this totally sweet guitar that plays a Hendrix-esque version of the Sesame Street theme song. There's also a button to press so that Elmo talks to you. It alternates between difference phrases but for some reason Eli finds it hilarious every time Elmo says, "You're rocking now!"

The top picture deserves an explanation. I'm kicking myself because I think I left the video camera at my parents' house. This is Eli is Risky Business mode. All we are missing is the sunglasses. He was running around with this broom dancing and carrying on and I've got it on video. My plan is to actually overdub some Bob Seger on it and post it at some point soon. Classic stuff.

Eli's 1st parade (of vomiting)

2008-12-16T08:36:00.000-08:00

Eli attended his first Christmas parade in Hillsborough. All the necessary components were there including flag waving, candy throwing, honking trucks and of course Santa at the end. It was pretty cold outside but Eli seemed to be enjoying himself and he stayed through the end. The parade seemed to go on forever and we began to joke that they were just circling around the block over and over. We began to think we were recognizing people from earlier in the parade wearing different costumes. People kept handing Eli candy and I kept pissing him off by taking it from him. Contrary to popular belief, taking candy from a baby is NOT easy.

On the less fun side of things, Eli contracted a nasty virus that tore through our daycare and struck down almost everyone, even the daycare provider. The parents of each sick child got the virus as well so Rebecca and I feel like we are just waiting on the inevitable. Toddlers don't understand to puke in a container so it's especially messy when they are just walking around the room throwing up on everything. It's super pitiful. For three days we hardly left the house so there was a nice dose of cabin fever thrown in there as well. As of yesterday we think Eli is on his way back to form; he was able to hold food and liquids down even though he was very picky about what he would eat. Since the daycare is pretty rough right now he is hanging with an aunt and grandmom for a couple days. It's the first time Rebecca and I have really been away from him for an extended period of time (they live in a different city) so our morning routine was a little strange and sort of sad in a way. Hopefully he's feeling like his old self today and having a good time with the fam.

Step up, step down.

2008-12-08T09:52:00.000-08:00

Eli had a very busy Thanksgiving. He probably met more people in an 8 hour span on that one day than he had in the previous few months. We went to a family reunion for lunch, headed to see more family right after and made it back to the other side of the family that night. That was one tired little dude when we finally settled down. One of the things Eli discovered during these travels was a small step. We don't have stairs in our house for him to climb up and down so this was a pretty novel deal for him. Obviously he was not very adept at navigating it at first but that did not blunt his fascination with it one bit. All he wanted to do was walk back and forth through the doorway. Unfortunately, this has translated to him trying to step on lots of things like toys or our little boom box. In order to combat this we have take to getting the wii fit out and putting it in the middle of the floor so he can walk over it. He loves it. Back and forth, back and forth. Simple joys from simple things.

More! More! More!

2008-11-26T11:18:00.000-08:00

This is a time of food transitions for us. The formula is going away and we are switching Eli to milk now. That change seems to be going alright for the most part. We are also going from bottles to cups which is more of an issue but he's getting there. Eli's newest stance on solid food is that he wants whatever we have. If we go stand in the kitchen near the counter, he understands that food comes from the kitchen so he runs over and starts signing, "more! more!" It doesn't take long for that "more" sign to become outright arm flailing as the anticipation is just too much for the little guy to bear. He is also at a stage where he does not want to be fed, he wants to do everything himself and if he can't he gets pretty frustrated. He also doesn't like to sit in the chair very long so dinnertime is always sort of a crapshoot. I'm hoping the turkey at Thanksgiving will have the same effect on him that it has on nearly everyone else so that he will take a decent midday nap and his dad can yell what he wants at his underperforming fantasy football players.

Eli turns 1!

2008-11-18T05:55:00.001-08:00

Eli is one year old! It's so hard to believe but then it's not at the same time. I was thinking this weekend that a year ago we were in the hospital and Rebecca was in pain and ready for it to be over with. That seems like lifetimes ago. Eli has come a long way in a year and when I see pictures of him at an earlier stage, like 3 months, it's already hard for me to visualize what that was like. Now he's tearing around the house and getting into everything he can. He's such a great little boy and we feel very lucky to have him.

This weekend we visited my parents' house and had a little birthday party for him with the immediate family. It ended up being around 15 people with some doing some pretty long drives to come (thanks, everyone!). We had burgers and dogs on the grill and a fantastic cake that Rebecca slaved on for about 4 hours. She doesn't normally do stuff like this so when it turned out great she was surprised and proud. Seriously, look at that cake! That's a heckuva first effort. Eli got some great gifts that he will be banging around with for a while. Maybe we can retire Dinosaur's Binkit and I Love You Through And Through for a while. It's getting harder for him to sit still for anything so having some new toys and things for him to do is nice.

Happy Birthday Eli!

About town

2008-11-11T07:19:00.001-08:00

One of our good friends is an amazing artist (Scott Myers-www.fatheartgalleries.com) and he was taking part in a studio tour for the first couple of weekends in November. We decided to meet up with some people out at his place to look at some art and just catch up on things. Our outing began with a trip to PT's Grille, a great little burger joint in Chapel Hill. Even though Eli loves Cheerios he is at the point now that whatever Rebecca and I are eating is way more interesting to him. He tries almost anything. We even gave him some fresh squeezed lemonade and were ready to capture an awesome sour-face on film but it turns out that he really digs lemonade.

Eli had a couple of playmates at Scott's and they ran around the yard dragging sticks and trying to eat rocks. They really have it figured out. Eli discovered his love for art, touching and trying to pick up any paintings within reach. He was a good sport about the trip as we kept him up long past his naptime.

In other Eli news, we have heard "uh-oh" quite a bit lately. He understands to say it when he falls or drops something and I fear we are getting to the point where he is going to start throwing things on the ground just to have an excuse to say it. He has said "cat" and "book" a handful of times and of course says "mama" and "dada." All of this is pretty sporadic but he definitely likes making noise and experimenting with sounds. He tends to say "mama" a lot more when he's upset, which shows where his loyalties really lie. I know, little buddy, I think she's great too.

Eli's first Halloween!

2008-11-03T08:36:00.000-08:00

Eli just celebrated his first Halloween! You're looking at the pictures right now, thinking "What's he supposed to be...a dinosaur with a broom?" The broom is not part of the costume. He was just a little dinosaur, one of many little dinosaurs. That must be the only costume for kids under a year old. The broom was part of his cousin's witch costume. Eli has a deep devotion to cleaning equipment like brooms, swiffers, and vacuum cleaners. He gets that from his mom. The broom was a great distraction for him and he just wouldn't give it up. I had no idea how many little kids lived close by and our neighborhood orchestrated a really cool little costume/pumpkin contest for them at 6pm. At the end of each age group's little 'parade' everyone bunched together so all the parents could play paparazzi for a couple minutes. As soon as the parents started snapping photos Eli took a few steps forward and just stood in front of everyone soaking up all the fame and attention that he could. Look at the second picture above for proof. Uh oh. We might have a risk taker AND an attention seeker.

Your nose is running, better go catch it!

2008-10-28T06:19:00.000-07:00

Straight off, I feel obligated to mention that Eli's popped collar in the first picture was mommy's doing. It captured the spirit of his attitude at the moment, channeling Travolta in Saturday Night Fever. Eli really started walking around on his own a few weeks ago but now he's really got it down. He can actually start running but that usually won't last long. He's still no Baryshnikov but he's really good at keeping his balance when you swear he's about to fall. I don't stress nearly as much watching him toddle around as I did a couple weeks ago. Don't get me wrong, the kid falls all the time but he's learned how to fall without all the damage. His biggest obstacle is the collection of toys on the floor. They are the reason he falls most of the time...he will trip over something that he didn't notice.

I know for a fact that I have had to deal with Eli's worst poo. My sister was at the house and was witness to it. Saturday night, Rebecca got the trump card when Eli puked in his crib. I was out at the time so she had to deal with it herself. The picture above is the aftermath of it, which she documented so I would know just how bad it was. The picture does not do it justice at all. What you don't get to see is Eli, his disgusting and putrid clothing, the bath mat from the cleanup process or the vomit covered blankets. Yes, this is probably too much information but I'm including it to show just how much mommy loves her little boy and that I acknowledge her messy Eli trump card for the time being.

Eli is still pretty sick and his nose has been running like a faucet. He detests having his nose wiped so you can imagine was a chore that has been. Last night it looked like he might finally be getting over it. Even though he's been under the weather the last couple of weeks, he seems to be showing more and more personality every day. He also is getting more blatant about testing boundaries. He will walk over to a cabinet or something that we tell him not to mess with and reach out for it. Most of the time he will stop short of it and turn to look at us to gauge our reaction. It's hard not to burst out laughing when he does it but we must be strong!

For Eli's first Halloween I wanted to do a cool Jack-o-lantern. I settled on Frankenstein's monster. Since he and Eli share the same walking style right now it seemed fairly appropriate. I'll try to get pics up of Eli's Halloween costume after the weekend.

More. Climbing.

2008-10-16T08:28:00.000-07:00

We are pretty sure that Eli has taken to signing for "more." It looks a lot like him clapping but it all comes down to context. Either he is incredibly excited about finishing the cheerios or he's asking for more. If you've seen this kid with cheerios you know the answer. Usually when he finishes I ask if he wants more and do the sign. He starts clapping so I'm counting that for now.

He is walking all over the place and his latest "uh-oh" development is that he's learned to climb into the chair in the den. The other day I turned my back on him for two seconds and when I turned back around he was standing in the chair staring at me with a gigantic grin on his face. Now whenever we have something that has to get done with two hands he has to go in the high chair. Nothing else can contain him.

We've made a bit of a shift in the food department toward a soy-based formula. Man, that stuff stinks but hopefully it will be a little kinder to his digestive system.

Eli is 11 months old today!

Playtime with Gracie

2008-10-10T08:16:00.001-07:00

These pictures pretty much tell the story. I've mentioned how Eli likes to headbutt the cats... well here's the proof. They also confirm that, yes, Gracie is the most tolerant cat on the planet.

Night Owls

2008-10-06T10:36:00.000-07:00

All three of us packed into the car on Friday to head to Greensboro for a cousin's wedding. We went to a hotel where they had the after rehearsal party. There was a lot of floor for Eli to crawl around on and he got to see tons of people. I left with him around 8 to go back to Rebecca's sister's house and Rebecca stayed to hang out. Eli ended up going to sleep an hour later than normal...not too bad, right? Well, imagine our dismay when he woke up at 4 in the morning and would not go back to sleep. Since we didn't want to wake up the whole household, including an almost two-year old in the next room, we opted to get in the car and cruise around. We didn't have to go far before we saw a 24 hour IHOP so we decided to get breakfast to kill some time. At the restaurant, Eli was the life of the place, smiling and flirting with everyone around him. What a little stinker. That 4 am start was the earliest in probably the last 5 months. Brutal. It does look like he's got a couple more teeth coming in so maybe that played a part.

Aaaack! He's a little boy!

2008-10-01T07:06:00.000-07:00

Look at that kid! Holy crap. He's no longer this helpless little infant who just wakes up long enough to eat. Well, maybe we still have to feed him and change his diapers for him but he's got opinions. He wants his bojangles on gameday just like dad. He likes Brown Bear much better than Panda Bear. He's got places to be and things to try and climb on. The cats are to be headbutted at all costs.

He's pointing at things now but he does it with two fingers, like a stewardess. Maybe it's emphatic pointing, like he's pointing twice as hard. It really looks like he's flashing a 'peace' sign at everyone, which is pretty cool. We can say, "Eli, where's the fan?" and he will look up and point at the ceiling fan. Neat.

We've seen him take 12 steps now without keeling over. It's really crazy...you can see him getting better at it every day. He spends a lot of time standing up now so it won't be long before he's running around at full speed. Christmas-time should be interesting.

One small step for man...

2008-09-25T06:41:00.000-07:00

A while back I posted that Eli took a couple falling steps toward me while Rebecca was out of town. Since then this little boy only wants to be on his feet. He's cruising furniture like a pro, standing on his own and falling less and less. This morning he stood up in the middle of the room with nothing to hold on to and took three little steps before sitting himself back down. It certainly won't be long before he turns into a little baby Carl Lewis, running and jumping all over the place. He was able to walk about 4 feet this morning with me holding on to only one of his hands (not that it looked very coordinated) and he's becoming fairly adept at regaining his balance before he totally loses it and bails out.

I almost got him a Hurricanes jersey at the hockey game last night until I saw that they cost 35 dollars. 35?! If I'm spending that much, I'm going to be the one getting a jersey. I'll have to look online because Eli in a hockey jersey means some really cute pictures.

How do you babyproof against pole dancing?

2008-09-17T09:21:00.000-07:00

I didn't think we would have to worry about this kind of thing until at least high school. This past weekend down at Pamlico, Eli discovered a love for pole dancing. No one wants this for their child but he seems to truly love it so we will accept him for who he is and love him just the same. I must say, he is a natural and has decent moves.

Eli is now ten months old! He is celebrating by getting another tooth to help him bite off pieces of cantaloupe. A lot has changed in the last few months but two things remain steadfast, his undying love for cheerios and his yellow hammer. This week he's become a fan of the Kinks, particularly The Village Green Preservation Society. In the 'not cool' column, he's not a big fan of the noisy farm book. I think those animal noises weird him out a little bit. Happy 10 months, little guy!

Another trip to the river

2008-09-12T06:56:00.001-07:00

We will be heading down to the river house again this weekend to take advantage of the awesome little window of weather before it starts to get cold. The pier got a little messed up during the big storm recently and needs some work. Eli will also get to hang out with his cousin, who is almost a year older and can teach him some toddler tricks. He is getting more and more comfortable on his feet and you can tell he really wants to be walking around. He tries to spend more time on his feet than crawling and he even stood beside me without holding on to anything for the duration of a book reading the other day. It was really cute just having him stand there beside me and trying to flip pages in the book, transfixed by the Grover pop-ups on each page.

Rebecca refers to Eli as a "risk-taker" which frankly scares me when he's able to walk and run around on his own. Is there such thing as a baby leash? A gentle leader for toddlers? I guess we better stock up on band-aids because we sure will need them. I see lots of boo-boos in our future.

National Lampoon's River Vacation

2008-09-02T06:29:00.000-07:00

Labor Day Weekend. Rebecca and Eli made the trek down to Pamlico for some fun in the sun while I had the house to myself for the weekend (I had band practice and a show on Sunday). Over the weekend I wondered to myself if Rebecca thinks of Labor Day any differently now because of the name. For me, Labor Day was November 16th of last year.

As you can see from the pictures, there was plenty of sun and water to play in. I think Rebecca actually got to relax a little since some of the family was down there to help with Eli. My parents even went down for an afternoon because it's not a very long drive for them at all. They got to have to quality Eli time and were fortunate enough to see a new trick... he can pull up on his little fisher price mower toy and take a few steps pushing it across the room. It's quite funny to watch because his body does the walking in installments right now. He leans his upper body over and realizes that his legs aren't coming with him so he's forced to move them forward.

Eli is becoming a little crawling ninja. He's pretty stealthy about it and he's even caught the pets a couple of times, a mighty feat indeed. I did some babyproofing over the weekend that had been overdue, like the foam corners on the table and latches for the floor level cabinets. He hasn't really shown an interest in them yet but you know that's coming.

Just in time for football season!

2008-08-29T07:16:00.000-07:00

It's been a busy week for Eli. He still getting over his snotty little cold and I think it's really close to being done. Last weekend we went to a friend's wedding (hence the above photo in his "good clothes") and we couldn't be more proud of the way Eli conducted himself. He was very quiet and respectful during the ceremony but was ready to party afterwards. He crawled around in the grass and we even took a little horse and carriage ride around the grounds. The horse was a big hit even though it was a whole lot bigger and a lot less blue than the one in his Brown Bear book.

I've written about Eli's waving which he is still getting the hang of but one thing he has down pat is the high five. It's not just that he can do it... he freaking loves doing it. Maybe it's just that babies like to slap at things but his learning the high five this week means that we can celebrate touchdowns together when UNC scores this weekend. Very awesome. Between the high fiving and clapping he'll be a bona fide sports fan at 9 months.

Sorry, Rebecca, you missed it.

2008-08-18T10:44:00.001-07:00

Eli and I have made it halfway through our mommy-less 5 day existence and we're doing great. He has a bit of a cold so there's been some sneezing and coughing but his spirits are up and there's just too much to explore for him to lay around and whine.

I'd joked with Rebecca about how Eli would probably do tons of amazing things while she was gone and she'd miss out. Well, he has done two really cool things in the last couple of days... this morning looked like the first intentional waving he's done. He'll move his arms around sort of like when he was learning to clap, like he's figuring out how to repeat the motion. At some point it will just click and he'll start to do it on purpose and in context. This morning I dropped him off at daycare and told Ms. Linda about him starting to wave. As I was leaving I stopped and Ms. Linda and I both started waving, saying "bye bye." He looked for a second and then started waving. Either it was a fantastic coincidence or he's starting to get it. Very cool.

The other great moment was at my parent's house... Eli was standing holding on to the couch and I was sitting a couple feet away from him. He turned toward me, let go of the couch and took two small Frankenstein-like steps to me before collapsing against me. He's got a ways to go before he starts walking but he's working tirelessly on it. For Rebecca's sake, I'm not classifying these as his first real steps (it was more of a prolonged trip) but she better get home soon because you never know with this little guy.

The Gauntlet

2008-08-15T08:08:00.000-07:00

The time is upon us. This is something both Rebecca and I have been sort of dreading for a couple months now. Tomorrow she leaves for Ohio for 5 days to go to a conference, which means I'm a single dad during that time. We try and do a good job splitting Eli duties...no one wants to always have to wash out the bottles or change all the poopy diapers. Rebecca has had to do a weekend without me before and she did great. Even though I'll be really busy on Eli duty I think this could actually be harder on Rebecca. Not being able to see Eli crawling around or laughing for that long would suck. I'm going to have to send her lots of phone photos of him doing cute things to hold her over. Wish all of us luck!

Parents = Jungle Gym

2008-08-12T05:54:00.000-07:00

Eli is everywhere. He's really picking up speed with his crawling and his movements are becoming much more efficient. He can change directions almost as fast as he discovers something new. Rebecca and I have now been reduced to "something else I can climb or crawl on." The exersaucer is being used less and less now since just standing there and hopping around isn't enough for him. He's figured out that he can get to things and gets frustrated if he's not allowed the opportunity.

The little guy is pulling up on everything in sight, which means we have already seen a lot of butt-falls. He takes them really well and just keeps on keeping on. There has even been a little cruising of furniture, going from our end table to the couch but he has a habit of getting distracted and letting go of whatever he's holding to so he can go for the remote, or a cup, or mom's hair, etc.

One by-product of his pulling up all the time is that nap time is a little more difficult. Eli could be obviously tired, rubbing his eyes and yawning. We'll go to put him down but he'll just sit up and then pull to standing and start crying. We don't know if he just gets more amped up because he doesn't know what to do from there or if it's just that he's so tired. I call it his Baby Jail position. See picture above. Isn't that just pitiful?

The Fast and the Curious

2008-07-30T17:19:00.000-07:00

This last 10 to 14 days has been absolutely nuts in Eli-land.

Our little explorer has finally unlocked the ability to really get around. His army-crawl phase was very short-lived as Eli has started full-on crawling now! It's definitely not going to score high on artistic merit but with each passing day he's getting better and better at it. His crawling ushers in a whole new wave of paranoia about baby-proofing around the house and means we REALLY can't take our eyes off him. I swear he's like Nightcrawler from X-Men. If I turn around, I hear a "BAMF!" sound and Eli somehow teleports across the room.

Now that he's learned to crawl, he can also sit up by himself. He could always sit himself back up from the all-fours position but getting him into that position was the hang up. He seems to have pretty complete command of getting around at this point and he's done very little face-planting lately.

We've known for months that he likes to stand up and support himself but I'd started to wonder if he hasn't been pulling up very much because there's not a lot around our house for him to pull up on. Sure enough, we go to visit some of Rebecca's college teammates and Eli starts pulling up on things in their den. Just a couple days after that visit Rebecca walked in the nursery to find him standing in the crib, holding on to the railing, and crying. Yes, it was totally pitiful but it was also a watershed moment.

Eli seems to have grown an opinion about a lot of things. His personality is really starting to come through. We are starting to get a feel for his likes and dislikes because he's certainly not shy about letting us know when something isn't agreeing with him. Maybe some of that is due to teething because he definitely has a top tooth breaking through. For some reason, Rebecca seems to think babies look weird when they get their top teeth. We'll see if that's the case.

Flipping the switch

2008-07-21T08:34:00.000-07:00

It was as if a switched was flipped on Eli this weekend. On Friday Eli started army crawling across the floor in pursuit of his favorite toy, a little yellow and blue hammer. He throws his arms out and uses them to drag himself along. There's not much cuter than a little 8 month old face drawn up in hardcore concentration. I guess we need to keep him in some long pants lessen the carpet burn.

He also ran his mouth a lot more this weekend. Usually it's a long strong string of da-da-da-da-da with the occasional ma or ba thrown in there for good measure. I think a ka also made an appearance. His talking is sort of high-pitched and usually comes with some squealing. He tends to babble more when he's upright and excited, like he has something he just HAS to tell us.

Eli started clapping this weekend as well, though I almost hesitate to call it clapping. It's more like flailing his arms in a distinct pattern that produces repeated contact between his hands. Let's call it pre-clapping but it seems pretty intentional and it looks hilarious.

We took Eli to a concert on Saturday night and kept him up way too late. The little guy is such a trooper. It was a french band playing outside the Art Museum and their name translated to The Primitives of the Future, or something like that. They played a short set of music that sounded like a soundtrack for Ratatouille or The Triplets of Belleville. Eli was more fixated on the people sitting behind us than the performers. He just stared at them in a totally unnerving way, as if he was disapproving of them in somehow. They thought it was hysterical. After the music the Museum showed a couple French classic short films; we made it through the first but Eli had had enough and we were pushing our luck at that point. Gotta make sure he gets a good music base so he can learn to weed out crap music. Where's that on the developmental chart?

8 months!

2008-07-16T06:07:00.001-07:00

I can't believe the little guy is 8 months old! He's such a little explorer and into everything. You have no doubt heard people say "I can't turn my back for one second or..." Well, whoever originally said that had a kid just like Eli. It's like he's magnetically attracted to whatever is around him. He's not crawling yet but he seems to have the first part of it down. He'll be sitting up and launch himself forward. After a couple of flailing movements he finishes on his belly, where he proceeds to start rolling all around the room to get to things. Our daycare lady said that one day she went into the kitchen and when she came back he had rolled down the hallway!

It turns out that Eli's sickness was Hand, Foot, Mouth Disease and it ran through the kids at the daycare, most likely because of us. So I guess it was our turn to be parents of "that kid." It's only going to get worse as Eli gets more mobile and can get himself to whatever germs he desires. He seems to be back in good form now and it's good to have the little smiling boy back that we've missed for a while.

Little Mr. Fussypants

2008-07-10T09:37:00.001-07:00

Ever since we got back from July 4th vacation down at Pamlico, Eli hasn't quite been himself. He's usually a great sleeper but he's be waking up a lot during the night and he's looked really tired during the days as well. On Tuesday he had a fever of 102 and combined with all the tugging he was doing on his ears I thought for sure he had an ear infection. He's had one before and I had them chronically as a baby. Our doctor visit ruled that out and I guess he just has some sort of virus. He's back at daycare after Rebecca and I each took a half day off to say with him yesterday. All this could also be due to teething, which seems to be the catch-all when no one has a clear idea what's going on.

Eli figured out the squeaker toy on his exersaucer this morning... it was the last little toy on there he hadn't really used yet, mainly due to the force you have to use to get the squeak. When he did it and Rebecca and I cheered for him he did it a few more times for good measure. I think he just liked the cheering and smacking rather than the squeak but it was still fun to watch.

Oh, and he also said 'da-da' this morning. There was zero meaning to it as he was just making noises but it was still really cool to hear. He's said 'ma-ma' a few times before so it was nice to even the playing field a little. Not that Rebecca and I are competitive people or anything like that. Heh.

Testing the waters

2008-07-02T11:30:00.000-07:00

Lately, there have been a lot of UNC basketball players "testing the waters" in the NBA draft. That, of course, is a metaphor for seeing who is interested in your skill set and who might be willing to offer you large sums of money for it. Over the weekend, Eli decided to test the waters. No, not in the NBA draft, though some team would be lucky to have him as I whole-heartedly believe that he could make better on-court decisions than Stephon Marbury. Eli's water-testing was quite literal because it was his first time in a real swimming pool. I know he looks really serious in that picture above but he really had a good time with no complaints. That facial expression is no doubt the result of being told we had to leave the pool.

Portrait of a baby

2008-06-26T07:16:00.000-07:00

These photos, of course, are not the portraits we had taken of Eli. We have seen them, though, and they are great. We are supposed to order them in the next day or two and then I'll have to get them and scan a couple. Big shocker that my sister wants the picture of him naked lying on his belly. Love you, sis! :)

Eli will no longer stay on his tummy long enough to try and crawl. He just flips himself over and smiles or cackles because that method of transport is way funner to him. I still think he will end up skipping crawling and head straight for walking. We decided to go on and lower his crib once he demonstrated his ability to hold on to my arm and pull himself up. He may not be able to do this stuff for a while but why take chances?

We have found our first food that Eli is not a fan of. It's strange because he was eating green beans before but now every time we give them to him he starts growling at us like our dog. I was on the phone with Rebecca while I was trying to feed him and she could hear him grunting. I told her I'd feed him something else and that went fine. Later in the call I announced that I'd give him one more spoonful of green beans just to see what happens. Guess what we got? Super-unhappy-face.

First Father's Day.

2008-06-17T06:54:00.000-07:00

This weekend I got to experience my first Father's Day as a dad. For me, that day has been someone else's day and it's strange to all of a sudden have it be relevant for you. We had a fun weekend... my parents made the trip up and we had a cookout with them. The outfit with the yellow shirt and hat was one that my mom had bought for him so we thought it fitting to wear that on Sunday.

Saturday we met some friends and their 2 year old out at a bluegrass show in Saxapahaw, NC. Try saying that three times fast. It's a show they do every Saturday and it's a great environment. It's outdoors in a natural amphitheater setting, where you can sit on the side of a hill in the shade to watch the show. There were booths set up selling BBQ sandwiches and drinks. We had Eli out past his normal bedtime but he did well in spite of it and even slept til 8:20 the next morning. Very cool.

Eli is getting ever closer to crawling; now he is drawing his knees up under him and flailing in a much more organized fashion. He has still yet to achieve the all-fours position on his own but we are keeping our eye out for it. I always put a toy just out of his reach to give him some incentive and watching him trying to get it looks a lot like a turtle on it's back. Quite funny.

Eli also turned 7 months old on the 16th! Wow.

The cliches are true.

2008-06-13T09:10:00.000-07:00

Time really does fly. In a couple days, Eli will be 7 months old. When the hell did that happen? He's gotten the hang of sitting on his own and his next two conquests appear to be crawling and pulling himself up to a sitting position. It could still be a while on both but it's not because the boy isn't trying. He's a little spark plug and we know we will have our hands full when he gets full-on mobile. We are also trying to get an early start on teaching the idea of 'gentle.' After all, there's nothing gentle about 'petting' a cat and coming away with a giant clump of fur. I'm starting to think that the separation anxiety signs are upon us. It seems like he is beginning to understand that we are leaving the room now as opposed to his attention just falling on the nearest thing to distract him. Eli has now tried avocado (which wasn't an amazing success the first time) , applesauce and bananas. Lately Rebecca has been giving him his own little veggie/fruit sampler plate and he's doing well switching between foods. He likes to eat just like his parents.

Roughin' it

2008-06-09T05:32:00.000-07:00

Our anniversary was this week so we decided to take a vacation and head down to the Pamlico River house for a few days. We only ended up staying for a couple days because the house has no air conditioning, which lends to its rustic charm unless it's 100 degrees outside. We made a good go of it since we had a lot of fans and a nice breeze at night but once the breeze went away we decided it was time to go. Eli loves it down there and really likes sitting on the pier so the wind can hit his face.

Luckily for us, my sister lives on our way back and we got to stay with her and her husband for a night. Our dog Pepper was in heaven as they have a giant backyard and their own big dog who loves to play. Best of all, they had air conditioning. Yay! Thanks, Suze!

In the food department, Eli has tried all kinds of stuff and we have yet to find something that doesn't really agree with him. He's had carrots, sweet potatoes, squash, green peas, prunes, and pears. He really digs the prunes. He's also really upped his milk/formula intake. At this rate he'll be a little chunkster before you know it.

My parents gave us a gift certificate to get a portrait done of Eli and we did that this past Wednesday. We won't have a chance to see the photos until next Tuesday but if we get a couple of classics then I will throw them on here for all to see.

Tooth #1!

2008-05-27T05:58:00.000-07:00

Eli drools a lot. He also likes to eat his hands. For the last couple of months, people have been saying, "he's probably cutting a tooth." No, actually he just drools a lot and likes to eat his hands. Now, the wait is over and there is a good reason for all that drool and the extra fussiness. Eli has his first tooth! It's a little more toward the center of his mouth than the arrow indicates. Every time we try to get a good look at it he just sticks out his tongue. He's going to look so different with teeth! We'll see what this means for breastfeeding. Poor Rebecca.

Two more firsts!

2008-05-20T07:39:00.001-07:00

Eli has had another couple of firsts recently. We took him to his first Durham Bulls game a couple weeks ago. I think he had a good time but you would never get that from the picture above. The sun was right in our face to start the game and I think that had a lot to do with it. As the sun went down and the Bulls pitching held up, he was in good form. Next time we will try and get tickets earlier so we can be under the cover. The Bulls posted a 3-0 shutout for us in our first outing. Go Bulls!

The other first is not quite as cool. Eli has his first ear infection. Rebecca stayed home with him last Thursday, I was with him on Friday and little of Monday (he had his 6 month doctor visit). Believe me when I say Rebecca picked the right day to stay with him. He had a fever on Friday and cried for the better part of 5 hours. It was excruciating to listen to, especially since he rarely gets that upset. He's also stuffy and coughing a lot but his spirits seemed to improve some over the weekend. I'm hoping we are on the other side of it because he's so pitiful at times.

His sixth month doctor visit went well; we had to fill out a developmental questionnaire for him and he seems to be doing fine so far. Right now he weighs 15lbs 15 oz. and is 27.5 inches long.

Big weekend for a little guy

2008-05-05T05:53:00.000-07:00

Eli had a monster weekend. On Friday there was a rally at the Carrboro Town Commons for Barack Obama. He wasn't scheduled to attend this particular rally but we got tickets to see the bands that were performing, Superchunk and Arcade Fire. The tickets were free, you just had to wait in line for them a week earlier. Eli couldn't have been better at the rally. There were a couple big awnings (the concert was outside) where we were able to hang out with him in the shade. The music was loud but not too loud and he even went to sleep near the end. It was his first concert and he got to see two quality bands.

Immediately after the concert, our plan was to head down to the Pamlico River where Rebecca's family has a cottage. Our first family vacation! It's a three hour drive and we were concerned with how Eli was going to handle it, especially after the over-stimulation of the show. He got a little fussy once or twice but only for a couple minutes before settling back into sleep. He's a real trooper because his parents were doing their best job trying to ruin his schedule all weekend. It's nice to know we can travel that kind of distance with him because it's a trip we will be making a few more times this year.

Eli, sit! Good boy!

2008-04-29T08:31:00.000-07:00

Eli is really making some headway in his quest to sit on his own. As you can see from the photos we have started sitting him on the floor with the boppy to cushion the inevitable keel-over. He's getting stronger and better at it. The other thing really holding him back is his own interest in everything around him. If he catches sight of the pets or hears a voice sometimes he will make a spastic movement to see something and Whump! Keel-over. Keep it up, little guy...you're doing great!

In the Too Much Information category, the recent introduction of formula and rice cereal has certainly changed the poo landscape. His bowel movements are a lot more infrequent but they are doozies when they arrive. The smell of his poo and gas is downright toxic these days. It's "clear-a-room" bad. Breastmilk-only poos rocked. These...not so much.

Eating Milestones!

2008-04-23T06:27:00.000-07:00

There are a couple new eating milestones to report. First, we started Eli on rice cereal over the weekend. My parents were in town for my mom's birthday and they got to witness his first meal. He took to it like a champ, as if he was an old pro at it. He likes to gnaw on the rubber spoon cover and it makes it look like he's chewing. What a little trooper!

The other exciting thing is that Eli has started holding his bottle while he eats. A few days ago he had his hands on the bottle and when I took mine away he kept right on truckin'. He even grabbed the bottle out of my hands once and after shoving it into his right cheek he found his mouth. Very cute and "grown-ey" as my mom would say.

Da-da! (half of it, at least)

2008-04-18T07:05:00.000-07:00

Some of Eli's most talkative moments are right before he goes to bed or right after he wakes up. Yesterday, right as Rebecca was putting him in the crib for the night, he started cooing and talking. He said, "Daaaaaaaa." Congrats on your first D sound Eli! It's always so hard to walk away from him when he is in that hangout talking mode, staring and smiling at you from the crib. We just can't get over how alert and interested he is in everything around him. He really loves to watch the pets roam around the house and he's even petted them once or twice.

5 months old today!

2008-04-16T06:23:00.000-07:00

Our favorite little buddy turns 5 months old today and guess how he is celebrating? By putting his snot on anyone who gets close enough. I think he succeeded in getting both Rebecca and I a little sick as well. We can't complain though, since he's been such a healthy little guy so far. He is continuing to make progress on sitting up but he still eventually topples over like a Jenga game.

He is tall for his age (so far) and most of his pants make him look like Rafael Nadal. If we got him longer pants they would be too big for him in the waist. Luckily the weather is getting warmer so it shouldn't be much of an issue. He has almost graduated from his size 2 diapers as well. Our little guy is growing up! Pretty soon he'll be conjugating verbs and signing up for a 401K. It all happens so fast, according to other parents. Happy 5-monthiversary, Eli!

Eli takes a field trip/The only reason to go to Duke

2008-04-14T05:26:00.000-07:00

Saturday was one of the few days that we didn't really have anything planned for, beyond installing a heating/cooling unit in the garage (that was lovingly donated to us by one of Rebecca's coworkers) only to discover after unfurling the cord that it was a 220 plug. Idiotic, but I digress. Rebecca wanted to take advantage of the good weather and take Eli to Duke Gardens. It was actually the perfect day for it because the colors are most pronounced on overcast days. We loaded up the car and off we went.

Eli had a really good time...he smiled a lot and besides all the trees and plants that were fascinating for him there were tons of people there for him to watch. The Wisteria plants were out in full force but I have to be honest, they don't smell that great close up. Unfortunately, Eli seemed to catch the sniffles after we got home and I'm really hoping it's not allergy related. We did cruise by hundreds of different kinds of plants, after all. I thought airborne allergies showed up after a couple years. Anyway, there has been a sick kid at his daycare this week so that could be the source. He's just really snotty and we had to use the Noser quite a bit to clean him out. The Noser is actually an aspirator, a little suction device to get the snot out of their nose or mouth. I refuse to call it an aspirator; Noser seems more baby-like.

The evolution of bath night

2008-04-08T09:17:00.000-07:00

Our whippersnapper has graduated from using the little hammock in his baby tub. Now we just sit him in the water leaned against the incline. He can't quite sit up on his own yet but he is becoming more stable by the day. Before last week we would try to sit him up and he would immediately start to keel over; it made his head appear to weigh 100 pounds. Now, though, he can hold his position for a few seconds before starting to keel over. Progress! I guess he needs to get used to his lower body actually being in the water because the hammock held him suspended so that only his bum and lower back were getting wet. It was hilarious watching him hold his feet up in the air out of the water.

WHOA!

2008-04-01T09:05:00.001-07:00

Rebecca and I were watching The Matrix yesterday. Eli was in his exersaucer, bouncing around and making gurgling noises. We made it to the scene where Morpheus has Neo jacked into the construct program and he is trying to teach Neo to free his mind by showing him that he can jump from building to building. Morpheus gets a running start and shoots up into the air, landing safely on the next rooftop. Neo, eyes wide, mutters "whoa." Just at that moment, Eli turned around to face the TV and said, plain as day, "whoa." It was amazing! Eli has matched Keanu's grasp of the english language at only 4 months! Just kidding. It is the first of April after all.

The Final Four!

2008-03-31T07:44:00.000-07:00

Eli partied a lot this weekend. On Friday night, we went over to a friend's house to watch the basketball games. Traveling anywhere with a four month old means you are carrying 5 times as much stuff around as you used to. He usually goes to bed early so we had the pack and play with us to give us the option of putting him down. Eli, however, was not having it. There were too many cool things going on for him to sleep through it. After all, Davidson was putting a beatdown on Wisconsin! It ended up being a late bedtime and he, like his dad, slept in on Saturday.

He was very excited about the UNC/Louisville game and even though he forgot to wear his lucky UNC bib, the Heels squeaked by to make it to the Final Four. He got to watch the game with his mom and two aunts in Chapel Hill while dad was at a bar in town. What a deadbeat dad.

We have recruited the grandparents to babysit so that Rebecca and I can go out to watch the next game. You can bet Eli won't forget his lucky bib again; it does have a profound impact on the game.

97?!

2008-03-25T07:31:00.000-07:00

On Friday we had our 4-month doctor appointment. It was just a routine visit for a check-up and some vaccinations. Other than some dry skin, everything looks great with him and he did amazingly well with the shots. He wailed hardcore for about 20 seconds and not a peep out of him after that. We probably won't start introducing solid food for another couple months to cut down on the allergy risk part of it (since he already had traces of eczema, for lack of a better word). I have allergies so if he gets them it will be from me. (Sorry little guy!)

The last time we had a check-up Eli was in the 25th percentile for head, 75th percentile for weight and 90th percentile for height. This time his head was the same, his weight is now in the 50th percentile and he is in the 97th percentile for height. 97! If he ends up being a tall kid he will definitely have gotten that from his mom's side of the family.

The Orifice Triple Crown

2008-03-23T18:35:00.000-07:00

This week we had a bath night for the ages. We always wait to give Eli a bath until after he poos, you know, to avoid a mess. Well, on this particular bath night, everything started off normally. We undressed Eli and put him in the little tub. We wash his face and start on his hair and then, BOOM! Poo all over the place. I pick up Eli while Rebecca empties and cleans out the tub. Once it was filled with water again we put him back in to start over and POW! Poo again! It didn't seem like he should have anything left in his little system. We joked about how we shouldn't move him because he might not be done yet and BLAM! Poo number 3! Unreal! Of course, we had to go through the whole process of cleaning out the tub again and while I was holding Eli he sneezed and spit up on me. There's little Eli, wide-eyed and smiling, seemingly purging himself right before our very eyes. So pitiful yet cute. All we could do was laugh about it. When we were finally able to resume his bath, he celebrated by starting to pee. We love you Eli.

4 months old!

2008-03-18T06:56:00.001-07:00

On March 16th, our little buddy turned 4 months old! I can't believe it's only been 4 months...it seems like he has been with us a lot longer than that. He's come so far so fast and it's only going to get crazier. We are really enjoying it right now; he's at his minimum fussiness level while also having a relatively clockwork schedule. I know he'll change soon and throw everything into disarray again but right now we feel extremely lucky. We have our next doctor appointment on Friday when we will get some updated vital stats.

Eli is also gearing up for his first NCAA tourney and he will be cheering hard for his Tar Heels to go all the way. He is excited about filling out his first bracket. I'll name the teams and whichever his coo sounds the most like is who we will fill in. I bet he does well.

New gear!

2008-03-13T05:57:00.000-07:00

We received a couple more awesome hand-me-downs from Rebecca's sister Emily over the weekend. One of them is a Johnny Jump Up, this contraption that hangs on a door frame with Eli suspended so that he can stand on his feet and jump around. The other was an exersaucer, which looks sort of like a walker that I grew up with. I guess walkers were deemed dangerous at some point so they built this thing that helps them learn to stand and balance themselves. He loves it so far. He's not quite big enough for the Jumper yet.

Revenge!

2008-03-09T14:00:00.000-07:00

The Heels beat dook for the ACC Championship on Saturday! Yay! Eli was very happy and celebrated by doing an impression of his favorite player, Tyler Hansbrough. I think he's got it dead on.

Slip of the tongue

2008-03-07T06:39:00.000-08:00

Our little guy is showing more and more personality each day. In the last week, he seems to have figured out that he has a tongue. All week long he's been sticking his tongue out at us, no matter what he's doing. Taking a bath? Tongue out. Pooping? Tongue out. Laying in the crib? Tongue out. At least he's consistent.

Eli has another doctor appointment coming up on Good Friday. It will be nice to have a little checkup and find out how much he weighs now. The car seat has never been light with him in it but these days it's getting pretty unwieldy. On a side note, we can hold him on our hip now because he is balancing himself better as well as helping to hold on.

Get up, Stand up, Stand up for your rights

2008-03-04T06:49:00.000-08:00

Eli has become a little whirling dervish. Now that he has sort of figured out how to roll over diaper changes have become a little more challenging. He has also started to grab things in front of him and really hold on. That means putting sleeves on him is harder because he keeps clutching the inside of the shirt.

His best new trick is that when he is laying on his back we can hold his hands and when we start to pull forward he will pull himself to a standing position. He loves being upright and is always pushing off with his feet. When he pulls himself all the way up it is usually accompanied by a big open-mouthed smile, like he knows he really accomplished something. It's quite funny.

The end of an era.

2008-02-25T08:03:00.000-08:00

We have hit a new stage in Eli's life journey, the Post-Swaddler era. He was always sort of a Houdini with that thing anyway, finding new an amazing escapes all along. Now that he can roll over the swaddler doesn't seem like a good idea anymore. Last night was his first night in the sleepsack and he handled it pretty well for the most part. All of these little mini-graduations seem sad somehow. Maybe it's because every single parent who has ever met Eli proceeded to turn to us and and say "They grow up fast, enjoy it!" and we are trying not to take anything for granted. Whatever the reason, we have learned a valuable lesson in our first 3 months: whatever you get used to always changes and there's always something new right around the corner. Be ready to adapt.

Turnabout is fair play

2008-02-22T05:45:00.000-08:00

Yesterday's events were both good news and bad news for Eli. We'll start with the good news. After days of being tantalizingly close, Eli finally turned over on his own. Yay! The bad news is that when he turned over, he didn't realize that he was forcing tummy time on himself. He is not the biggest fan of tummy time and quickly got upset to let us know it.

On another cool note, I also put the pacifier in his hand last night and he held on to it for a while before almost succeeding in putting it in his mouth! He was really just trying to eat his hand but if I had turned the pacifier around the other way I think he would have found it. We have also been putting his hands on the bottle when we feed him to get him used to holding it (our daycare lady will be very happy when he gets to that point).

Eli watches violent television

2008-02-20T08:47:00.000-08:00

Last week Rebecca and I were watching Lost (great show, by the way) and hanging out with Eli. We are holding off on him watching TV for a while as we would rather him get interested in the tangible things right in front of him. He's got years and years to be a couch potato but Rebecca and I have vowed not to mess him up this early. We usually have him facing us instead of the TV and we end up watching him and playing while the show is on. During a particularly intense sequence, we got sucked into the show and Eli craned his neck around just in time to get to see Sayid blow someone away onscreen. So, there it is. The end of the innocence*. It's over. We are horrible parents. Can't we just go back to the way it was?

*denotes heavily dripping sarcasm, in case you missed it the first time. :)

For the record, I talked with Eli about what he saw and asked him to let me know he was ok by chewing on his hands. He did so with gusto.

Growth Spurt

2008-02-18T05:30:00.001-08:00

I think our little boy is in the middle of a big growth spurt. One of the things we have been very lucky with is that Eli really isn't very fussy. When he does get amped up, it's usually hunger-related or because he is overly tired. The last few days he's been like Kobayashi at the Hot Dog eating contest, going after food at every opportunity and chowing down as if he would never get the chance again. He has also really started sleeping through the night pretty well (knock wood) and his mom is getting quality rest.

Eli was also very pleased with the Tar Heels' defense this weekend against Va. Tech and ecstatic about Dook's ugly loss to Weak Forest. Speaking of dribbling...he has graduated to the constant use of a bib because the drool is out in full force. Before long, almost every shirt I have will start showing the telltale signs of a drooling baby on the left shoulder so it might be time to hit the Old Navy for some cheap shirts.

Hands-on experience

2008-02-12T05:28:00.000-08:00

Eli is slowly but surely starting to discover his hands. Every once in a while you'll notice him moving his arms all around and they catch his eye. The look of confusion that covers his face at that moment is hilarious. He is also getting better at grabbing things and holding on to them for longer periods. The kid has an iron grip.

Last night Rebecca was cradling him and while they were looking at each other Eli kept swinging his left arm toward her face. After a few minutes of this it was clear he was trying to touch her but didn't quite have control over it yet. He managed to touch her face a few times during all the flailing and even grabbed her mouth once. Rebecca is starting to think he will be left-handed, which I have to admit I have been curious about. I'm predominately left-handed (though I write and play guitar righty because that's how I was taught) and Rebecca is right-handed. If he does turn out a lefty then hopefully he can make it past the notebook spiral imprints in his forearms and the green-handled scissors. That's the worst of it.

Eli has a laugh

2008-02-07T08:13:00.001-08:00

Eli had his first real laugh the other day. Rebecca was tickling him and giving him zerberts and he let out the cutest little cackle. He's only done it a couple times since but we know it's there and can't wait for him to do it more. I guess as parents, we must learn to be funnier.

He also slept through his first UNC/duke game, which was a good thing considering the result. Sleeping through the game also meant that he didn't have to hear his dad's sailor mouth and the spewing vitriol that usually accompanies these rivalry games (I'm a UNC alum and Rebecca was a fan since she was little). Hopefully, I will be able to get my demeanor during games in check before he starts learning to repeat what I say. I don't think it's a real issue except during games against duke, where I can't hide how much I loathe them.

No, we did not name him after Eli Manning

2008-02-04T10:32:00.000-08:00

It truly is the year of the Eli. Last night our little Eli got to experience his first Superbowl. He didn't watch the game, of course, but he cheered just the same. Our friends who hosted the party have a 20 month old and another good friend came over with his newborn as well so there were other little kids for Eli to party with. We watched as Eli Manning engineered one of the great Super Bowl upsets of all time. Just for the record...our kid was born almost 3 months BEFORE the Giants won the game although I'm sure we will get asked a lot if we named our kid after Manning.

Eli made it through his first full week of daycare and today he starts week 2. We both have had little head-colds over the last few days and I'm hoping it's just snotty baby stuff, not sinus issues and allergies like his dad. He's really feeling solid now and keeping his head up which makes baby transport so much easier. He also doesn't like being held in cradle position as much as being held upright so he can see what's going on.

The end of maternity leave and beginning of daycare

2008-01-28T09:17:00.000-08:00

Today is a day that Rebecca and I have sort of dreaded. It's Eli's first day of daycare and Rebecca's first day back at work. It also means a hefty chunk of money leaving our paychecks every month and believe me when I say that daycare in the Triangle is frakking expensive. The good news is that we will finally be able to see what our routine will be like. Rebecca will also get to talk to real adults again. Eli is a blast to talk to but adult/intelligent interaction will be a good thing to get back to.

It was almost as if Eli knew yesterday and today would be stressful (particularly on mommy) so he gave her the best gift he could have...he chose last night to sleep through the night for the first time. The kid just plain rocks. Thanks Eli!

Eli's 1st X-mas

2008-01-25T08:26:00.000-08:00

Eli's first Christmas with us was a busy one. The Saturday before Christmas we traveled to Burlington to visit with some of Rebecca's family. It has been really neat to see those branches of the family tree grow. There are five little ones now at the family gatherings, all under six years old and they provide boatloads of entertainment. Eli is the only one who isn't really mobile yet but that didn't matter because he was getting passed around all over the place.

The two days before Christmas we stayed at Rebecca's mom's house with her 3 sisters, our brother-in-law + child, her mom and 2 dogs. To say it was a full house is an understatement but everything went great. Everyone had a place to sleep and I know Rebecca appreciated being there with everyone for Eli's first Christmas. We got hooked up with some cute outfits and books for the little guy.

We also went to another little X-mas/white elephant party for the other side of Rebecca's family on Christmas eve. Eli slept the whole time while his one-year old cousin Jack was busy entertaining everyone by standing in a gift bag. Eli made out the best out of the 3 of us in the gift department...he received a very cool multi-colored stuffed turtle.

On Christmas day we traveled to my family's house to stay the night. My parents got a radio flyer wagon for Eli and we have some pictures of him laying on a pillow in it. I'll try to put one up here when I get it downloaded in the computer but for now I'll include the one we used for X-mas cards.

Eli's favorite place in the house

2008-01-22T10:48:00.001-08:00

It doesn't matter what kind of mood Eli is in, there is one place in the house that automatically turns him into a smiling, cooing little boy. Luckily for us, that place is somewhere we have to visit very often, the changing table. Maybe it has to do with the distance your face is away from his or it could be that he really likes the little blanket on the wall with the animals. Whatever the reason, it makes me love changing diapers. He is really starting to coo and make funny noises a lot, which means we can carry on pseudo-conversations like this:

Me: Do you want the blue onesie or the green one?
Eli: Huuuuunnnhhh.
Me: Ok. Blue it is. After this we'll go do some tummy time, ok?
Eli: Ahhgoooo.
Me: Great!

The onset of the Smileys.

2008-01-16T05:42:00.000-08:00

A newborn baby is amazing and terrifying all at the same time. He seems so fragile and you are paranoid that you are going to do something to damage him in some way. Rebecca had some experience babysitting and handling very small children but I had virtually none so everything for me was a crash course, from changing diapers and bathing him to learning how to swaddle something. They are utterly and completely dependent on you in every way. The only thing you don't do is breathe and poop for them.

Our doctor said something that really stuck with me because I thought it was funny and sort of brilliant in a way... he said that the first few weeks with a new baby can be very difficult and just when you start second-guessing yourself and wondering whether you can handle it or not, your baby smiles at you. He called it "nature's self-defense mechanism" to keep parents from going nuts. It's true... after a while you are craving some feedback because all this work is going into sustaining the little guy and you selfishly want it to be a two-way street. It really does make your day. Since he was born on November 16th we were hoping he would be smiling a little by Christmas so the family would get to hang with a smiley little Eli. He obliged and it made for a really cool first Christmas with him (more on that later).