Eating Milestones!

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)

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!

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

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

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!

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!

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.