Just in time for football season!

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.

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

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

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

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

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!

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.