Eli Dancing

Last night we had a hard time settling Eli. Our friends Sue and Joe were over for dinner, so we ended up dancing Eli until he finally went to sleep.

cute pics

Ok, here are more cute pictures -- including the one of Eli sitting in the rocking chair.  I think he is practicing how to look old and crotchety already.  I hope that doesn't set in too soon.

Triscuit deserves a post

I thought Triscuit deserved a post too.  As you can see, he 'occasionally' gets a bath, but he DOES NOT like it.  In fact, he jumped out before Dave was done rinsing him!  And, you can also see the dog superhighway in the backyard....complete with interchanges...

Eli's First Solid Food

The first third of Round 4 was decisive for the fuss. He had us on the ropes, swinging wildly and making us really tired. But the tide turned after we enlisted the help of "Mr. Swaddle", who kept Eli bottled up and ultimately resulted in a 7 hour 'knock out'. He only woke up once, after five hours, while swaddled, even though he was in his crib. So hopefully that is our ticket to sleep for the next few weeks.

Yesterday also ushered in the age of Eli eating solid food. Well, rice cereal in milk anyway. Video of lots of effort and mess for a few rice grains in his mouth follows.

Adventures in Babysleeping

I'm writing this. Which means that I'm awake at 9PM. Which is somewhat surprising. Thanks to Eli.

When we went to the doctor on Tuesday, she suggested we begin weaning him from his routine of sleeping, swaddled tightly, in our room. Moving him from our room would only get more difficult as he becomes more entrenched, so now was the time to make the switch. In the last few weeks, Shelby made great strides in putting Eli to sleep in his crib, giving us confidence that the transition wouldn't be too difficult. That hasn't quite been our experience.

Tuesday night Eli got a one night reprieve since he received his vaccines earlier that day. We started on Wednesday night and were pleasantly surprised when he only woke three times. Thursday night it increased to six times. Last night was at least six times, not counting the times that he woke us and we gave him a while to cry himself back to sleep. His needs are met - we are sure of that. But he is having a tough time with the separation of being down the hall and in a different environment. We've read that it can take up to two weeks before acclimating to a new setting...so we'll get him accustomed to his crib just in time to leave for Brazil in early March. Lovely.

In cheerier news, I did use his waking up as an excuse to buy Eli a really cool bird mobile. When you touch it, the birds look like they are flying above his bed. I'll take a picture of it and put it here, but it is nice.

Eli has also started, we think, trying to suck at our faces in a primitive, but highly entertaining, pantomime of kissing.

OK, enough procrastinating. Time for Round 4.

Too cute

We were playing around with a happy Eli the other night and captured these super-cute photos. I just had to share them.  

Eli has been pretty good lately.  He had his 4-month "well-baby" checkup, and he is still well.  We are now trying to get Eli to sleep in his room unswaddled at night.  He woke me twice last night.  But, since we arranged it so I can feed him in his room, it wasn't too bad.  I'm sure Eli will sleep through the night one day.   We all do, don't we??

Morning in America

Eli continues to vex us with his sleeping habits. Now he generally sleeping about 5 hours from 10-3 AM, and then another few hours after that. Shelby and I have boomeranged with our schedules...we were only sleeping 5 or 6 hours a night when Eli was sleeping less, but we've routinely gotten 8+ hours of sleep the last few, albeit not in a row. This inconsistency is starting to mess up our sleep habits. Though I was knocked out for several hours yesterday while my dental implant was removed and during the immediate aftermath, I absolutely couldn't sleep last night...and Shelby wasn't much better. So now we will face a day where we will both hit a wall around 3PM and want to take a siesta. Maybe we will? But if nothing else, 3-5 AM is a nice quiet time to get some work done...

happy eli in his jumperoo

I thought I would share a few pictures of Eli enjoying things besides gansta-rap.  As you can see, he likes his Jumperoo.  I caught one of his good smiles while we were jumping one day.  But, you should all be happy that I spared you from the "tunes" that the Jumperoo plays when he bounces.  You can also see that Eli was having a stare-down with his kangaroo.  I think the kangaroo eventually won.  Oh, and of course, a picture of a happy Dad hugging little E...before he had to have his tooth implant extracted.  Dave and Eli are now fighting over who gets their tooth first.

What to do when baby likes rap?

I like to think that Shelby and I are reasonable parents. We spend a lot of time with Eli. We study parenting books and skim new parent websites. These books and websites all insist that you expose your baby to all types of music and activity to identify their likes and dislikes. True to this advice, I've often put my music library on shuffle and let Eli listen. About two weeks ago, our friend Sue noticed that Eli seemed to respond most positively to...how should I put this...gangsta rap. 

I thought this was coincidental and laughed it off at the time. Now I'm not so sure, and I'm a bit worried that 'ho' may be Eli's first word. Tonight when Shelby left us home alone while she played soccer, I read Eli two books. He fussed anxiously near the end of the second one. I played a little Rolling Stones. The fuss descended into a near-tantrum. I then changed the music to the latest album by mash up artist Girl Talk. The album is essentially rap and R&B vocals overlaid on pop melodies. Almost immediately, Eli smiled. And cooed. And settled into an alert, yet playful mood. At first, I thought this couldn't possibly last. But it did...he stayed in my arms listening to the CD for more than an hour (by the way, my arms are killing me).

Now, happy Eli = good. Eli quoting NWA = bad. While I know that there is no cognition of what lyrics mean to Eli yet, do we really want to have our toddler swearing at day care? Or is that just the price we pay to keep him happy, and we'll deal with the sheepish explanations to his teachers and other parents when the time comes?

Eli in STL

I realized that we never put up any pictures (except the Christmas rollover) from our travels to STL!!  Woe is me!  Well, here are a few cute ones from our travels.  You can see that Eli seemed pretty content at my parents' house.  He is smiling more and more each day.

And, I have one note to make on napping and sleeping.  Although Eli is still waking me twice per night (gosh darn it!), his naps have been a bit easier this week.  In fact, I've been able to get him to sleep in his sleeping bag in his crib during the day. This is a big step up from having to swaddle him in the vibrating chair.  And, yesterday, I heard him fussing and when I went to check in on him, he had found his thumb and was sucking on it contentedly.  Go thumbs!!!!