What a weirdo.

Last week, while staring at Eli as he lay in his play-yard quietly playing with his toys, I found myself thinking, "Huh, Eli seems to be a little quieter these days." He hadn't been babbling or trying to make conversation like he usually did and it seemed a little odd to see him so quiet.

Me and my big mouth.

Within 24 hours of of my comment, Eli became a blathering fool. He must have been resting his lungs so that he could belt out hours of, "YAAAAAAAAAAAAHHhhh, AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHhhh, AAAAAAAAAOOOOOOoooh" the rest of the week. When he had our attention, he would sing to us. When he was by himself, he would sing to his toys or to keep himself occupied after waking up from a nap. On one particular lazy Saturday, Eli was hanging out on our bed playing with his burp rag, singing, and grabbing a hold of his feet (his newest and favorite trick) while I was folding clothes. He seemed very content in telling me stories (maybe has was talking to his feet; I couldn't really tell) and I was content in listening to him. All of a sudden I heard a loud, sharp guttural grunt come from Eli's general direction. I turn to see Eli laying there with a smile on his face looking back at me. I laugh at him and he smiled back giving another sharp grunt. What made it even funnier is that he had his chin tucked into his neck and he would tighten his entire body to make the noise through his nose. He looked a lot like a tiny Chris Farley. He continued to do this in place of a laugh as we joked back and forth. Of course, once I try to get some good video footage of him, he becomes more interested in the camera than in what he was doing to entertain himself a few seconds earlier. I think it may be the bright blue light on the camera that distracts him. Anyways, here's some footage of him playing with his feet and giving a solid grunt at the very end:

Take that Stephen Hawking!

Eli seems to be developing faster than I can keep up these days. It seems like just a few days ago he was still flailing his arms around wildly like a muppet on Sesame Street, and now he is able to grab anything he wants with both hands and manipulate it. Most of the time he just pulls whatever he is holding to his mouth so he can suck on it, but he is capable doing much more like shaking it, pulling it over his head, or passing it between his hands.

He has also started reaching out to scratch things as a form of studying them, further proving that our boy is a GENIUS. We'll just be chillin' on the couch and for some reason he will become focused on one of the cushions or my shirt or whatever is close to him. He'll extend a single finger to gently scratch at the fabric and will take a few seconds to study and absorb it all. He also does this with the monkeys lining his crib bumper (the pad that lines the inside of his crib walls) when he is not tired enough to fall asleep for his nap. Genius, I tell you. Genius.

Sleepy-Head

Since Eli has perfected the art sleeping through the night, we have started working on getting him into a nap schedule during the day. Eli has been pretty good about letting us know when he is tired by whining and saying, "nya, nya, nya, nya" so it wasn't hard to figure out a pattern of times throughout the day when he is tired the most.

When it is time to put him down for a nap we do a small routine of laying him down in his crib, giving him his pacifier and a blanket, and turning on some soft music (usually Neko Case or Feist- I have yet to develop a tolerance for kid music and try to avoid it as much as I can for now). It's kinda funny to watch him fall asleep because he sometimes looks like he's playing peek-a-boo with himself. He'll grip his blanket and pull it up to his face, then squirm a little and pull it back down. He'll do this until he falls asleep and sometimes he passes out before he can pull the blanket back down. When I walk in and see him in crazy position like this, I can't help but laugh.

On the flip side, though, it kind of makes me paranoid knowing that he is moving around so much in his crib and I end up checking on him a lot while he is sleeping. Sometimes I stand just out of his view and watch him as he tosses and turns and sometimes I just creep in and check to make sure he hasn't worked his way into a corner of his crib or under a pile of toys. When he is really struggling to fall asleep he will repeatedly lift his legs to his chest and kick them back out, which causes him to scoot around the crib. One night, he turned a full 180 degrees in his crib from all his fish-flopping! I check on Eli about 3-4 times before I end up going to bed at night just to make sure he is alive and sleeping well, but also to keep my mind at easy.

Heads Up, Big Guy!

Eli's days of muffled screams as he lies face down in a blanket on the floor are over! This week he finally realized he has the strength to lift his head up of the floor and he has never been happier. He used to DREAD having to do tummy time and would just lay there with his face plowed into the blanket crying in passive defiance until we eventually felt bad for him and picked him up again. I was starting to think he was never going to get his head up because he never used his hands or chest to prop himself up. I'll be honest with you, the boy has the legs of a mule but he was kind of lacking in the upper body strength area. He got a little stronger as he learned to move his arms and grasp things and with a little encouragement a-la-Mickey from Rocky, Eli is now eatin' lightening and crappin' thunder in the head lifting department. Plus, Eli is so starved for attention these days that he is happy to lift his head just so he can hear us cheering and making a big to-do about it.

Eli's Giggle Fits

The only thing better than being greeted with a smile from Eli every morning when he wakes up is his laugh. Eli has been laughing up a storm lately and we were lucky enough to catch an episode on camera! This video is of a laughing fit that happened a few days ago but it is actually kind of mild because it happened right before his bedtime routine and he was already a little tired. At the end of the video you can see our dog, Bosley, trying to join in on the fun by sneaking some quick licks on Eli's face.

Earlier this evening, though, Eli and I were laughing our butts off at each other and I didn't even have to do anything. We just sat there face to face laughing at each other. It was great! I'll try to get better footage but, as you can probably tell by the quality of the video, the camera we use is our regular photo camera and does not take very good video footage.

The weigh-in!

We took Eli to his 2 month check up on Sept. 1st and we were excited to to get the official word on how big he has gotten. He weighed in at a brawny 13.1 lbs. (80th percentile) and an astonishing 24" (90th percentile). In case you are not aware, Kelvey and I are pretty short people with very tall family members so we are wondering if Eli will soon be towering over us. Tubbs here is still in great health, but unfortunately I did not get the OK to take him to the river and springs I was hoping for.

A whole new world

Eli has had some astonishing realizations lately. His first enlightenment came to him while he was spending the day at work with me. I had him sitting in his car seat on top of a table while I washed out his bottles, and when I turned around . . . I saw his eye locked in an intense stare aimed directly at his feet. He was so enthralled that he didn't blink for over a minute. I think what caught his eye was the bright white socks with single blue stripes he was wearing because his usual bare feet never really caught his eye (FYI: Just because Eli lives in Austin, is often barefoot, and is wearing a tie-dye onesie in this picture does not make him a hippie. I was trying to get a good picture of him playing with his feet but he just kept making cute faces so I decided to just post one of him smiling instead. Just image him saying something like, "Dude, you won't believe what happened to me today!" in the picture and it will fit the entry better). Since then Eli will remember he has feet down there and will attempt to wiggle his toes and grab things with his them. In the tub the other day he was flexing and curling his toes and trying to clench my fingers with them. I warned Kelvey that he has inherited my insane ability to pinch with my big toe and she should would be wise to keep her distance or suffer the wrath of the toes. He also notices them when he is sitting on the couch with us and it is kind of funny to see him scrunch forward over his big belly to look at them.

Another thing Eli has discovered is that the dogs are actual living things that do not just make background noise. I often take Eli for a walk around the backyard after I get home, but I also kick around a tennis ball for Bosley, our skinny retriever, as we wander. Eli usually has his eyes pointed to towards the rustling leaves above us, but now that he has a new favorite position of slouching in the crook of my elbow his eyes are pointed down more and he can see the dogs more. While kicking the ball for Bosley, Eli became entranced by Bosley's movements back forth across the yard. His eyes locked on him as he chased the ball and ran back, chased the ball and ran back. Eli still doesn't pay too much attention to the dogs in general but every now and then he will lock onto them as they peek their head over the side of the bathtub while he is bathing (they always come to check on him) or when they try to siddle up next to him during tummy-time on the floor.

The biggest development for Eli is that he is realizing he can somewhat control his arms, hands, and fingers. He loves to bat at the toys hanging around his playyard and playmat and is trying his hardest to actually grab at them. Today Kelvey called me to say that he had actually grabbed a hold of one of his rattles and had brought it to his mouth to suck on! He still has a ways to go before he is flossing his teeth on his own, but he is trying his hardest to get there as soon as possible. When he is laying there playing with his toys you can hear him grunting as if he is saying, "C'mon hand! Just swing over and grab it. C'mon!" I'm pretty proud of our little guy and can't wait to see what other discoveries and developments he makes in the coming weeks.