Batboy

Eli LOVES to hang upside down these days. He will crane back any chance he gets to look at the world from a whole new angle. Maybe he thinks he is one of the famous Austin bats.

Sit. Stay. Roll over.

Eli finally rolled over! Twice! We were playing on the floor last weekend and he managed to just flop over somehow. I immediately rolled him back on his tummy and FLOP! He rolled over again. Kelvey and I were freaking out so much that we rushed to get the camera hoping he would do it again. Kelvey was able to catch the aftermath of the second roll, but by the time we got him back on his belly and ready to video the next roll, he was already starting to crawfish and fuss (when he gets tired of being on his belly he splays his limbs backward in the air and teeters on his belly while crying). He hasn't rolled over since then, but he wants to. He just hasn't learned that he needs to tuck his arms in under his chest to do it.

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.