Eli turns 1!

Believe it or not . . . Eli is now a year old! It is hard to believe that a year has past already, but when I look at our little man I can't help but notice how much he's grown and how he's not a little baby anymore. I've always heard people joke that it goes by too fast . . . but they're right. I forget how tiny he used to be and how he would just gaze at us for hours because he couldn't do much else and was just absorbing everything. It's been tough trying to live moment to moment as Eli reaches new stages of growth and development and become a whole new kid every few weeks. On the other hand, each new step he takes makes him so much cooler and me so much more proud of him. Right now, I'm happy that he can ask me for a hug, cling to me when I hold him, and freak out over how tasty a cupcake can be. By the way, I'm not shoving the cupcake in his face in the picture. He loved his first taste of sugary cupcake so much that he grabbed my hand and buried his face into it with gusto. He had a death grip on my hand and would not let go as he chomped away! It was the best part of the whole party. More pictures of Eli's first birthday party and cupcake extravaganza can be seen on our flickr page. Also, here's a video of us singing Happy Birthday to Eli on his real birthday:

Countdown to 1

It has been a whirlwind of a month as Eli makes a mad dash to reach as many milestones as he can before he turns a year old at the end of the month!  Normally I would break things up into separate entries, but for now I am going to throw it all at you like a robber throwing hot coffee at your face to make a quick gettaway:

1.)  Eli finally has a tooth coming in!  It's a little tough to see in the photo, but rest assured there is a tooth coming in on the bottom left of Eli's mouth (his left, not stage left).  It may not look like much of a tooth right now, but you can definitely feel it when he bites down on your shoulder or finger.

2.)  Now that he has a tooth coming in, Eli has been taking his mealtimes to the next level by chomping down on a variety of crunchy foods. Quesadillas, cheese sandwiches, Cheerios, crackers, french toast and pancakes . . . the kid can't get enough of 'em.  He likes the solid foods better because he is able to feed the little pieces to himself at his own pace and, I assume, they feel good rubbing against his gums.  We still feed him pureed fruits and vegetables to give him a balanced diet, but lately he has been begging to try feeding himself these sides as well.  We haven't given him full reign of the spoon domain because his coordination is not quite perfected, but he is getting better.

3.)  And finally . . . the moment you've all been waiting for . . . Eli has taken his first steps!  He has been cruising around the coffee table, couches, and dog crate for awhile but a few weeks ago our nanny said she saw him take a few steps on his own.  Kelvey was next to witness him taking a few steps on 3 different occasions but I never got there quick enough to see it for myself and the times that I did see Eli try to walk it just looked like he was falling forward or taking a lounging dive into the dogs.  Since we were convinced that Eli was ready to take the plunge into support-free walking, Kelvey and I took every opportunity to coax Eli into walking towards us and eventually our efforts paid off.  We can now say with confidence that Eli is starting to walk!  Next step: DANCING!

Eli Takes a Stand

Eli has been doing a pretty good job of scooting around the house while holding onto things, but every now and then he gets so distracted by something he picked up off the coffee table that he doesn't always realize that he is standing without any support. Today I was able to trick Eli into standing on his own and was surprised to see how long he actually did it for! I called Kelvey over to video tape it as I tried to get him to do it again:

Hopefully he will be walking by the next post, but for now I am happy enough to see his new parlor trick.

Fun in the Sun

Let me start by saying this: Last year's summer SUCKED. We sweated and cursed our way through a drought filled summer and a total of 68 days of 100+ degree weather. The sweltering heat made for a very uncomfortable summer with little opportunity to go outside, especially with a newborn Eli. Thankfully El Nino has provided us an amazing start to this year's summer (keep in mind this is Texas and our Summers start earlier than the rest of you) and the weather has been breezy and beautiful! This makes for very happy days with our own little nino.

We had a good start to the summer a few weeks ago when we took a trip to Pease Park to join the annual celebration of Eyeore's Birthday, a tradition that started in the 70's when a few hippies decided to skip class and play in the park. FYI, the party hasn't changed much in that a good 75% of the party population is made up of hippies or people engaging in typical hippie activities (if you know what I mean *nudge*nudge*). Anyways, it was a rather lovely day of enjoying the outdoors, people watching, and dancing to pulsing beats of the drum circle:

Last weekend was even better. We woke up, poked our heads outside and said to each other, "It's a perfect day for trip to the ol' watering hole". So we got Eli into his Lil' Swimmer swimming diapers and headed to the neighborhood pool. Eli hasn't been swimming since Aug. 2009 so we figured we may have to carefully reintroduce him to the water again so he didn't freak out and ruin our chances of coming back to the pool again. We slowly dipped his toes in and lowered him in little by little until he was up to his chest in water. It helped that Eli was mesmerized by all the other kids splashing around at the pool. Eli was most comfortable lounging on me like a floaty or bobbing around in Kelvey's arms, but he really loved being pulled through the water while we made motorboat sounds. When it got a little toasty in the sun, we moved to our shady spot under a tree and let Eli explore a little. When we got home we were a little scared that Eli got sunburned, but it turned out he was just a little flushed from the heat, a trait he gets from his mom. Hopefully he won't end up looking like George Hamilton by the end of summer.

Let The Fun BEGIN!

It is officially on like Donkey Kong! After months of crawling all over the dogs, poking them in the eye and chewing on their ears, Eli has realized that the best way to get the dogs to play with him is do something they like. He has always enjoyed watching the dogs wrestle and play tug-of-war, but he has been barred from joining the melee because of the high probability of him getting fish-hooked by a sharp tooth. Well tooth and claw be damn! Eli has been grabbing the dogs tug-of-war ropes and marching right up to them with an offering to play. The dogs were a little confused at first but Bosley (our goofy lab mix) was the first to take him up on his offer. Kelvey and I cringe a little every time the dogs lunge in to take hold of the rope, but Eli thinks it is the greatest thing in the world. He squeals with delight as they begin to pull, but within a few seconds the dogs have yanked the rope out of Eli's hand and he is left lying on the floor laughing his head off. He pops right up, though, and charges at the dogs to grab a hold of the rope for another round. The dogs better watch out though. Once he packs on a few more pounds of muscle from all the chin-ups he's doing, he will be the reigning King of Thunderdome (aka the living room).

Monkey See, Monkey Do

I have to say that I had a wonderful day with Eli and Kelvey today! We started the day with some delicious brunch and then spent the rest of the morning and early afternoon working on the front yard. Eli started out in his exerscaucer while Kelvey and I pulled weeds, but Eli eventually got bored and want to join in the fun. We took him out and he immediately went to where Kelvey was working and started yanking at the grass and weeds too. I guess he had seen me plucking weeds from the yard enough times that he knew exactly what to do. Once he discovered the loose soil aftermath of Kelvey's work, though, his attention turned to getting dirty. It was heartwarming to see him investigating the dirt by running his fingers through it, grabbing fistfuls of it, and crawling all around, not caring about how dirty he was getting. Kelvey and I didn't care either. It was a cute scene, but something about it really struck a chord deep inside me. I think it was seeing him "in the moment", not having a care in the world, and me feeling the same way, knowing that he was completely safe in what he was doing and being able to be in the moment with him. I wish I had been able to take some pictures but we were dirty and sometimes it is best just stay focused on the experience than trying to capture it.

After we got all cleaned up, we took a moment to relax for a little bit in the living room. With Eli there are no relaxing moments as long as he is awake so he spent the time cruising around the coffee table playing with everything he could reach. When he grabbed my phone, I was surprised to see him mimic another one of our everyday motions. He picked up the phone, looked at it for a second, and then held it by his ear as if he was talking on it. It was weird to see him do something so grown up. As we watched him, Kelvey told me that she had also seen him pick up one of my Sunday crossword puzzles and hold a pen to it like he was writing. Makes me wonder what other mannerisms he is picking up from us.

Happy Hobbit Holes

When I was a little kid, I absolutely LOVED playing in my pop-up play tunnel. I'm pretty sure it was an Aquaman themed play tunnel. I loved Aquaman. I even had the green underoos with the matching orange shirt. But I digress. I wish I still had that tunnel so that Eli and I could waste away the day crawling in and out of it, enacting what ever crazy adventures we can think up. I'm sure Eli would thoroughly enjoy it because he has been tunneling through everything he finds as he crawls around and explores the entire house. Some of his favorite spots are under the buffet in the dining room and the end tables in the living room. He'll climb onto the bottom shelf and just park himself there for while as he plays with whatever toy he brought with him or what ever he finds in the general vicinity. Sometimes he looks like a funny little hobbit as he peers out from under the tabletop and smiles as if to say, "Are you still there? Because I'm still here".

Eli's number one spot in the entire house has got to be the dog crate. He will spend hours opening and closing the door, flipping the latches, climbing on the sides, and crawling in and out of it. Sometimes he will crawl right in with the dogs and just chill with them. The dogs love him and he loves the dogs so they do not mind the invasion of personal space too much. The dogs let Eli in their crate, and Eli lets them lick the inside of his mouth. It's a win-win situation.

As long as he is not chewing on the power cords like a little rabbit, we are happy to let him be a free-range baby.

PS: If I can get my mom to dig out the picture of me in my aquaman underoos and socks crawling through my play tunnel, I will post it.