Happy 6 months Elijah!

It’s hard to believe that just 6 months ago Elijah was born! – and on a hot summer day. Quite the contrast to today’s foggy cold.

Ironically, we both had doctor appointments today. My appt with Dr. Chen went perfect. He also confirmed my worrying suspicion to hold weight loss plans until Elijah has been weaned. --- that sucks.

Elijah is still <5% for weight! He is 13 pounds 10 oz. Of course he had a major butt explosion earlier this morning which probably lost those 6 oz to push him to 14 pounds. Oh well. His doc more or less told me to stop obsessing. He is skinny, and that isn’t so bad in a fat world. He is 26.5 inches long which puts him at the 60th %.

I’m sure the next 6 months will fly by.

Yesterday all of the little cousins got together! I have to post those pictures of course. We’re hoping to get all together again next Thursday. Hopefully we’ll get some better ones then. It’s so hard to make kids do what you want them to do  :)

WTF?

I'm sure the photo doesn't show up really great, but let me clarify that person is NOT me. Brad's friend is enrolled on a Jewish dating site and emailed this screen shot to Brad.

I think she creepily looks a lot like me. I even thought that someone stole my photos from offline and superimposed them onto this person.

At a closer look you can see that she is not me….ugh. Weird. What are the chances I would have a look-a-like in the same town.

I just had to share my disbelief…

No matter how hard to try to plan

...you'll always forget something. At least I will. I had to go to evening class tonight and I thought I remembered everything. Brad had Elijah's bathtime stuff ready to go, his evening solid food snack and of course defrosted milk in a bottle. I had all of my stuff too...pump, school books, cell phone, work out clothes for afterwards, ipod, car charger for the pump...but I forgot the cooler to keep the milk cold. AAAGGGG. I hate forgetting things like that. Luckliy I've been getting more sleep lately, thus making me think faster. There happened to be a cup in the car so I just packed it with some clean looking snow (thank goodness it all didn't melt yet) and my milk was supercold the whole evening. Brad thought it was gross, I thought it was smart. :)

I've got some good news, and not so good news...

What should I start with first? Ok, the good
...well, it's really not that exciting. I start classes again tomorrow! --Yes, that stuff excites me. I love school. What's more exciting is that I will be back in a chemistry lab!

It's kind of bittersweet though because it's got me thinking about how much I miss chemistry. I stopped studying it to study environmental/health issues. I don't think I really regret it because I feel like the environmental field equips me better for my future goals, but I really enjoyed the challenge chemistry offered..

Oh well. For now I can't wait to get back in a lab. For some reason I always did really well with that stuff. More excitingly, I will be in an organic lab! My favorite kind...

ANYWAY...here is the sad news.
Elijah had his first real "boo-boo" today. And it's my fault!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I feel so terrible. He and I were sitting on the floor playing with these weird shaped blocks that fit into bucket with a lid made for the shapes. He has been doing so well sitting up by himself, I figured it was a great time for him to continue to practice while we were playing. He did so good! Sat up close to 15 minutes on his own. I should have realized that he would have been getting tired but I didn't.....so he face-planted himself on the the bucket lid that holds all the blocks. It is a hard, rigid piece of plastic! Boom on his lip and his forehead. MY POOR BABY!! I felt so terrible. He had a little bump on his head and lip for the majority of the day.

Other than being really upset and crying he seemed okay - no need to call the doc (although it crossed my mind as a newbie mom). He was pretty upset the remainder of the day. But I suppose the pain from his "boo-boos" reminded him of his teething pain and it was pretty much all down hill until he got to play in the bathtub before bed.

So now he's tucked in bed probably dreaming of better day tomorrow.

Goodnight sweet tootum pie, I love you.

I hate guy movies

We just had a wonderful family date night. We risked Elijah staying up passed his normal 6:30 bedtime to have a nice dinner (Spiros....mmm, great salads!).
Everything was great. Elijah did so well staying up and was not troublesome during dinner at all. Brad and I even got to share a bit of wine. Even better, when we go home I put Eli in his jammies and he went right to sleep! No ridiculous, methodical routine either! I put him down, he played with his little stuffed animal and now he is out like a light!

Brad, in the mean time was running to the redbox to get a movie to complete our perfect family date night.

riiiiighttt.....what does he come home with? A terminator movie, and a scary movie. I don't watch either of those! So now I'm stuck here ---with a new surround sound system blarring in my ear by the way---- listening to the most stupid crap about a war with machines. What happened to Arnold Schwarzenegger anyway?

At least I had some time to blog and be mindless for a bit. I think I may actually take advantage of this time and crank up the electric blanket, crawl into the middle of the bed and go to sleep.

ZZzzz......

As promised, here's Evan!

We couldn't resist spiking all that hair!! Incredible. Its been a week since that photo was taken, and I'm sure he has already changed so much.

We we're kind of teasing saying Evan must be Brad's because they have the same hairstyle! :)

I knew seeing him would put into perspective how quickly time passes, but it passes so much quicker than I imagined. Just look!

New Year, new blogging resolution

Yikes! I hate that I quit blogging after my niece Aubrey was born! I don't know how easily I can recap the last few months, but I guess I'll try.
Elijah is awesome. We've certainly had our struggles....and CERTAINLY continue some struggles, but he is such a wonderful part of me I wouldn't really change anything.

He will be 6 months old in just a few days and we are just now (as of the last two nights) starting to get more rest (waking only twice in 12 hours). He was up at least 4-5 times a night before now. Either he would startle himself awake, lose his pipila (pacifier) or just randomly decide to disturb my slumber.
He would always have to be a burrito...I mean swaddled with his arms tucked in tighter than we could manage! We luckily broke that habit with resolving to the "cry it out" method when he turned 5 months. --- I needed some sort of relief during that time.


We have given him his first few tastes of solid foods. He loves apples, pears and prunes (yuk). He sort of likes sweet potatos, carrots and squash. We recently starting giving him rice crackers so he won't reach out for our food when we try to eat and I think he LOVES feeling like a big boy - being able to eat on his own.


Sadly we are still struggling to put weight on his body! He is definitely NOT a comfort nurser. He barely has the patience to wait for a let-down. It's been a vicious cycle. His lack of nursing instigated my lack of production and it's been an awful downward spiral. I've been trying to fix that by nursing as often as possible and cutting out all solids, but we'll see what the doc says when we visit him on the 15th. As of right now (with my baby scale I paid WAY too much money for) he is hovering right under 13 pounds - well below the 5th percentile for breastfed babies.


Here's a pic of my little guy just before Christmas:


He is doing so well developmentally! He babbles all day long, loves to play and is almost sitting up independently.


I'm sad to have slacked on my blog...it was/is basically my baby book for Elijah (I have one ---but who has the time to fill it out??!) Oh well, 2010 will be better document than the last three months of his little life :)

And unfortunately I have to cut this entry short -- he is napping like an angel and there are a million house chores that need to get done. I will be back later to brag on my newest nephew who was born on Dec 26th!! wait till I post pics of him!! What a cutie!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!