We have a Walker!

We had an incredible weekend full of a very smiley, giggly, and well-rested boy.  But the big news is that my silly little boy is now walking!

He's been right on the cusp of walking for a few weeks now.  As long as he was holding onto an adult hand or his walker or anything really, he was walking perfectly.  He was even bearing all his own weight and balancing on his own two feet.  But as soon as he let go, he would immediately flop down onto his hands and crawl.  I was convinced that it was just a confidence issue.  Once in a while we would trick him and he would stand for a few seconds, but he never took steps.  Until last Monday.  After his surgery he took his first steps- three baby steps right into his Dada's arms.  But even after that he was afraid.  Every time we tried to work on walking with him, he would get mad and go boneless.  Then the whining would start and forget it.  Until yesterday.  Something just clicked.

We were in the living room playing with his toys.  One of his toys is a set of stacking cups that can be snapped together into balls.  I put a little bell inside and he absolutely loves the massive amount of noise it makes.  It was just enough motivation for him.  I rattled the ball and he took a few steps towards me and fell into my arms.  I stood him back up and faced him towards his Dada across the room.  And he did it again!  He walked a few steps across the room.  We did it over and over again and Elijah kept taking steps!  I was so surprised and so very proud.  It sounds ridiculous- proud of my baby for learning to walk just like every other human that has ever lived.  But it's true.  I was so very proud of him.  We didn't get his first steps on tape, but we were fortunate enough to get video of the moment he truly began walking.  It's not perfectly in focus, and I look absolutely ridiculous shaking his toy ball and screaming with excitement, but I don't care.

The feeling when he took his first steps across the living room is completely indescribable.  It was like when you're on a roller coaster going over a big drop.  That exhilarating, shocking, intensely happy feeling.  It's exactly why I love being a mom.

This weekend reminded me over and over again why being a mom has made me happier than anything else in the world.  Friday evening we went out to eat with a friend we haven't seen since high school!  Elijah got his first kids' meal (a pizza) and he ate the entire thing.  I went to bed really early on Friday night (like 8:30 early) so I woke up happy and well-rested before Elijah did!  It made such a difference.  I started my Saturday showered and energized and excited for the weekend.  Elijah took a really great 2 hour nap that morning, and he woke up very happy.  Daniel went out golfing in the afternoon, so it was just me and Elijah for a few hours.  We went to the library where Elijah pushed a little kiddie chair all over the place.  He was so content pushing that chair around, so I just relaxed and let him play.  He also loved sweeping all the magnetic letters off the magnet board.

Playing at the library

 Then we went to Costco and did some grocery shopping.  After that it was time for his nap.  Since he took such a great nap that morning, I was afraid he wouldn't go down easily for his afternoon nap.  And I was right.  After rolling around his crib for 30 minutes, he started to whine, and then cry.  I knew that if I went in there and picked him up he would pass right out.  And since I had nothing better to do, and sitting in a dark cool room rocking my baby for a few minutes sounded like a delightful Saturday afternoon activity, that's what I did.  I held him and played on my phone, and closed my eyes, and just enjoyed that time.

Napping in Mama's arms

After about 30 minutes Daniel was home and we had to get ready to leave for dinner at a friend's house.  So I gently woke him up and he was a happy boy!  We had dinner with friends from church.  Elijah was more than happy to play with their daughter's toys.  She is only about 9 months older than Elijah, so they get along great.  Elijah was also happy to eat a whole piece and a half of lasagna at dinner!  By then it was his bedtime so we excused ourselves and drove home.  He was very tired, so after a short bath he fell asleep very quickly in his crib.

The next morning he slept until almost 7am!  That has happened exactly ONE time in the past 4 or 5 months!  It felt like a miracle!  Just last week he was waking up at 5:30 or 5:45 every morning!  And he woke up incredibly happy.  AND he went down for his morning nap quickly and easily at the normal time.  He got a good one hour nap, we went out and had some family fun at a local neighborhood fair, and then he took a fantastic two hour afternoon nap!  I don't know if it's the tubes in his ears, or that he's walking now, or something else, but he has been sleeping so well lately.  I think he is going through a major growth spurt and development spurt.  He has been eating a ton (and pooping A TON) too, so I'm thinking it's probably a growth spurt.  Regardless, I am enjoying it.  The extra sleep has left him very happy, smiley, and easy-going.  As he gets older, we have more and more fun.  This weekend he even gave me a hug for the first time ever!  He came up to me, put his arms around my neck, and laid his head on my shoulder.  Completely unsolicited.  I just loved it.

This weekend was just full of magical family moments.  I am so lucky to have my incredible family.

Elijah's surgery

Yesterday Elijah had tubes put in his ears.  He's had 6 or 7 ear infections in the second half of his first year.  This is well over the APA's recommendation for inserting tubes.  I've been anticipating this day for a very long time.

In the waiting room

We had to check in to the medical clinic at 7:15am.  Almost immediately, they brought us back to the pre-op room.  My mom was here visiting, so she stayed out in the waiting room.  The nurse took his blood pressure (which was impossible), weighed him (his weight came out much lower than at his 1 year well check last week), and got his pulse.  After she had done all of that, another nurse came in to ask if she had any questions.  This was our first indication that our nurse was relatively inexperienced.  She seemed annoyed that she was being checked in on and said that everything was fine, except she couldn't get a blood pressure.  The more experienced nurse told her that blood pressure is impossible to get on anyone under 3 years so she wouldn't worry about it.  Eventually they both left and the anesthesiologist came in.  She mentioned something about the medicine Elijah was supposed to receive, and that was another red flag.  We told her that Elijah hadn't taken any medicine.  So she flagged down the nurse.  Then I heard the nurse out in the hall discussing the concentration of the medicine and calculating how much to give Elijah based on his weight.  That was also concerning.  This nurse is calculating how much medicine to give him, in her head, and discussing it with another nurse?  That did not inspire confidence.  The anesthesiologist told us that this was an anti-anxiety medication that would make Elijah more relaxed.  She told us that we should wait 10 minutes for it to take effect and in the meantime she wasn't going to do anything to upset him.  That was really nice.  Through the whole pre-op process, Elijah was screaming hysterically.  He woke up very early that morning and we couldn't give him anything to eat or drink.  And he was in a strange environment with strange people touching him.  He just wanted to cuddle up to either me or Daniel and be left alone.  The medication started to work and the anesthesiologist and surgeon went over everything they were about to do.  Double, triple, quadruple checked Elijah's name, date of birth, allergies, and procedure they were going to do on him.  It was very reassuring for me.  Once we signed the consent form, a nurse came in with a warm blanket and took Elijah away.  I regretted not giving him one last kiss, but told myself that I would see him very soon.

In pre-op waiting for the anti-anxiety medication to take effect

And only 15 minutes later, they were calling us back to the post-op room.  A nurse was holding Elijah.  She handed him to me and I sat in a big cushy chair with a warm blanket over him and waited for him to wake up.  Daniel and my Mom sat next to me.  We chatted for about 45 minutes.  Once in a while Elijah would startle and wail loudly, and then settle back to sleep in my arms.

Waiting for him to wake up

When he did finally wake up, he didn't cry at all.  He guzzled his entire sippy cup of milk and happily ate cheerios by the handful.  All the nurses thought he was just adorable.  We dressed him and took him home at about 10:30am.  He ate an amazing amount of food when we got home.  A cup of applesauce, a cup of yogurt, more cheerios, a whole stick of string cheese, and he wanted more!  We eventually cut him off because we were worried he would vomit it all up.  He wanted to be held and got upset easily.  I thought a walk in the stroller would help.  So we took a walk to Chipotle.  It did help, but only as long as we were moving.  He ate a lot more food at Chipotle.  We could barely eat ourselves because we were shoveling food into his mouth.  He ate everything we put in his mouth, and cried in between bites for more. His eyes were also kind of drooping and crossing.  It was so sad.  By the time we got home, he could barely keep his eyes open.  My mom rocked him and he fell asleep within 2 minutes, still with a death grip on his sippy cup.  I pried it from his hands and my mom put him down in the crib.  He didn't move a muscle.

90 minutes later he woke up.  He was fine for a few minutes, and then he started crying hysterically.  I held him and he laid his head on my shoulder and screamed.  For 20 minutes we sat like that.  He would stop for a minute or two and then for no reason start screaming again.  I was so glad to have my mom there because I would have lost it without her.  She brought him some cheerios and that finally calmed him down.  We moved him to his high chair and he ate two whole pieces of bread with peanut butter.  Finally he seemed back to himself.  At about 3pm.  The doctors said that in a few hours he would be back to himself, but that was not the case.  He was uncoordinated and upset for most of the day.  It was difficult, but I'm glad it's over.  I hope that this will drastically reduce the pain and discomfort he experiences in the long term.

Mischief

Last night was one of those nights where I put Elijah in his crib and left the room feeling like the luckiest person in the whole world for being his Mom.  He was such a delightful little boy yesterday evening.  We've been cutting out his bottles, so he's down to just one before bed.  He actually doesn't seem that interested in it most of the time, but he's not getting enough milk during the day yet so I want to encourage him to drink as much as possible before bed.  Anyways, he sat on my lap while Daniel read us a story and drank his bottle.  Every once in a while, he would pull it out of his mouth, look up at me, and say "Da!" or "a-dah!"  And I would nod and act interested and then he would go on drinking his bottle.  His speech is sounding more and more like conversation (although it's still complete baby gibberish).  This morning, he said something and then started giggling.  Daniel started laughing too, so I asked him what was so funny.  He told me very matter-of-factly that Elijah just told a joke.  He said, "couldn't you tell?"  The two of them.  They make me so happy.

This morning Elijah was similarly adorable.  I had to run downstairs to get my rain coat since it was absolutely pouring outside (for the second day in a row).  I left Elijah in the kitchen.  When I came back upstairs, he was crouched in front of the dog's food bowl, picking up handfuls of dog food, and shoving them into the heating vent in the floor.  Oh my goodness, he is most definitely a toddler.  Somehow in that time he also got this really black dusty stuff in his hair.  I had to comb it out and it was really sticky!  The comb has all this black stuff in it now.  I have no idea where it came from or how he did that.

I drove him to school and when we got there it was still pouring rain.  I zipped up my rain coat, put my hood over my head, and got out.  When I opened the passenger's door, Elijah looked at me and laughed!  He laughed at me!  He thought the hood was so funny.  I unbuckled him and when I carried him out into the rain, he huddled up against me.  It was so sweet and kind of surprising.

Every single day brings surprises like these.  I would love to know what is going on inside his little head.  Because when I see glimpses of his thoughts through his actions, I am absolutely delighted.

Elijah the Toddler

Elijah has this new hobby of grabbing items from the house, sticking them out the doggie door, and letting go.  I guess we don't supervise him very well, because this often happens without us realizing.  And then hours later we'll find a bottle of taco seasoning sitting right outside the back door.  Or 3 wooden blocks.  Or the tin of bay leaves.

One time I was cleaning up all his toys and I couldn't find the 3 colored plastic balls that go with his helicopter toy.  I called Daniel (he had just left) to ask him if he knew where they were.  Of course, he asked if I looked under the couch.  Yes, yes I did.  Then he asked if I looked under the dining room table.  Yes, looked there too.  Then he asked if I looked out the doggie door.  I opened the back door, and there was nothing sitting just outside the door.  But I looked a little further, and out in the grass were 3 colored plastic balls.  Jackpot.  Elijah stuck each one of them out the doggie door, and they rolled all the way across the cement patio and into the grass.

He has another hobby that's very similar.  He likes to throw his toys out of the bathtub.  By the end of his bath he has literally no toys left in the water, and a pile of toys on the bathroom floor.  This isn't a big deal, except when he decides to throw overboard the cup we use to pour water over his head.  When he throws that out of the tub, we end up with a flooded bathroom floor.  This has happened more times than I would like to admit.

This kid is most definitely a toddler.

Elijah's First Birthday Party

Elijah's first birthday party could not have gone any better.  Seriously.  There is something about this child that knows to be good when it really counts.  I mean every time we've had a big event (the July 4th baseball game comes to mind, as well as his flights to and from Denver at Thanksgiving, and the church service for Easter...) he is on his best behavior.  His first birthday was no exception.

We started Friday evening with making one batch of carrot cupcakes.  Then Saturday morning we made another batch of chocolate cupcakes.  We intended to cut that batch in half, but we forgot so we ended up with 50-some cupcakes.  Elijah woke up Saturday morning very congested and a very runny nose, so we took him to Urgent care.  Last time we waited for the illness to pass and it was 2 weeks of misery.  This time, we wanted to get a jump on it and hopefully start antibiotics right away.  But the doctor said he had no ear infection, so no antibiotics either.  On Saturday afternoon, Daniel's mom flew in from Phoenix. We picked her up and she helped a ton with the planning and prepping for the party.

He skipped his afternoon nap on Saturday, so I was worried.  But it turned out to be a good thing, because he went to bed early, slept all the way until 6am like usual, and woke up on party day a very happy boy!  He hung out and played while we did all the prep for the party.  We set everything up, made little sandwiches, and tidied up.  He went down for his nap a little earlier, around 9:30, and slept for over an hour!  The longest nap he's taken in weeks.  He woke up exactly 15 minutes before the party started.  Just enough time to change him into his adorable "birthday boy" shirt.

During the party, he was all smiles.  He let anyone and everyone pick him up and gave each person big smiles too!  He also smiled for every picture.  When he wasn't being held, he crawled around the house and the yard.  He showed off his new skill of walking with his walker toy.  And he crawled after Aaron's adorable new puppy, Jenna.  The two of them together was just about the cutest thing I've ever seen. He didn't eat much, which gave him plenty of room for cake ;-)

When it was time for the big cake smash, we moved Elijah's high chair out to the backyard.  We put a big "1" candle in a carrot cupcake, and then I realized how perilous it is to stick a flame in front of a one year old.  How did I not think of that ahead of time?  Well, I just kind of held it a little out of his reach and told everyone to sing quickly.  Then I blew it out just before Elijah reached his hand out to grab the flame.  Thank goodness the wick didn't burn him.  He started by sticking his pointer finger in the frosting and licking it off.  Then he went for it.  He ate the entire cupcake.  He just loved it.  And we loved watching!  He didn't make an enormous mess either, but did get green frosting all over his face.  It was great.  Everyone loved watching him devour the cupcake and there was minimal clean up since we did it in the backyard.  After the cupcake, we opened presents.  Elijah helped a little bit, but he was more interested in crawling around and playing with some of his new toys.  He got so many thoughtful gifts.  We really are so lucky to have all these friends who genuinely care about our son.  There were 15-20 people there.  Just enough for our little house not to feel too crowded.  His little friend from church, Carolyne, was the only other child.  He went down for his nap easily and slept over an hour again.  We cleaned up while he was sleeping, and then were completely exhausted right when he woke up refreshed and energized.  Lucky for us, he was happy to crawl around and play independently while we relaxed on the couch and recouped our energy.  He was just the perfect birthday boy all around.  I will have incredible memories from his party for the rest of my life.  What a special occasion.