It's been a whole month since I've blogged. Elijah is now 11 months old and seems much more a toddler than a baby. The past month has been.... hard. And busy. Every weekend in July was packed full. We spent the first weekend in Estes Park and then the second weekend my dad and brother stayed with us. The third weekend my friend Sarah came to visit and the fourth weekend my brother was back with us waiting to move into his new place. Daniel and I have discovered that if we get lazy, our marriage suffers. We really have to make our relationship a priority or it gets neglected much too easily. The good news is that it's easy to fix and the solution involves spending time with my best friend! On top of all of that, we've had some illness, some sleep disruptions, and some new behavior issues to work through with Elijah.
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| He had a very high fever on this particular evening |
First up: the illness. We found out at the end of June that Elijah needs to get tubes in his ears. He has had one ear infection after another, and his pediatrician finally decided that he needed something more intensive than antibiotics. He has been on so many different antibiotics, and this last one seemed to really upset his stomach. Thank goodness he does well taking medicine! Maybe it's all the practice :-) Unfortunately we weren't able to get into the head and facial surgery department until the end of August. So he has continued to get ear infections. Most of the time he doesn't have any obvious symptoms. But he caught a cold about two weeks ago, and he has been just miserable. He has this horrible cough and it has really disrupted his sleep. We don't want to give him tylenol continuously until he can get tubes in his ears, so we're trying to manage Elijah's discomfort and wait it out. But it seems to be exacerbating his problems with sleep. So....
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| Always sleeps with his monkey and sleep sack |
Next up: sleep disruptions. Since he was 7 months old, Elijah has been on a very consistent and predictable sleep schedule. Bed at 6:30, wake up at 6am, two naps each for 60-90 minutes. He would fall asleep quickly and easily and stay asleep. We have been talking about moving his bedtime back for a long time. There are many reasons we wanted to do that (so we could actually go out and do things that start at 6pm, so he would sleep later than 6am). So we tried to push it back to 7 or 7:30. And it just messed up everything. He would roll around in his crib playing until 7:45 or 8pm! He was still waking up at 6am no matter what time we put him to bed. So he was getting only 10 or 10.5 hours of sleep. This coincided with him getting sick so his naps got shorter and shorter and we ended up with an extremely overtired child who is just discovering his independence. Which brings us to....
Behavior problems. Elijah has started throwing tantrums. Not full-blown toddler tantrums, but pretty close. He screams as loud as he can and his face turns red. When it first started, I just reacted like I always have- trying to meet whatever need. Hand him a toy, pick him up, give him food, whatever. But then I realized that I'm just reinforcing that behavior. I've discussed it with his teachers at school and we're all on the same page. Trying not to react when he screams. Ignore. It's so hard because for the first time it's not just about feeding, clothing, cuddling, and playing. We actually have to parent now. That is scary. For a few weeks I didn't know if it was the illness, the lack of sleep, or just his emerging toddlerhood. Well now that he's feeling better and getting more sleep, I believe it was a combination of all three. It has drastically decreased. When he's well-rested and feeling well, the tantrums are very rare. I am so relieved. I honestly was afraid we were discovering that our child was the "bad kid." The one who is difficult, impulsive, stubborn, and a bully. But I think I probably overreacted a bit.
After this weekend, I am happy to say that his cough is on its way out, we have moved his bedtime back to 6:30 or 7 (depending on how his naps go), and the tantrums have drastically decreased. The sleep is still a work in progress. I am realizing that I should stop being so perfectionistic about it. I mean, he still sleeps all the way through the night and falls asleep on his own without so much as a whine. So I should probably thank my lucky stars. But, I would love it if we could go back to a predictable bedtime with him getting at least 11 hours at night. Bonus points if he could sleep in past 6am! We decided to wait until he's over this illness (and maybe even has his tubes in) and try to push back his bedtime again. I'm also hoping that as winter comes around and it stays darker a little bit later, that might help it happen naturally.
So now for the good things! Elijah's speech development has really taken off in the past month. Around the middle of July we started to recognize him parroting back some things we were saying. It wasn't recognizable by any means, but he would use the same intonation. When we said things like "Bye-bye!" or "all done" or "gentle" it sounded like he was mimicking us back with his babbling. He says "Da-DEE" really well, though he still doesn't say it to
mean anything. I'm so excited for that to happen and I think it's just around the corner. To get a good idea of his speech development, watch
this video. It's one of my favorites! He is cruising fantastically, but still not walking. He walks pretty well when we hold onto both hands. He kind of leans forward the whole time instead of balancing on his own two feet. He can walk for short distances while holding one hand and it's pretty freaking adorable. We try to do that more often because it forces him to balance. He can also crawl up stairs as of last Friday! He has 4 teeth on top, and 2 on bottom. He is still eating like a champ! He LOVES pizza, and pretty much anything else we feed him. He just tried peanut butter for the first time and of course he loved that too. I am so happy that he's a good eater. I know that's likely to change when he hits toddlerhood. He's doing great on formula, though every time he gets sick I feel a little bit guilty. I've started to think about how we're going to wean him off bottles. He is doing so well with solid food that I really think it won't be too difficult. In the last week I've finally noticed that he's really drinking out of a sippy cup. He has water with all his meals, but he won't really drink formula out of it.
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| Duet! |
Elijah has fallen asleep in my arms quite a few times in the last few weeks (thanks to his sleep disruptions) and I've been eating it up. The time that he spends still and in physical contact with me is so fleeting, so I'm sure to take advantage when it does happen. I soak it all in. Some of his favorite things to do now are play ball (he actually catches it and throws it back!), read books (especially with lift-the-flap or touch-and-feel aspects), anything outside, go for walks in the stroller, play with kitchen utensils (especially his beloved ladle), chase the dog and eat his tail, and anything that involves putting items in containers.
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| Reading a "lift-the-flap pop-up" book |
For the past 3 weeks I have gone to visit Elijah on my lunch hour about 3 days a week. I absolutely love it. It makes the day go by so much faster and makes me feel more connected to Elijah, his teachers, and what he's doing at school all day. I was afraid to go and visit before because I thought it might be distressing to him for me to leave without him. But we tried it once and he was just fine. Yesterday and today there were some tears and reaching for me when I dropped him off. It's heart-melting and heart-breaking at the same time. I love that he wants me more than anyone else, but I hate having to leave while he's upset. I think these were just random incidences, but only time will tell.
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Elijah's first haircut! 8.12.13 (We tipped very well)
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One of the nights he fell asleep in my arms. Love it.
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| Just for fun :-) |
We are planning his first birthday party for September first. Daniel's mom is coming out for it, and a bunch of our friends should be coming as well. I'm so excited for Elijah to have cake! It's a Very Hungry Caterpillar theme. I just cannot believe he is almost one year old. I've wanted a baby for so long, and now just like that we're through the baby stage and onto toddlerhood! It's absolutely amazing. He brings me so much incredible joy every single day. I love him more than anything or anyone else in the world. And more and more I realize how lucky we are that he is so healthy. So just a few weeks left in Elijah's first year. It's been an incredible year!
It's been a whole month since I've blogged. Elijah is now 11 months old and seems much more a toddler than a baby. The past month has been.... hard. And busy. Every weekend in July was packed full. We spent the first weekend in Estes Park and then the second weekend my dad and brother stayed with us. The third weekend my friend Sarah came to visit and the fourth weekend my brother was back with us waiting to move into his new place. Daniel and I have discovered that if we get lazy, our marriage suffers. We really have to make our relationship a priority or it gets neglected much too easily. The good news is that it's easy to fix and the solution involves spending time with my best friend! On top of all of that, we've had some illness, some sleep disruptions, and some new behavior issues to work through with Elijah. 
So now for the good things! Elijah's speech development has really taken off in the past month. Around the middle of July we started to recognize him parroting back some things we were saying. It wasn't recognizable by any means, but he would use the same intonation. When we said things like "Bye-bye!" or "all done" or "gentle" it sounded like he was mimicking us back with his babbling. He says "Da-DEE" really well, though he still doesn't say it to mean anything. I'm so excited for that to happen and I think it's just around the corner. To get a good idea of his speech development, watch this video. It's one of my favorites! He is cruising fantastically, but still not walking. He walks pretty well when we hold onto both hands. He kind of leans forward the whole time instead of balancing on his own two feet. He can walk for short distances while holding one hand and it's pretty freaking adorable. We try to do that more often because it forces him to balance. He can also crawl up stairs as of last Friday! He has 4 teeth on top, and 2 on bottom. He is still eating like a champ! He LOVES pizza, and pretty much anything else we feed him. He just tried peanut butter for the first time and of course he loved that too. I am so happy that he's a good eater. I know that's likely to change when he hits toddlerhood. He's doing great on formula, though every time he gets sick I feel a little bit guilty. I've started to think about how we're going to wean him off bottles. He is doing so well with solid food that I really think it won't be too difficult. In the last week I've finally noticed that he's really drinking out of a sippy cup. He has water with all his meals, but he won't really drink formula out of it. 
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