Almost There – 11 Months

Wow!  Just one month shy of a full year.  But this is a leap year, so I get an extra day of Elijah’s babyhood :)  He is such a delight to us and we’ve been so blessed to have him.  This month he signed his first signs, began “talking”, has started free standing more, gained two teeth, and has been SICK.

One word that comes to mind when I think of a description for Elijah, and it is “passionate”.  He feels emotions in extremes, it seems, which reminds me of one of my brothers.  He is loving and enjoys a good cuddle, is very silly and loves to laugh, and he knows what he wants and will throw a tantrum if it is not allowed.  I’m talking throw-himself-on-the-floor-and-scream kind of tantrums.  But, thankfully, most of the time he is just a lover and a laugher.  For example, the other night we were all in Josiah’s bedroom as we were preparing for bed and Elijah was crawling around and he’d just stop and drop to the floor head first and roll around giggling for no apparent reason other than that he was happy and it was fun.  We had fun just watching.  He also gives the greatest hugs.

I randomly found him just sitting and hanging out on this tractor that Gram gave him.  Isn’t he cute?

As far as communication developments go this month, Elijah has started “talking”.  He sounds like he is telling someone how it is while pointing his fingers, sometimes laughing, sometimes serious, but it doesn't make a bit of sense.  It is too funny.  I’m not sure he is saying real words yet, but he does mimic a few when we encourage it.  He also makes a sound, just shy of a word, that obviously means “cat” as well as saying something like “this” while pointing.  Elijah also signed his first signs, “more” and “all done”, though he doesn’t do it readily. 

Physically speaking, Elijah can stand unassisted for longer and longer periods.  He is getting pretty good at walking along with help, too.  In addition, he learned to wave and clap.  Josiah taught him to clap during bath time (me bathing them at the same time by myself – that was a wild, and funny adventure) when he was doing a poor rendition of the “Gator chomp”.  And the other day Josiah was pushing Elijah around on a ride-on car and Elijah just waved the whole time while grinning.  I love these cute boys!

I don’t have any great pictures of them playing together this month, but here’s Josiah being a good big brother, though I think it annoys Elijah a bit since he can eat and drink just fine on his own, thank you!

Look at this smile!  This little boy loves life!

On the health front, Elijah has been sick, sick, sick!  I think in last month’s update we were in the middle of his yucky respiratory illness where we were giving him nebulizer treatments every 6 hours.  Well, we did his last treatment on a Saturday and he came down with pinkeye on Sunday, at church no less.  As that cleared up he caught the GI bug that the rest of us had, complete with vomiting and diarrhea.  Fun, fun.  That hadn’t cleared up yet when a fever set in and a cough started a day after that ended.  The cough is just beginning to subside.  Maybe, just maybe he’ll return to health now, though Josiah started coughing heavily yesterday.  Ugh!  We haven’t had much normalcy around here and zero social life.  At least his ears have stayed clear.

Check out that pinkeye!  It was only in the left eye at first.

He loved his nebulizer treatments!  They helped him breath so he could relax.  He often fell asleep…so cute!

Just a side note about putting ointment in Elijah’s eyes when he had pinkeye.  Once he caught on to what was going on, medicating him became a 2 person job and even then it was difficult.  He is a strong, wiggly little sucker!  Jacob had to straddle his body and hold him down while I kneeled down with his head between my knees and pried his eyes open.  Josiah observed this a few times and sat nearby watching with concern.  At one point he beat me to it and assumed my head holding position and told Elijah over and over that “it’s ok, I have you Elijah, it’s ok…”  I decided it was such a sweet loving gesture that we’d go with it and let Josiah hold him even if it proved to be unsuccessful.  He did well, though.  At one point I had called the pediatrician requesting a drop rather than an ointment telling them that I’ve medicated eyes of countless horses, cows, dogs, cats, rabbits and even a turtle, but I can’t do it to my own son!  They just laughed.

 

Helping Daddy sort laundry!

Elijah is doing so so with food.  Poor guy.  He had a big growth spurt after his 9 month check up (1.5 lb in 1 week) that probably would have put him back up on his growth curve, but he’s not had much of an appetite, so we may have lost that gained ground.  He eats pretty much anything and everything, though avocado and cottage cheese make him gag – literally.  He’s like me in that you have to offer him new foods a couple times before he’s willing to try.  He just looks at it and pushes it around the first few times he sees it.  I’m leery of new foods, too!

Here’s evidence of that growth spurt – all of his pants are high waters now.  Just this month Elijah started liking “Praise Baby” videos.  We don’t have them watch much t.v., but it was helpful on the days he felt his worst and was cranky.

Elijah has 2 new teeth!  His upper lateral incisors came it.  They were SO slow to come in and just hung out below the surface for most of the month complicating all of his illnesses, but they are here now.

Buff boys!

Well, birthday party plans are in process.  Our little guys will be celebrating together next month.  It is hard to believe that they are 1 and 3, but they are truly wonderful boys and we are so proud!  If you didn’t get an invite (via email) to the party and want to come, then please let me know.  I don’t claim to have it all together and I wouldn’t be surprised if I missed people despite my best efforts.  Sorry about that.