Seven Months And Becoming Mobile!

 

Wow!  Elijah is seven months old.  He is just moving right along in life.  He’s such a handsome, happy boy with the bluest eyes that they are often breathtaking, though I may be biased.  He used to be pretty content on his own, but he really loves attention now and is quite social.  The church nursery always complains that he won’t sleep for them because he just wants to interact all the time.  On the other hand, he sleeps great in his boring home…more on that later.

 

Last month I reported that he was sitting up well and rocking back and forth on his hands and knees.  Now he is able to get himself into the sitting position and he moves all around practicing going from back, to tummy, to hands and knees, to sitting and isn’t happy unless he is moving.  He can pretty effectively reach any toy (or the cat – he LOVES the cat) that he wants to.  He started crawling just this week and he is working to perfect that skill.  I’m not quite ready for that much mobility, but Oh well!  I knew when I first felt him move at 14 weeks pregnant that I had an active one.  Then he came out with red hair!  And sure enough he has proven to love being on the move.

While we were eating dinner last night Elijah crawled across the living room and helped himself to the toy cabinet.  It was cute!

Despite having and entire cabinet full of toys, Josiah also has this box of his special small toys.  Elijah raided it during Josiah’s naptime yesterday.  (Those toys in the background are lined up because they are “sleeping too” according to Josiah.)

We have had a slow start on solid food.  In general, he has never been too excited about food, which is interesting considering how robust and active he is.  I’m so used to Josiah’s voracious appetite, that Elijah leaves me worried, but he seems to be doing well.  Now about 6 weeks in he is eating a little better, though he usually does better if I’m not around since he still prefers nursing which I now do after solids just to encourage his interest.  He is also starting to balk at the bottle a bit, but eats enough to get by when he has to.  So far he has experienced rice cereal, oatmeal, sweet potatoes, carrots, squash, green beans, peas, nectarine, apple sauce, prune, and banana.  Next is avocado.  He’s done great with no reactions and his skin has even completely cleared.

This is how he sometimes feels about the high chair.

  Peas anyone?  I have a picture of Josiah with the same facial expression as the one on the right at the same age.  I’ll have to find it and post them together.

He does enjoy his food sometimes!  This was after a big meal of peas, carrots, and apple sauce.  He’s so wiggly when he’s excited that hitting his mouth with the spoon can be a real challenge, hence the food all over his cheeks and nose.

On the health front he’s done great!  Except for his current little head cold that I so generously passed to the entire family.  He’s now off of all reflux meds though you still have to beware of copious spit up that comes with no warning!  It is so nasty now that it contains solids :)  He still has no teeth, but I see them right under his gums.  Who knows how long they’ll take to make their debut.

Here’s one of my two laundry “helpers”.

He is a great little sleeper, except now since he is sick.  He had been sleeping completely through the night all month, so hopefully we’ll return to that soon.  He also generally takes 2 two hour naps and 1 one hour nap.

I don’t know why, but I like these two pictures.  In case you are wondering, that is the baby monitor.  Josiah was sleeping inside.

I mentioned last month that he says “bah bah” and “dah dah”.  This month he has added “mah mah”.  There may be more interspersed in there, but that is all I’ve noted so far.  These syllables are in addition to his ear piercing screams that he likes to let loose just for the fun of hearing himself scream.  It is kind of irritatingly funny when Josiah starts to mimic him and you can’t tell who is doing what without checking it out.

This little man is such an amazing person already.  We love his spirit.  He seems to be just a bit wild and I’m bracing myself to deal with it in a productive positive way in hopes to form it into a strong point for him.  I’m hoping Josiah’s insightful personality that keeps him out of trouble will influence Elijah and that Elijah’s “go get ‘em” personality encourages Josiah to take calculated risks.  I think they could be a great match!

Of course they won’t look at the camera and smile at the same time, but this is their first bath together.  Josiah likes to “wash” Elijah’s belly and Elijah likes to lick the water off his fingers.  Just look at Elijah’s piercing eyes!

 

My heart has certainly been stolen by yet another boy and sometimes I just smile at the thought of my future with my little family.  Elijah has already added such a great little element to our life.  Happy seven months, Elijah!

Josiah’s Big Trip To The Huntin’ Camp

Several of the men that share the hunting camp that Jacob goes to had a work day this weekend, so Jacob loaded up some of his big equipment, some sleeping bags, a stuffed animal, a sippy cup or two and took Josiah to do some man things.  I was leery leading up to this because I had been sick and Josiah started showing signs the day or two before, but Jacob took my baby anyway :)  Apparently he did ok health-wise and had a blast.

The other men were busy cutting down trees and such, but I think this is all Josiah and Papa did the whole time!

  Um, I think my little baby has outgrown this sippy cup.  He’s such a boy now.

Tickles!  This poor boy gets tickled so much.

Notice he has his own version of his Daddy’s truck (seen in the background)?

As the story goes, he was fast asleep about 2 minutes after hitting the road.  He even turned down a snack in favor of sleep.  Jacob said he couldn’t stand to see his head falling over so he stopped and did this :)  He’s such a good Daddy!

It did my heart good to know that despite all the great fun he had, he clung fiercely to me when he got home.  Of course I had to check him over and was relieved to only find minor damage – a knot on his head and scrapes on his chin and chest from a fall from the bobcat (it wasn’t running).  His cough worsened, too, but he’s as happy as can be!  These things will heal but the memories will stay.

Jacob has told me endless stories about Josiah at the hunting camp.  He’s so proud of his boy and he really enjoyed having him there.  He also enjoyed loving all over Elijah when he got home.

Josiah’s First Parade – Mayo Style!

Grandma took Josiah with her to meet up with Uncle Jesse, Aunt Denise, Savannah, Aunt Star, and Nathan at the Mayo Pioneer Day celebrations on Saturday.  It was supposed to rain most of the day and I didn’t feel like dragging Elijah out in it, so we stayed home.  This was the first “first” of Josiah’s I’ve missed and I made mom take pictures (excuse the quality – sorry Mom).

This small town celebration’s main event was a parade followed by festivities in the park.  Apparently Mayo doesn’t do floats in their parade, but there were plenty of tractors, lawn mowers, trucks, people, and horses.  (I had to giggle a little about it when I saw the pictures.)  At any rate, Josiah loves those things and thought it was great!  Even better, they threw candy and beads and that made his day.  They even handed out chocolate milk in the park – another first for him.  Oh, and while it rained at our house the entire time, it didn’t rain a drop on them.

Don’t they look like they are having fun?  When Josiah is mezmerized by new things he is impossible to get to smile, even if he is loving it.  This is how he stayed the whole time.

 

This is my niece, Kiana, playing her sax.  I’ve never heard her, but they say she’s great!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My brother, Jesse, loves his little boy nephews!  I love seeing my brothers dote on my boys.  Josiah loves Jesse and Elijah seems partial to Caleb.

 

 

I know Josiah must have loved the firetruck!

 

 

Not at all a good picture, but you get the point of a mesmerized kid with a mouthful of candy.

 

 

 

Apparently every year they have a couple as guests of honor to represent the pioneers.  I think they call them Granny and Pappy?

 

 

Smokey the bear…a family favorite in honor of Caleb.

 

 

A Mayo style parade…a gigantic cow, beauty queen girls riding on a trailer full of hay bales, a sheet-laden trailer carrying southern bells in hoop skirts, the “outstanding logger of the year,” and tractors and lawn mowers galore.  (While I think it is great, I did crack up a bit!)

   

Followed by celebrations at the park:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mom almost got a picture of Josiah on the slide :)

 

 

The story is that this girl just hopped on with him and he scooted to the far side and froze.  That’s my boy – stay away from those girls!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Later that night we took Josiah to Super Walmart, which was an adventure in itself, to let him shop for and buy a toy of his choice for doing such a good job not sucking his thumb.  He was so excited!  I realized that was his first time toy shopping and he was in heaven!  He made a good choice, then found a HUGE John Deere tractor that was pretty expensive.  We told him he could have that one when he totally stopped sucking his thumb (or for Christmas, whichever comes first – probably Christmas!).  Thankfully he left it behind with no tantrum.  Such a good little guy.  It was, however, the first and third thing out of his mouth this morning… “big tractor, don’t suck thumb.”

There were a couple other firsts happening that day, too.  Elijah got himself into the sitting position on his own for the first time.  Also, Josiah and Elijah got their first bath together now that Elijah is really good at sitting.  Funny thing…Josiah pointed out Elijah’s belly button and laughed.  Elijah looked down and realized he could see his penis (which he LOVES!  Am I allowed to say that word here?) and that just made his day.  I’ll have to get a picture soon.

Here are some random pictures from our first family hot dog roast complete with smores that we had the week before.  Josiah preferred to just eat the chocolate plain.  He loved it and ate one and a half hot dogs!  Poor Elijah just watched.

You would think that Josiah was mimicking Jacob here, but actually Jacob took this stance to be like Josiah.  And yes, Jacob is a fashion mess.

 

And just for fun…One day Josiah kept putting this placemat on the floor and putting these two guys on it, specifically on this side of the mat and in this order.  I’m not sure what was on his mind.  It took me several times of picking the fallen placemat up to realize I was picking it up from the same spot with the same toys each time and that it must be intentional.   Too funny!