Category Archives: Elisha

About the boy

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Sick sick sick

Thank God for ibuprofen (even if the kid’s not taking it willingly anymore) and “Snarkers.”

Melody at least is big enough to blow her own nose, but E ceratinly isn’t. With a plugged nose and (just last night) a temp of 103-degrees he is one wiped patoodie.

Both girls have the cough and runny nose, but because of his age (the doctor said) it’s just grabbed Elisha a little harder and longer. He spent most of the weekend attached to Jay’s chest so it was very hard for him to watch Daddy leave for work Monday morning.

One blessing (?) is that the fever seems to confine itself to the nights. I used to think this was because the kid was covered in blankets, but last night he was wearing the same warm snuggle-suit he’d had all day without fever and his temp really popped up– second night in a row.

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Making Muffins (and a prelude)

Today when I came out to grab Elisha for his turn after putting the girls to nap, this is what I saw:

jam1.jpg jam2.jpgjam3.jpgThere’s even jam up his nose in that last picture! (I think cameras are a good to for delaying reflexive anger.)

So I cleaned him up and worked in the kitchen for a while during nap. Never did find the lid to that jar though. Makes me glad I don’t live in a region where that could be hugely unsanitary.

Natasha was the first to wake up, so we had a great mother-daughter time making “Hide and Seek Muffins” from this book. Natasha loves it– it’s designed for preschoolers (with picture directions) with food that’s not “traditional” preschool fare.

(If anybody’s interested, it would make a great Christmas present… and it looks like there’s a sequel too.)

The book is designed to make the adult the child’s helper, instead of the other way around.

pouring.jpg Natasha got to stir the dry ingredients, measure and pour the milk.

She broke all the eggs:

egg1.jpg egg2.jpg egg3.jpg

and stirred the batter (I helped by holding the bowl still and showing her how to hunt for the flour “hiding” by the bowl’s walls), and then she filled the muffin papers– all by herself.

filling.jpg

Part way through the filling the other kids woke up, so everyone enjoyed the fruits of Natasha’s labor.

the-fun-part.jpg

We had muffins with our dinner.

They’re called hide and seek muffins because of the last step. Melody was awake by then, so I was guiding two kids instead of taking pictures.

They rolled the raspberries they picked yesterday in sugar, then poked them into the middle of each muffin.

The berries hid when the muffins cooked, and were found again when eaten.

Fun idea, good muffins, and the interaction was priceless!

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Elisha’s First Fishing Trip

On Friday Morning Mom and Dad picked up the kids and me in the truck and we all drove to the lake for a day of fishing.

Elisha was itty-bitty the last time we went, so it was the first boat trip he didn’t sleep through.

gettin in jacket

He got to wear his infant life jacket, play with worms, and find his sea legs.

E & Worm

Things got a little more complicated when he got tired. We both had to take off our life-jackets in order for him to nurse. He streched out that moment as long as he could.

Snuggling

“Oh Grandma, you’re not going to make a kid this cute get back in that nasty jacket, are you?”

Yup.

W/ Papa

But he recovered, and spent some time figuring out what Papa was doing.

Melody

Everyone was tired and snuggly by the trip home.

I didn’t realize till I went back through the pictures: I got none of Natasha.

But this shouldn’t be my last picture post, so I’ll make up for it somewhere.

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Training some more

Shadow started retrieving this afternoon.

She progressed from simply chasing a ball (which she wasn’t doing three days ago) to picking it up, to carrying it around, and eventually to bringing it back near me (to me is a little more precise than she’s yet mastered).

Have I mentioned Elisha can throw now? About a foot. It’s adorable. It makes him feel very grown-up, especially when he’s playing with Daddy.

We were playing in the front yard and Shadow came and lay between us. She kept leaning over to pick up the ball after he threw it, and he’d crawl to her (I swear he was exasperated with her: That’s not for you.) and take it out of her mouth.

I was right there the whole time and was impressed with them both, his fearlessness (purposeful but not mean) and her compliance.

At one point I threw a ball across the yard and Shadow just stayed panting in the shade. Elisha looked from me, to the dog, to the ball and booked over to get the ball himself. He was almost there when Shadow seemed to realize he was serious and trotted off after him.

He sat up and looked at her when she came even with him, then turned his back and collected the ball he was after. Shadow went over and picked up a different ball nearby.

In all this Shadow has never tried to challenge Elisha’s “authority” and is gaining great points of confidence from me.

She’s also seeming like more fun as she’s becoming interactive and available more more than snuggles or belly rubs.

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Happy Birthday Elisha!

Well, Elisha turned 1 Monday.

We had a little party for him– my parents and a couple friends over for dinner.

Afterwards we stripped Elisha down to his diaper and gave him his bowl of cake and ice cream. He had his first spoon, too, and knew exacly how to use it (he was surprisingly dexterous) breaking off bite-sized pieces.

The only problem was that he couldn’t get or keep them on his spoon long enough to bring it to his mouth.

He had his first cup of cow’s milk, too, but didn’t think much of that. He made a face and pushed the cup away.

~

The next day I noticed he’s made another milestone: he’s figured out how to tip up a cup and his head so he can drink from a cup that’s not full.

He is also climbing up the steps against our bed and the kitchen counter. He’s very good at it, and will stand up there grinning like one of the big kids, but he still doesn’t know how to get down, and doesn’t watch where he’s stepping, so he will step right off the side sometimes.

Elisha still rides well in the Ergo (always on my back now) but as soon as Dad comes in the door at the end of the day: Nothing else will do.

And if Dad walks by without picking him up– all the world falls apart.

It is very freeing for me to watch Elisha develop an attachment to Jay. It make me feel less-essential in a very good way.

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Three Steps Forward, One Step Back

Last night Elisha was down in 15-minutes.

The two nights before were only 35-minutes each, and two night-wakings (one each night– I was anoyed and convinced– because of whiny sisters).

Truly, he ate heartily both times, so it was probably needful.

He still hasn’t been eating many solids, and was actually getting a nursing blister for the first time since he was brand-new.

Down in 15-minutes last night. Utterly exhausted.

Then up at 3, and 5, and 6:30, and from there sleeping and waking on Daddy’s chest in the living room. (“You still holding me? Okay, life is good.” Zzzzz)

Elisha’s pushing his front teeth through swollen gums today. The meds wore off about 3 a.m. (I’m guessing) and we just weren’t able to get back on top of the pain.

He’s been comfort-nursing today more than he has in a while, and I really can’t blame him. Really, I’m glad to have something to offer him.

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General Update

We are (Lord willing!) coming out of a black hole of sleeplessness.

Natasha was having frequent night terrors, Elisha would wake 4-6 times in the night, and Melody would take forever just to get to sleep.

Melody still takes the longest of anybody to pass-out, but she’s generally quiet about it, and now that I’ve quit trying to shift the kids’ schedule earlier, Natasha’s been napping again and the terrors seem to be past.

For a week or two, I was attempting to nap the girls from Noon-2, hoping the earlier nap would help them sleep earlier at night. The mixed results (they would go down earlier, but wake more in the night) have since made it not worth the effort. The rhythm we fall into naturally seems to work much more peacefully.

~ ~ ~

In other news, Melody has become the resident singer. She will join in whenever I start singing, and keeps singing even when she doesn’t know the words. ;o)

Natasha is more disinterested now, in general, but has learned all the words to “Papa’s Song” (the first verse of The Star Spangled Banner). She’d be interested in learning more verses if I knew them, but since we returned the picture book to the library before I memorized all the lines, I don’t have whole verses to offer her.

Elisha signs and says “All done,” now, and sometimes tries to use it when I’m changing his diaper. He loves to clap when we’re singing, and sometimes tries to sing along too.

He crawls everywhere, “cruises” along whatever furniture he can grab, and will stand independently for a brief time (he pulls himself up than lets go, grinning ear to ear before he plops back to his bottom).

We’ve tried to get him to walk with the toy hippo Gma H gave Melody when she was learning to walk, but I think the wheels are still a bit too fast for him. He ends up leaning forward until he’s walking on his knees.

Everybody is glorying in the warming weather, asking frequently to go outside (the girls) and dashing cat-like onto the front porch (Elisha) whenever the door is left open.

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Stablizing

Jay got home Tuesday from his 3-day snow-machining trip.

We did okay here, but I’m really glad my sister was in-town for the weekend. She helped with bedtime Saturday night then came back and helped with baths Sunday morning. She also joined mom in helping shine the house before Jay got home Monday night.

The tough parts were Elisha giving up solids (he hasn’t finished a jar since Friday, and he was going through 2-3 a day), and waking up a gobzillion times every night. It was hard on the girls too, culminating in night waking for Melody, and a long cry before nap for Natasha.

Jay stayed home Tuesday and Wednesday, so I was able to catch-up on some sleep and started in hard on “teaching” Elisha how to go to sleep in his own room Tuesday night.

This generally involves laying the child down over and over again and listening to a tired baby cry no matter where he is (in the crib, the rocking chair, etc.) because he expects to nurse to sleep, even though he’s not hungry.

We had about an hour and a half of him fighting sleep, and another half-hour of his giving-up before I was down about Midnight.

Four wakings that night, the last I was able to pat him back to sleep without taking him out of bed.

Last night we had about a third of that fight, much less vigorous, and three night-wakings, again, with one where I was able to rub his back to settle him again.

The marked improvement is very encouraging, and quite motivating to continue the exercise.

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Fine-tuning our Sleep-plan

We are *so* not buying brand-name Children’s Motrin again. The generic tastes so much better.

I’m looking today, and if we don’t have any generic in the house we’re going shopping this morning. Elisha’s learning to resist medicine, and that wasn’t the case before. This stuff is nasty, and I hope we can train him back to accepting the good stuff w/o a struggle.

*sigh*

In other news, he slept six-hours together withe the Ib/disposable plan from last night.

Bad news is he only slept 6-hours. He woke at five and hasn’t stayed down yet.

Note to self:

  • Change his diaper anyway
  • Give him medicine anyway
    • So what if it isn’t pain? You don’t know that it isn’t; he’s not going to OD. And if it is pain, do you really want to stay up the extra hour to find out?
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Well, he’s sleeping *longer*…

Elisha was up three times in the night (I can’t remember what his top-wakings number was– that phase was an understandable haze).

But thankfully we seem to be at the next phase of sleep teaching.

(The first, if I forgot to mention, at its worst had him up nearly every 45-minutes. That was doubled maybe once or twice per night, and never in the day).

I did a slog of training to get him used to his bed. We didn’t do cry-it-out with him because it’s become apparent he has Melody’s temperament in this. Natasha at this stage was a breeze: 5-7 minute of sleepy (or occasionally 9-minutes, or loud) crying, she was out comfortably, breathing quietly.

Not so with the younger two. Stories for another day.

I’ve also bought a variety of types of baby food (under the tsk tsking of some church moms who pointed out the expense). These I open one or two at a time and see how much I can shovel in before he gets completely distracted by his sisters’ popping over to entertain him.

The full tummy I think is helping him get more of his calories in the day so he doesn’t need to cry for them at night. Having a variety of foods keeps him engaged longer.

Telling the girls to leave him alone seems to be like telling them to sit-still or keep their volume down.

Their brains only remember for so long– and I haven’t wanted to make it a (physical) discipline issue yet, because the reason they come back is they adore him, and they don’t want to be away from his delighted smile.

That’s hard to get strict about.

Anyway, he’s above/around ~ 3 hours at a go, which (thankfully) allows me a few sleep cycles as well. I have been functioning perceptively better in the last few days.

But I am still thankful for the lunch-hours Jay comes home and gives me a short nap in the middle of the day. Does so much to strengthen me for the afternoon and dinner-time. (Nap-time doesn’t match on a daily basis right now).

Anyway, best I could tell, one of the wakings last night was because his pain med ran out (there are either two or four teeth trying to push through. I’m not sure), and one was because he was soaked (he hates being wet in a way the girls never have).

We might try going to disposables at night and see if that make a difference, and do ibuprofen instead of Tylenol– since it lasts longer. (I usually do Ib anyway, only I couldn’t find the open bottle last night).

I like having specific ideas to work with. Having something specific to change gives me hope for improvement.

I also like being less tired and having a more-positive approach beyond simply surviving.