Category Archives: Elisha

About the boy

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Progress

Today has been a pretty active day for Elisha. He’s very good at pulling himself up on things now, and loves to stand tall.

He gets “stuck” though, and doesn’t know how to get back down, and that will make him cry.

When I come to help him down he usually doesn’t want to, and makes it clear he’d rather walk for a while. He was bookin down the hall at one point. Loving every minute of it.

Natasha “helped” him walk this morning too. We got some fun pictures.

He’s also waving “bye-bye” now– by waving his hand and/or arm up and down (he did it tentatively after Aiden was out the door, and purposefully today– though again after the someone (this time his dad–home at lunch to pick-up something) was out the door.

The girls and I loved it. too Cute. I wonder if this means we’ll be seeing more signing

Elisha didn’t sleep a lot more than usual last night, but I was able to soothe him down without nursing after a couple of short wakings, *and* he put himself back out for the first time since I can’t remember when.

I was going to him very quickly when he’d cry (the easiest way to settle him is to reach him before he’s too worked up) and the last time of the night he squalked, but by the time I got from my bed to his crib he was breathing steadily again.

And he didn’t cry out again for about four hours. This is a recent record. I can’t say how refreshed I felt this morning.

I guess it’s all relative…

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So Proud of Myself

If I get around to posting the goals I drew-up last night, you’ll understand better why these were so significant to me. Either way I enjoy going back over my morning and creating a “done” list:
Today (and it’s just naptime) I

  • Did an involved (messy, new) craft with the girls
  • Had an extended reading time

Both while Elisha was still awake. (Both firsts.)
I also

  • directed (and enforced/followed-through) cleaning up after breakfast and each activity as it was finished, resulting in a slightly tidier house at naptime than at waking this morning.
  • had some instrument practice-time
  • helped Melody use the Baby Taylor
  • Took pictures
    • Elisha pulled up to his knees today. Is working at getting his feet under him.
    • The girls working on their art projects
    • Natasha mugging for the camera (These are going to have to be in the next batch we put on-line. They were amazing.) and washing the table.

Now everyone is down and I’ll be able to do a bit of reading before I clean up the front room some more. The bedrooms are still cluttered, but I expect we’ll get them some more after nap.

I figure part of the success is me shifting my whole focus to these things (I think lists are good for me sometimes), and part of it is Elisha reaching some magical age where he (his personality, whatever) clicks into the gears of what’s going on in our family, and he fits the workings. I am very encouraged.

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Taking Medicine

Thank God for yummy medicine!

Elisha’s been teething and is now having pressure in his ears. But he’s taking his “symptom managers” without a blink and they’re doing their jobs (Aw man– has it been 6-hours already???).

He’s so good at it I can give him the “children’s” strength instead of the infants’ drops. He has to take a larger volume* to get his full dose, but since he’s so good at it, it doesn’t matter. This way I only have to have one bottle, and it’s the less-expensive stuff too.

Nice

* Infant drops are the most concentrated formula, since the purpose is to have the smallest most effective dose.

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Mobile Boy

Elisha is definitely crawling now, knee and hand, even on the new floor. Good time to have the floor clear enough to keep clean.

If I haven’t said so already, he has left the baby-look behind and is taking on an alert, cheerful personality that is written all over his maturing features.

He’s also taking solids with gusto. I’m hoping we’ll have the table in by tomorrow, and with it his eating seat. So far we’ve been sitting on the floor together, which only works as long as he isn’t distracted. Thankful for the increased taking of solids though– his night-waking has been just killing me.

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Christmas Ornaments, 2006

Growing up each of us kids received an ornament at Christmas, usually representing something significant that had happened or changed. When each of us left home, Mom gave us our bucket of ornaments for our own tree.

I’ve started a similar collection (at least, so far I’ve managed a representative “first Christmas” ornament for each of them– I say representative because only one actually says “first Christmas”) but I don’t at this point expect to send them with my children when they leave.

Sarah and I, looking at our baby books, asked Mom when we were going to get them. “You don’t,” she said. “I made them for me.”

In the same way, I’ll still put the kids’ initials on each ornament, and have their stories connected to each (which I intend to expand on below). But I think those will be more for dividing them up after I don’t need them anymore.

Christmas Ornaments 2006

Elisha’s first Christmas: Mama bear packing baby bear on her back. This baby we were given an Ergo baby carrier, and have used it a lot. Other than being green, the bear pack looks a lot like ours.

Melody: A black bear sitting at the bottom of a crescent moon. For quite a while now she has had an “eagle eye” for any moon– partial or full– in the sky or a picture or ad, and immediately begins singing her “I see the moon” song.

Natasha: A bear on its tummy reading an open book. Both my girls love books, but this year Natasha began “reading” to her dolls, sister and brother (I got this great series of Natasha “reading” Prince Caspian to a fussy Elisha to settle him down.)

She has also made it abundantly clear she’s ready to learn in earnest. At this point, though, I think I will wait the 3-weeks until her 4th Birthday. Things aren’t likely to slow down much before then (what with Christmas dinner here, the floor being pulled out and a new one in, and Jay heading back to work on the 3rd.)

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Baby Book

I didn’t realize how long it’s been since I did an update on Elisha’s growth.

He’s mobile now, though only in reverse, so Jay and I are again being reminded how much we need to keep the floor clean and clear. We’ve had a few gagging episodes even after we cleaned up, and have found bits of paper his sisters have “shared” or just left lying in reach.

A couple of days ago he started “rocking” on his hands and knees, but it hasn’t resulted in forward motion yet.

The short blue laundry basket has become his playpen. It’s perfect, since he’s still learning to hold himself upright, and if he tips over he doesn’t have far to fall and ends up leaning on an edge.

He is an incredibly cheerful baby and his sisters just have a ball with him. They surprised me yesterday by asking to hold him, like the did when he was new. They talk with him all the time and like to pick up the toys he drops. Nice for me.

He has a fairly regular morning nap and (except for yesterday) has been sleeping during Sunday school for weeks. It’s been a nice combination: a ladies’ class and an empty lap so I can participate easily.

Sometimes he falls asleep in my arms (nursing doesn’t always put him to sleep, rocking/holding sometimes does), and these days he is just the perfect size for two-arm snuggling. I really need to remember to get a picture of it, but it is so sweet and comfortable right now. Such a nice size.

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We’re growing up.

We’ve been wading through the living room for more than a week now, so last night I sat down before bed and made a schedule outlining what would get done today.

I got all the clothes folded, a load of dishes run, the cabinet doors washed and bread made.

The girls each put away their own clothes (Melody and I shared a “carrying” lesson: one hand on top, one on the bottom, watch where you’re going and don’t get side-tracked), they worked together to empty the dishwasher (I’d already put away what they can’t reach), and rag-mopped the kitchen floor with me.

It was a very productive day. All those things needed very much to be done, but since none of those things was clearing a space (living room floor, kitchen counter) it didn’t feel like we’d gotten done as much as we did.

Elisha woke right after they went down, so he/we worked on his sitting up. He wants it *so* bad!

We had dinner with the Weisensels, and it was nice not to cook after working all day. Elisha sat in Thomas’s highchair and just loved it. the sides are high enough that he can pull himself back up to sitting even if he falls over.

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Elisha’s eye

We took him in to his appointment this morning (yes, on a Saturday), and after a great deal of fussing, squirming and enforced immobilization, the eye doctor told us the “deformation” Jay observed a couple months ago was completely benign.

It has a name, and the fellow wrote it down for us, but somewhere between then and now I misplaced it. Along with the appointment card for his follow-up in April.

Found it. The name: Nodular Flocculus. “Prominent pupillary frill” another scrawl seems to be saying.

Dr. wants us to come back for a second look, to make sure it hasn’t changed, then we can wait until the “normal” toddler check-up, “around 3-yrs-old.”

I asked why a child needed to be seen at that age (feeling like this was asking a salesman why I needed his brand), but I really wanted to know. Doc (I honestly don’t remember who we saw– he even had to write on someone else’s business card, said he was out of his own) said the reason is to try and catch a type of one-eyed far-sightedness.

This can sometimes cause an eye to cross, because the brain shuts-off receiving from that eye. The dr. said that if this isn’t caught by about age 6 and a half the brain-induced blindness (it’s not using that eye anymore) is permanent. He said they like to do at least one appointment around age three, in case the eye didn’t cross, so they can catch it. Called it the leading form of preventable blindness.

I can remember seeing younger kids with glasses and an eye patch when I was in high school. Don’t know where I picked it up, but I told the kids I was babysitting that the patch was over the “good” eye (counter-intuitive, I know) to make the crossed eye work harder.

Putting that together with what I picked up today (seems to make sense) it’s all very interesting, and seems a compelling reason to get the kids checked as toddlers. Or, at least, as little kids. I’m beginning to tell the difference.

I signed Natasha up for an eye exam the same day Elisha gets his follow-up. She’ll be four.

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I have such nice kids.

Melody was such a sweet helper last night.

Elisha has begun actually playing with things: Attempting to grasp, hold and gnarl whatever is in reach. During a family movie last night he played with a colorful squishy block quite contentedly—until it fell. Then he became quite distressed.

Melody realized what had happened and (pitching her high young voice even higher) she gave it back to him with comforting words.

This repeated several times. He wasn’t dropping it on purpose (I don’t think he’s old enough yet to know that game), since he was so obviously still learning how to hold. I had a new appreciation for the unflagging attention of toddlers.

Those who complain about short attention-spans in young children are only sharing/aware of half-truths. What they aught to say is that the child does not stay interested long enough in what the adult wants to do.

If allowed to pick their own activity/book/song their attention span for that one activity almost invariably lasts longer than the adult’s. (We have a “sanity rule” that each book can be read a maximum of three-times in a row. We invoke it almost daily.)

At Elisha’s doctor appt Wednesday (he had a skin infection, we got some ointment for it) we waited an *insane* amount of time, and if I’d remembered to count I would have learned the girls’ actual attention-span for a number of songs and rhymes I usually leave behind after 3 or 4 repetitions.

Side note: Elisha weighed in at 15lbs, 0oz, on Wednesday. On Thursday (his scheduled 4-month appt and shots), barely a week before, he was 14lbs, 5 oz. Can we say, Good-Eater! ?