Eli is 5 Months

  

Look at the adorable chubbiness.  I have a hard time when people ask me about my little baby at work, because 5 months is not much of a little baby anymore.  Eli is at the wonderful "Gerber Baby" stage as my mom calls it.  The round, chubby, cooing baby that people most associate with the word baby.    

A lot has changed this month for little Eli.  Mom went back to work leaving him in daddy daycare and tomorrow dad goes back to work and Grandma and Grandpa are in charge for the rest of the week.  Along with having to take a bottle regularly he started solids.  We've been making purees of whatever we're eating and he loves it.  Eli is working on sitting.  When he wants something he can get it.  He moves around the room with his arms scooting.

Three Stories

I dressed Eli in his Vikings jersey just so dad could take him to his Packer fans draft party.  Dave didn't notice it right away when he got home, but on the first tee box (I was golfing that night) I got a call asking me what my son was wearing.  I told Dave not to worry a spare outfit was already packed in the diaper bag.  Dave showed up at the draft party and right away everyone gave him a hard time about his son's outfit.  He went to find Eli's spare outfit, but all he found in the diaper bag was a second Vikings jersey!  I don't try and trick Dave often, but this was soo worth it.

Later that night I realized that I had both sets of keys and Dave had none.  So I packed the boys up so I could bring Dave one set of keys.  On the way there Adam starts asking me questions, "where are we going?"
My response, "To see daddy and give him his keys."
Adam,"Where's daddy?"
Me,"At the draft party."
Adam, "Daddy's getting players?"
Me, "Wow Adam, how do you know that?"
Adam, "I'm two years old mommy!"

And yesterday Dave and I were quizing Adam on his nap at daycare.  Basically trying to figure out if he really slept, because he didn't nap for me on Thursday.  So we asked him if he slept at daycare for Emily.
And his response was, "Emmolly petted me."
So I said, "Emily did what?"
"Emmolly petted me."
"I don't understand Adam, what did Emily do?"
"Emmolly rubbed my back."
Oh wow that makes much more sense.  It impresses me that if we don't understand what he's trying to tell us he will rephase his response or use different words.  His speech is so good for how old he is.

Lil Engineer

With both parents being engineers I couldn't resist when I found this shirt last winter at the Gap.

I survived my first days back at work and the boys seem to like daddy daycare.  With the cool fall weather setting in my summer off feels like a distant memory.

Apple Picking

My last day of maternity leave.  I decided that I want to grow my photography skills by doing a weekly photo challenge.  This weeks theme is apples.  Okay, great I 'll take the boys to the orchard on my last day of leave and I'll get some great pictures of Adam picking apples from the tree.  Oh wow could I be more wrong.  I got one out of focus picture of Adam grabbing an apple and that's it.  Eli was crying and Adam found a ladder.  Plus our little family can only eat 7 or 8 apples before they start to go bad.  So we were done before I could really break out the camera.

I did however get to spend some quality time with Eli and my camera while Adam played in the sandbox outside of the orchards restaurant.  And by quality time I mean 60 seconds versus the 5 I got by the apple trees.  Eli was grabbing at his feet and the grass.

So after my lunch date with my boys at the orchard restaurant.  I went  home to take some apple pictures and here they are.  Our freshly picked apples and the boy enjoying one.

Solids

Some one's eating people food.  I was planning on starting solids at 6 months with Eli, because it went so well with Adam.  But then I went to Eli's 4 month check up and instead of the hand out they give us saying delay solids to 6 months it practically screamed go home and give your kid a steak with peanut butter!  Okay maybe it didn't say that, but the old rule of delaying solids and then slowly introducing foods is out.  Now we are to give foods at 4 months and start introducing everything at once including meats.  And peanut butter, eggs and strawberries are just fine, too.

So last week Eli got a tiny bit of Adam's banana with some breast milk during snack time.  Unfortunately Dave was at work and I was busy feeding, so no pictures.  But tonight Eli ate avocados with breast milk and we got it on camera.  Cute what the heck is this face and all.

Tonight was Eli's first ECFE (early childhood and family education) class.  He loved it as I expected.  So today was a big day for Mr. Eli and he went down before 8 PM for the night.  I shouldn't say that- I will get him out of his crib around 10:30 and feed him while he sleeps and then he'll wake up sometime between 2 and 4 AM to eat again and then spend the rest of the night in our bed.  That's our night time routine and even though I feel that he should be able to sleep the night without eating it's not what is happening.

Pirate Park

Seriously- a mini jet ski?

I guess that's just how it goes.  I re-discover the most awesome toddler playground on my last day home with Adam before I go back to work.  This park is perfect for a two year old.  The slides are smaller and lower to the ground.  The ladders and stairs are the perfect size for little legs to get up without needing mommy's help.  And there aren't very many open sides on the second level, so I don't have to hover nearly as close.  As an added bonus there were plenty of shade trees near by for Eli and I to relax under.

We had the park completely to our selves.  I brought sandwiches so we could play until the big brother was tired out.  The park is across the street from the 3M main entrance, so as we were playing I could see work but I tried to push those thoughts out of my head.  After the park we went and had Culvers flavor of the day and did a little shopping.  Tomorrow is really my last day of bonding leave, but Adam is scheduled to go to daycare.  I may just keep him home and do another out of the house adventure?

No Goat Says

Every year my family converges on Madison to spend a weekend with my Aunt and Uncle at their sheep farm.  My cousin Vanessa also lives in Madison with her husband Costa and two girls Bella and Analise.  Analise is weeks younger than Adam, so it's fun to get them together again.  (Although he and Bella got along pretty well too).

We talked a lot about going to see the sheep in the car on the way to Madison.  Adam would tell us that the sheep go "BAAAAAH!" and then we would try and copy him and he would tell us, "No Goat says Mommy, no goat says, Sheep says BAAAAAH."  After spending the weekend with the sheep and a couple of goats I can tell you my little two year old knows what he's talking about.  A sheep says BAAAAAAH and a goat says bahahaha. 

Meet The Deck

We've only been waiting all summer for our contractor to finish our deck, and guess what- it's still not finished.  But it's close enough to done that we are finally enjoying it's presence this weekend.  This morning as a place to sit, enjoy our coffee and morning paper.  And last night it was wine and good conversation in the moonlight.

Big Boy Happiness

Every kind of big truck, service vehicle and large tractor was at the high school parking lot today.  Adam got to pretend to drive in several of them.  And it was totally free with hot dogs, too!

The only way I could get him out of the cab was to show him that another little kid was waiting for their turn. 

Watch Out Brockway

There's another set of little hands that like to pull on Brockway's fur.  But after a while I think she decided one more set of hands giving her attention is a good thing.

I don't know how she could possibly say no to attention from someone so cute.

Not Winning Mother of the Year

I'll just put it out there.  I locked my children in the van.  Yep both sets of keys in the car at the gas station at the start of our trip to Madison.  We had just finished dropping Brockway off with my brother in White Bear Lake and we needed gas.  Dave went in to buy a hot dog for himself and I watched the pump while cleaning the windows.  I decided to also clean the inside of the drivers window and somehow I hit the lock button before shutting the door.  I kept my cool and waited for Dave by convincing myself he must have his keys with him.  As he walked back to the car I noticed his huge key chain sitting on the center console.  And I lost it.  How could I lock my kids in the car?  Eli was recently fed and diapered and so was Adam.  They thought it was hilarious when we looked into the car at them.  Eli smiled and Adam waved.

The White Bear cops show up really fast when you tell them you locked your kids in the car.  But let it be known that a Honda Odyssey is a very, very hard car to break into.  We had two cops trying for over 25 minutes to get our car open, but nothing was working.  We even called a Honda Dealership for pointers and they told us we were doing it right, put a wedge in the door and use a long pole to push the unlock button.  We pushed and pushed, but the doors would not unlock.  Eli started to scream and I could see Adam's little mouth saying, "Hold me, hold me, hold me, hold me!"  I was ready to break our window to get in when thank goodness a tow truck pulled up to the pump next to us.  One of the guys asked if he could give it a try and we said sure.  With in two minutes the doors were open and I was kissing and hugging my little boys. 

So no Mother of the Year Award for me, but thankfully someone was looking out for us.

Eli is 4 Months

Four months and five days and it's September.  I'm not late with Eli's monthly picture- I just wanted to wait until my new lens showed up to do his pictures. 

Big milestones for this month were rolling from his back to his belly and finding his feet.  Eli gave up the swaddle (way too early in my opinion) and he sleeps on his belly.  For the record we put him down on his back and about 3 seconds later the feet go up in the air and he rolls over.  He was evicted from our bedroom and so he's been rooming with his big bro.  I was hoping he would decide to start sleeping through the night, but alas he still needs that middle of the night feeding(s).  I've given up on drinking decaf coffee and a soda in the afternoon keeps me going until Dave gets home from work.

The amount of drool Eli can put out amazes me.  I'm fearful of the impending teeth that are causing his front gums to be white.  I don't think he'll make it to nine months before they make their first appearance like his brother did.  He just started using the baby jumper and he seems to like it. 

As if our life isn't crazy enough

We've been gone for the last three weekends and we're leaving again this weekend.  Plus I'm down to only two weeks of maternity leave left, but you know it sounds like a great time for Adam to be potty trained.  While we were in Wisconsin Adam started keeping his diaper dry all day long.  So we spent a good amount of time running him to the port-a-potties at Shanty Days, but at least I wasn't trying to find a place to do diaper changes.  So now we're going diaper free and wearing undies.  Lots of pee is going in the potty, but so far only a couple of poops. 

Last night after googling "my toddler won't poop in the toilet" I decided two things.  First he doesn't really have any of the issues those websites talked about thank goodness and second I need a new game plan.  So I put the last of the jelly beans in a jar and placed them on the bathroom shelf.  I explained to Adam that they were poop candy.  He would get two candies for putting a number two in the potty.  And that smart little boy did it this morning for me.  I hope that in time he will start to tell us when he has to go potty, but for now I'm just thrilled with the progress he's made.  How are we going to survive on the long car ride to Madison?  I guess we'll just have to figure it out as we go.