all I want for Christmas

It's been quite a week around here! Elias has been busy sitting, rolling over, and doing various what I'm assuming are pre-crawling maneuvers. For a few days early last week it seemed like he was doing something new every day but since then it's almost as if he doesn't know what to do next. As soon as he's placed on the floor, whether it's in a sitting position or on his back, he immediately rolls to his tummy. Occasionally he's rolled back onto his back, unassisted, and occasionally he'll do other stuff while in that position, such as resting his head on the floor (I know that may not sound like much but resting his cheek against things is new), lifting his butt into the air, and even creeping a bit with some resistance provided by myself or by Neal. But usually he gets cranky after a few minutes in that position. If I roll him back or sit him up, he's back on his tummy within a few seconds. It's like he's got a magnet in his belly, attracting him to the floor.

He's also been busy working on his two lower front teeth! I could feel the sharp edges of the first one - bottom front right - on Thursday morning and then yesterday noticed its partner on the left. Not surprisingly, Elias has kicked his crankiness up a notch over the past few days. It seems like with every developmental milestone you read about how some babies will react with extra fussiness, less sleep, poor eating habits, etc., and how some babies will act like nothing's bothering them. We can pretty much always count on Elias falling on the former part of that spectrum. Not wanting to give him infant Tylenol over and over again we gave Orajel a try and it seems to have done the trick. Anyway, I'm hoping we can blame at least some of Elias's recent sleep issues on teething.

Speaking of which, things haven't changed too much on the sleep front although I guess they have improved ever so slightly since my last few posts, especially with teething taken into consideration. We've been getting Elias to bed a tad later - around 8 each evening - but he seems to wake up less frequently than if we get him to bed around 7:15/7:30. Most nights he wakes up about every four hours and if we're lucky falls back to sleep with just a little bit of rocking and shushing. I'm not sure what's waking him up because he doesn't seem hungry (occasionally I've offered him a bottle and he half-heartedly drinks two or three ounces before beginning to blow bubbles back into the bottle). We're still swaddling him - either fully but lightly or with one or both arms out. It depends on how the day's gone, how cranky he's been, how sleepy he seems and how patient (or impatient) I'm feeling. Either way, he's been working his way up the mattress each night until his head is crammed against the top corner post and he wakes up wailing. I added a breathable bumper to the crib bedding but it doesn't seem to help all that much. One benefit of the bumper, however, since Elias is still in our room (more on that in a later post), is that I can't see him. So I'm still hearing every noise and movement he makes, but I'm not opening my eyes to get a look at him as well, which seems to be helping me sleep a bit better. We're going to work on the swaddle situation and getting this kid into his own room after the holidays. Stay tuned...

Otherwise, we've been getting ready for our first Christmas together. This is the first year we're staying home for the holidays so we decided to get a tree this past weekend while Grandma Joanne was visiting. I dressed Elias up in his festive bunting for the tree selection.


Hmm, how do you carry a baby in a carseat and a Christmas tree into the house?


Checking out the tree with Mom:


Checking out the tree with Dad:


Checking out his reflection in a big, green ornament:


And it just wouldn't be Christmas without a little waiting in line at the post office:


If only everyone else in line were as cheerful.

Anyway, apparently the feel of the tree gives Elias the heebie jeebies. I have a video I'll post shortly. I should probably take advantage of this rare nap to cross a few more things off my holiday to-do list...