11 months

Oh where, oh where did month eleven go? I only blogged three times in the past month! I can barely remember what happened yesterday, let alone over the past four or so weeks. But let me give it a try.


Well, to begin, as an update to my last post, today was a bit of a repeat of last Sunday (I'm beginning to think it's a weekend thing...more time with Dad?), but overall, Elias has been doing pretty well on the decreased reflux meds, napping pretty well for most of the past week, with a flukey cycle here and there. And he even had his first taste of processed dairy (as in a teething biscuit that includes milk in its list of ingredients). If he continues to show no signs of allergic reaction, we'll try yogurt sometime this week. And maybe cheese after that.


In other news, Elias continues to pull himself to standing every chance he gets, cruising along and around things and doing pretty well with the "finger walking." He's even stood on his own for a few seconds at a time but still drops to his bottom to crawl the second he really wants to get to something. And he is one fast crawler.

Month eleven has also been a big month for his language reception. He says mama and dada (or ma and da) discriminately pretty consistently now. He also says "buh" for book (the "k" sound seems to be a tricky one) and occasionally will do a somewhat modified version of the sign if I ask if he wants to read books. He knows where to go, either to his bookshelf or to the table next to his rocker, where there is usually a small selection. He also knows the sign for milk and seems to say "ba" at the same time, when I'm warming a bottle for him. Of course, he also says "ba" for ball (and occasionally other random things) so who knows. He definitely understands quite a bit though, looking toward and pointing out the ceiling fans, windows, doors, cats, and his hand, for example, when prompted. As far as body parts go, he can point out my nose or Neal's and is fascinated by our ears (which he'll look at if you say ear or hair - not sure if it's the similarity in sound or the proximity, especially in my case, since I usually have to tuck my hair behind my ear to show off the ear itself) but doesn't seem to know what to make of the question, "Elias, where's your nose?" He knows where his toes and feet are and we're working on his belly, but anything on his face is utter mystery.

Last Sunday being such a trying day prompted me to browse The Wonder Weeks, a book I've mentioned a couple of times before. The book is really fascinating, especially since the "wonder weeks" (sometimes more like month-long periods of fussiness, disrupted sleep, poor appetite, etc.) they describe do seem to match up pretty well to right around when I'm about to pull my hair out. But basically all I do is consult the book to confirm that, as in our latest example, yep, we're right around "wonder week 46: the world of sequences." Their basic premise is that infants go through various periods of development, and that during those "wonder weeks" you can expect them to be extra fussy, clingy, wakeful, defiant, etc. It's reassuring, I guess, although there are so many "wonder weeks" during the first year that really, they should write a book that tells you when to expect the few days of relative calm in between each fussy period.

Anyway, one of the things they write about during this latest "wonder week" is that babies will want to explore "what goes together and what comes next" by putting objects in a container, covering it, removing them, and so on. Sure enough, one of the "games" I like to play with Elias lately is something Neal actually started awhile ago by putting one of his finger puppets, a giraffe named Raffi (clever, huh?), "to bed" in the little compartment on his music table.


If you ask him, "where's Raffi?" he'll usually go to the table to look for him.


Once he's located Raffi he'll usually take him out and put him back again, as you can kind of tell from these pics.





I have some video that shows this little game we play, among other distractions, that I'll post shortly. It gives you a pretty good idea of what my day is like and while being an essentially stay at home mom, though not totally by choice at this point, can be pretty tedious at times, really, I can't complain.