Saturday, January 30, 2010

7 Month Update

I have a lot to update on our little man! He is growing up way too fast.

A week before we went home for Christmas (around Dec. 12, about 5.5 months old) he started sitting up on his own. At first he would fall over pretty easily, but he is a pro now!

Around the same time, Eli also came down with his first ear infection. That one seemed to go away after round one of antibiotics. The last weekend we were home, he came down with the same symptoms, we had him looked at by our family physician and he didn't have an ear infection but his throat was red - round 2 of antibiotics. Then about a week after getting home, he came down with ear infection #2! This led to antibiotics round #3. This finally cleared it up and, knock on wood, he hasn't had another one yet. A few weeks later he did however come down with a short-lived viral infection with the only symptom of a fever up to 104 F! Luckily it only lasted a few days and he never had any other problems, but that was pretty scary!

At his 6 month appointment (which was more like 6.5 months) he weighed 17 lbs 9 oz, and was 28.5 inches long. Such a big boy! He is still tall and skinny for his age.

When Eli had his second ear infection, the pediatrician (not the one he usually sees) wanted to try him on normal formula, to see if his allergy/sensitivity has gone away. We first tried regular formula made with cows milk and that made him have diarrhea and bad eczema. Then we tried a soy formula, his eczema stayed as bad but then he was super constipated. Poor little man! So when we saw our normal pediatrician 2 weeks later, she put us back on his special formula. So while it stinks that he still has problems with dairy and soy, it is nice that we can still get our health insurance pay for it! He is back on his special formula now and doing well.

About 2 weeks ago, his first tooth finally broke through the skin (front bottom), and a few days ago the second broke though (also front bottom)! It appears though that he has really slow moving teeth because his teeth are still just barely above the gum line, who knows when they will finally be fully in.

We finally got Eli into the base daycare a week ago! While we are very sad to leave our first daycare (Kindercare on Gold Links), the new daycare is really nice and saves us $50 a week! Eli seems to really like it, although I think he likes it too much because all he wants to do is play, he won't take good naps or even hardly eat during the day. Hopefully this will change once he gets used to it! Unfortunately since he doesn't eat enough during the day, he has been requiring more food at night, including a bottle either around 10 pm or 3 am, then he wakes up hungry around 4:30 am. We have had success lately getting him to sleep until 6 or so if we feed him around 10 pm then give him a binky and turn on his mobile when he wakes up at 4:30 am. But that is getting old, especially since he used to sleep 12 hours straight!

Eli is on the verge of crawling! About 1-2 weeks ago he started getting up on his hands and knees a little, and now he will get up like that and rock back and forth and try to figure out how to reach a toy, but for now he just plops back down on his tummy. I think he will be crawling by the end of February! We are so in for it. He also loves standing up, he will lock his little body straight so he can't even sit down. If he is sitting, he will grab onto my fingers and stand himself up. And we have started standing him up at his play table and he can stand there leaning on it by himself for a while, so strong! He doesn't seem interested in walking yet, but I think one he starts crawling, it won't be long before he is pulling himself up to a stand.

Eli has started doing this little "dance" sometimes, it is too cute. He will move his head left to right and sometimes move his body the opposite direction. We can't really figure out why he does this, but he seems to be having fun!

He also seems to be getting closer to talking. He loves to make noises and he makes lots of different talking-type sounds all the time. His most common sound though is a "huh" sound he makes if he wants our attention or if he just is trying to tell us something.

We started Eli on solid food around Christmas time, but he really doesn't like it very much! Especially food on a spoon, he will eat it some at daycare but he will hardly eat anything I try to feed him on a spoon. He does though love the Gerber puffs (and Target brand puffs) and the baby rice cakes called Baby Mum Mum, he seems to like feeding himself. So I think I'm going to try giving him more foods that he can pick up and feed himself. This morning I gave him pieces of mushed up avocado and he seemed to like it! So I think that is going to be my plan, giving him really soft small pieces of mushed up real food until I know he can chew then give more solid pieces as tolerated. Hopefully that will work, he needs some food!

I'm sure there is more to update but I can't think of it now, if I do I will post it!

Saturday, January 16, 2010

Christmas 2009

Ok so I know this is waaaaaay overdue but I have been really busy! So here are our Christmas vacation pictures with some brief words about the trip.
Of course, the day before we are flying home, one of the worst snow storms in decades hits the East Coast! In this picture we are sitting in the Tucson airport, having no idea when we would actually make it to VA. When we left our house for the airport, our 2nd flight from Chicago to Richmond was still on, but by the time we got to the airport it had been cancelled. Luckily, we were able to still fly into Chicago that day, spend the night there, then catch an 8 am flight into Richmond the next morning. Honestly, that night in the Chicago hotel was probably our most relaxing, Eli went right to sleep on the second bed (surrounded by lots of pillows!) and we watched tv and had pizza and beer. We made it in to Richmond fine the next morning, but the roads were so bad that ti took us longer to get to Grottoes than it took us to fly from Chicago to Richmond!
Eli sporting his warm winter hat. I was very paranoid that he would freeze, but he did well!


In his warm fleece set that Aunt Laura bought for him, this was plenty warm!


In the car seat. His eyes are still bright blue!



Eating with Aunt Laura. She is good at this!


Uncle Bob had fun playing with little man.



Eli and Grandma Edith.


Eli, O'pa and O'ma at my parent's house. My cousin Ley in the background.


Taking a bath at Nanny's house (Jeff's mom). Several nights we drove over to her house after she got off work and had dinner and slept there. I was worried that it would be too much for Eli but he just went along with it!



Chewing on daddy's mail.


At my parent's house.



Cleaning turkeys for Christmas day dinner. Of course we didn't let Eli touch anything but he didn't mind.


Sponaugle family Christmas in my sister's basement. We had a great time! I think this picture is funny because it looks like I have antlers coming out of my head!


We had Eli baptised (apparently they don't call it christening anymore???) Christmas Eve at our home church.





Christmas Eve at Laura's house.











Christmas morning at my parent's house. Eli got lots of toys and books!












Dad loves his new lounge chair!






Jeff likes to cut the turkey because he can snack on it.



Christmas lunch at my parents' house

After Christmas lunch, we went over the Jason and Wendy's house, Jeff's brother and sister in law. I was so wrapped up in that that I didn't take many pictures! But here is one of Waylon with the custom Sesame Street book we gave him (with his picture and name in it), he loved it!
I got to go visit Diana, my good friend since preschool. Here we are at her house with out little men, Eli and Payton. Eli had an ear infection coming on that day so he was not a happy camper!

Eli in his snow suit! He could hardly move!







Eli and granddaddy.



Our last full day at home, we had hog butchering day. We did 6 pigs, that's a lot of meat! But we got to bring home 50 pounds of pork, yum!



One big kettle of lard.




Saturday, January 2, 2010

Christmas Vacation Videos


Eli passed out, of course, about half an hour BEFORE we got on the plane. How can this be comfortable??? Here we are in Tucson, waiting for our flight to Chicago.



Eli with his great grandparents O'ma and O'pa, and Grandma Edith, at my parent's house.



Eli did not like his new hat!



Aunt Laura giving Eli a bath in Nanny's sink. He splashes so much that we have to put towels down everywhere!



Of course we had to take Eli to Jesse's!!! He couldn't try the food, but momma sure could!



Toes are fun!


And toes are yummy! Yes, Laura had just taken a shower.

This was on Christmas Eve, after Eli was baptized at our home church. Jeff read "The Night Before Christmas" to Eli, then we had some fun before bedtime. Grandma Sponaugle started playing a peekaboo game with Eli, he thought it was the best game ever!

We spent Christmas morning at my parents' house with my mom and dad (grandma and granddaddy), Jeff's mom (Nanny), and Laura and Caleb. Here are some videos:

O'ma and O'pa joined us for a Christmas day lunch.

Look at all the toys he got!

We introduced a sippy cup, he seems to really like water! He doesn't really understand it yet though, of course, and often he just likes to chew on the cup. He does really well drinking water straight out of a cup, if we hold it for him.

The day after Christmas, we had our annual pig slaughter at the farm, we did 6 pigs this year! We brought home over 50 pounds of pork! It was cold out though, so I bundled Eli up in the snow suit grandma bought him. He could hardly move, but he was warm!