12.31.06 End of 2006(Mommy)

The first New Year's Eve and New Year's Day is upon our son. He has no clue. Mom and Dad will be staying in with the little guy as we have no babysitter. He will go to bed at 7 as always and Mom and Dad will drink Champagne all night and ring in the new year in a quiet fashion.
Our son is getting more and more personality. He is extremely adept at showing us his feelings using facial expressions. (Nothing like Mom!!!) He has mastered the pout, the look of disgust at a new food, and the looks of general discontent with his parents. Just last night he was vexed with his parents because we told him "No" to eating Dad's phone and he got his little hand smacked for eating anyway. So as we picked him up to take a picture for Granny Barb he absolutely refused to smile for us. Not only that, but he kept his lips pinched closed in an attempt to not talk to us nor smile for us either. We have never seen him do such a weird thing. As soon as Granddad picked him up he started smiling and talking again. What a little personality!
On a sentimental note, my son is going to be a year old soon. This sounds so repulsively cliche, but where did the time go? How is it that it seemed like I would be nursing forever and now it seems like it was just yesterday that I held him for the first time? A year ago my son wasn't even born and now he is sitting in his high chair giving himself his bottle like he has been since he was 6 months old. He used to be this tiny little bundle, and now he is this little "kid" who likeds to be chased down the hallway and who loves to eat mountains of oatmeal. All of a sudden he is talking to us; telling us "Hi Dad!" and "Dookie!" and "cookie!". The old urge to have a baby is coming back. I remember saying I would never do it again, but now I'm feeling more up to it. Everyone says the 2nd one is easier...... if I say much more my husband will puke- he is not ready for number 2 right yet. Nor am I, there is too much going on. But once we are all settled in Portland who knows?

12.29.06 Speakin my lingo! (Mommy)

The little boy is speaking more and more. We are both amazed at all of the words he has compiled, mimicked, and spoken thus far. I have been researching how many words children typically say or mimick and have found that MY son is a genius, a pure genius! Okay, well, maybe not a genius, I mean, he hasn't walked or potty trained himself yet! (But neither would surprise me...!) But anyhoo, I have read that children 15-18 months have said about 10-20 words. The count for Elijah is 15, and those are only the things Andy and I can remember. Now, he probably doesn't know the meaning of many of these utterances as he does "cookie", but we are on the right track!
"Cookie" is definitely Elijah's favorite word. He loves them: loves to look at them, hold them, and, of course, eat them. If we say the "kiki" word, he immediately hears us and repeats it until we either give him a cookie or tell him that "No, there are not any cookies" for him. The latter is often met with a pouty lip and crocodile tears.
Yep, that personality sure is coming out more and more, and mom and dad need to be on their toes! Example: the candy dish. My family had set out a candy dish with the Andres mints with the green wrappers... you know the kind. Elijah was very interested in that dish, but he is not allowed to have chocolate right now and Andy and I had told him "no" to the dish and the whole table it was one. For the most part he listened. And then there was Christmas night. Well, we adults were not minding Elijah very well and I noticed that he was awfully quiet. I looked over to the candy dish and I saw it knocked over with candy spilling all over the table. There was our little boy with one chocolate in his mouth, still in the wrapper. He stood there staring up at us with wide innocent eyes, all the while sucking away at the chocolate within the green foil wrapper. Uncle Dave was able to get some pictures and they were so darling and funny. When I managed to pry the chocolate out of his mouth I saw that he had sucked a hole clear through the foil wrapper! His look of "Oops, they caught me" was enough to convince us that he knew he was doing some thing that he shouldn't. He is getting sneakier and sneakier! We are going to have to watch him every second!

12.22.06 (Daddy)

Vacation time. YES!! I've been trying to think about what I'd like to write. It isn't that there isn't anything to write about, it is just about having the drive to sit down and focus again for 20 minutes or so. I've been focused on many many things for months and focusing on this blog has felt hard for some reason. Mom keeps saying "When are you going to blog"? I keep looking at her and saying "soon, soon". As I look back on December, it has only been 10 days since I last wrote. Seems like a lot longer than that.
I made the comment to Rebecca yesterday (or the day before, I'm not 100% sure) that Elijah now seems to be here full time. Elijah's personal presence has come and gone less and less as he's gotten older and older. He started with very brief moments of clarity, if anything at all. He would look at you for a moment when he was a month old and then he would fade away again. Every month he's been more and more present, as if his soul was slowly settling into his body, making the occasional trip back to "somewhere" to check on something. It would come back again hours later. Now, however, 'Lijah seems to be here 99% of the time. He is either playing, talking to us, looking around, exploring his basket, babbling to himself, eating, pooping, or worried that he won't get fed. The only time he isn't present is when he's sleeping, which is what happens to adults too.
So, yes, Elijah is a present little boy now. He loves playing with everything, even the things he knows he isn't supposed to play with. ie: his socks. I wandered into his room this morning and he had both of his socks off. One of them was dry, lying in on the floor. The other was buried deep inside his cheeks, sopping wet. ELIJAH, WHY ARE YOU EATING YOUR SOCKS?? Maybe you can answer that question one of these days, because I have no answer for myself. He loves playing with greeting cards, especially cards belonging to someone else. And yes, I have now given him the opportunity to play with Daddy's computer. He loves it, and actually seems to be learning that he doesn't have to BANG on the keys in order to get the program to respond. Instead of banging he'll occasionally tap his fingers like he's impatient, and the squares, circles, letters, numbers, sounds and pictures will appear. This morning he actually hit the P key 4 times in a row. He doesn't know what he is pressing/banging on, but he knows it is extremely cool because he can pretend to be Daddy. Speaking of which, I do believe Elijah was mimicking me yesterday. He has this tiny little cardboard square cracker (it actually looks like a cracker). 'Lijah grabbed this cracker yesterday, held it in his left hand, put it up to his left ear and babbled "blabblbblblblblblbbbgogogbblaaaaa". I was sitting across from him the whole time, and experienced the whole thing. I immediately thought to myself, "are you pretending to be on the phone like Dad"? It was pretty clear that was what he was doing, but it caught be a little off guard. He loves my cell phone and will just go crazy when he sees me with it, and has a very hard time leaving it alone when it sits in front of him. I'm sure 'Lijah has been pretending other things, but, to me, this was the first obvious case.

How has 'Lijah been with the Christmas tree? He's fine. He has actually ignored it for the most part. He'll crawl past it and reach out for the ornaments, but he doesn't go over to it, or try to grab the branches to stand up, he just plays in his basket, or on the couch with Mom and Dad. So, he's clearly too young to care a rats tookus about the Christmas tree. The paper on the boxes, however, that is another story.

12.17.06 (Mommy)

It's Jersey time!!! The Harrisons are on vacation! Not without a few minor bumps on the proverbial road, though. Like the SEVEN hour flight. (normally 5 hours, but had to stop in Pittsburg to take on passengers) Or the fact that on the last leg of the flight some evangelical "Christian"-type person decided that he HAD to sit by the window for that LONG hour flight so the flight attendant made us give up 'Lijah's seat. And then of course, because he didn't have the room he usually does, our son decided to be fussy and a general butthead the rest of the way there. There were a number of very nice college students behind us who liked to play with Elijah, but whenever we would sit Elijah down he would get mad. Along with that, after trying to tell me about the prophet Elijah and quetsioning me if "I knew about him", our evangelical guy had to go to the bathroom, a number of times, causing us to have to move our whole tribe. He was also one of those that liked to carry on long and loud conversations on his cell phone while we were delayed on the runway for 20 minutes. Between him and my fussy son who cried loudly whenever we didn't let him do what he wanted and my husband who was hungry and feeling sick, I was in hell.
Things took a turn for the better for me and 'Lijah once we got to Granny Barb's and Grandad Tom's where there was beef and lots of food waiting us. Andy, however was feeling icky and was shivering so hard he made the table shake. I have never seen my husband shiver. Heck, I have never seen him get cold.
Luckily after a much needed dose of astragalus (chinese herb) and a good night's sleep, Andy is feeling a bit better. Not all the way better, but good enough. I think that once he rests up and starts relaxing he will start feeling way better.
Now, on to our kid, who is mimicking and talking up a storm. Here are some of the words Elijah has said: kitty, Odo, mama, dada, yay, card, keys, dookie, hi dad, glasses.
This list is not without caveats, however. To 'Lijah, everyone is "dada" and every animal is a "kitty". He will only say "mama" when he wants me and is crying. Usually he uses the "mama" word to elicit sympathy for some imagined catastrophe. "Dookie" is something that he uses to be funny and when he is feeling happy-go-lucky. Great. Just great. My kid talks about poop when he is happy. I blame his dad, I really do. Just the other day I was playing with my son and in the midst of our laughter he pointed at me a said "dookie"! This is something he and his dad do together when they play. They point at each other and say "dooookkkkkiiiiiiee"! Boys are so weird.

12.12.06 Feeling Superior (Mommy)

Sometimes you feel like patting yourself on the back. This is my pat. Andy and I are sitting here on the couch watching SuperNanny. Watching messed up families makes me feel very good about our parenting. Now, I know we are not the perfect parents, but I am seeing some positives here already. First off, we have worked so hard so get our son on a routine and I think that so far we are successful. This is a child who, at 7:00 pm, starts yawning and goes down to bed without a fuss. He eats just about anything, and he listens when we tell him "no". Top that off with the fact that he is happy happy happy 90% of the time.
I am so happy about the choices we have made for our son. They have not been easy, in fact, we have questioned some of them because of the inconvenience. I'm happy that we chose to use cloth diapers, despite the raised eyebrows from people. We have more laundry, but we know we are saving money and doing something better for the environment. I'm happy that we chose to make our own baby food. Yes, it is more work, but we love knowing that our son is getting wholesome foods and that we are saving money. And, as hard as it has been, I am so glad I chose to stick it out with giving my son as much breastmilk as I could. I find myself wishing I had stuck it out longer. I did not enjoy it, (in fact, I hated it) it was hard as hell to do, but I'm so glad I gave him that gift. I just could not look myself in the mirror if I hadn't done the best I could with that. There were many times (pumping at school, breastfeeding for 2-3 hours straight, having bleeding where you should never have bleeding) when I wanted to quit, but just felt so selfish doing so. 6 extra months of my body not being my own or feeling "adult" was worth it knowing my son got all that I could give him. Hearing other parents' choices make me realize that breastfeeding really was the best choice and that in this day and age, that it really was a gift. I think that next time, even though I had a hard time with it, I will want to breastfeed longer. I could have quit, I could have given up when it got rough, I could have refused to nurse from the get go for selfish reasons, but I didn't. I saw it through and I am proud of me!
And yes, there will be a next time. When, I don't know.
I know its probably obnoxious, but I feel like I'm a good mom for all the choices Andy and I have made. I considered not blogging about this, but I want to be as honest as I can, and I'm sure there are times when people, as parents, say to themselves "Damn, I'm good!". This is me saying that.
Yippee.

12.12.06 Open, Closed, Open, Closed (Daddy)

I'm supposed to be working, but I'm laughing to myself while watching Elijah. He has found the cupboard he is allowed to play in. Right now he is practicing opening the cupboard and letting it close so it bangs shut. I haven't counted the # of times he has let it bang shut, but it is over 10 times. Ahh, the little things in life, like opening and closing cupboards. He hasn't found the plastic ware inside yet, but he soon will - and then I'll have a mess to clean up. What fun.

I just took a couple photos of the event. He now has items on the floor.

12.10.06 For the love of socks (Mommy)

December is a crazy month. It means parent teacher conferences, report cards, holiday parties, and cookies. It also means that I am exhausted!!! I spent the past week slaving over report cards and scheduling conferences and then cooked a whole ton of food for our staff party. Then at the end of the week Andy had to go out of town so there were more things for me to do as a Mommy. I love every minute of taking care of my son, but it is overwhelming when you have 50 million other things to take care of as well.
But all that is over now so I can just relax the rest of the week as we get ready to go to New Jersey for the holiday!!!
And now to update you on our son.
He is a whopping 24 pounds even and 30.75 inches tall. That is 95th percentile in height and head circumference, and 70-90th percentile in weight. The doctor loved him and told us how healthy he is. He was great the whole time while we listened to another 18 month old child literally scream for about 10-15 minutes over being weighed. Our boy was perfect, as usual. Not a tear, not a whimper, not even an inkling of a fuss. They took some blood and tested his hemoglobin which was within normal range, in case you are wondering. All in all, a good visit, and no shots!
Now, I'm going to delve into something I am pretty happy about, but our conservative readers may feel a bit uncomfortable reading. You know who you are, so if you are a said "conservative" thinking person who might be easily offended do not read the next paragraph.

Now that that's out of the way, we also had an interesting conversation with the doctor about our son's penis. I had noticed that some of the skin around it had fused to the tip which I figure might be an inconvenience down the line, so I told her about it. She calmly fixed it by pulling it off (ow!) and then informed us that it was a common thing that happens when boys wear diapers and that it was made worse by the fact that he is "long". Woohoo! She said he was longer than average! He will be bringin' home all the ladies now! So that was my little victory for the day. Just another thing to brag about.

Moving on... People have been asking us what we and Elijah would like for Christmas. Well, for the mom and dad, we would appreciate gift cards. We will be traveling for the holidays so we need things that we can bring back home, and gift cards fit the bill. Elijah, however, would probably like socks. Yes, you read correctly, socks. Our boy is obsessed with them. Every chance he gets he tries to pull them off his feet, or get them out of the laundry to carry around with him and ultimately eat them. I don't know what the appeal is, but he likes them, so I'm sure he would want socks if he could ask for them! I'm thinking about making him a special pair for him to play with instead of our real ones.... maybe if I have the time.
I will try to update more over the next few weeks as we relax in New Jersey with our boy and give him the best first Christmas a little boy has ever had.

12.05.06 (Mommy)

It's been too long since I have updated. Life is speeding up. We pretty much have acquired a house in PDX. Andy, geek that he is, has made up a little site for it. It is gorgeous! We are very excited. Now to figure out what to do with this house in Vegas as we attempt to get through the next 8-9 months of Vegas. Seems like forever, and yet we all know how fast it can go!
'Lijah is going through a major needy phase, and not in a good way where he would like to cuddle with his mom. No, this is a "can't leave Mommy out of my sight" kind of phase. He will be fine with just Daddy, but as soon as Mommy comes through the door, and passes him by, there are the tears! This is a very frustrating phase. Our son is usually so good natured and happy and independent. Now he wants me constantly. It is hard to deal with, but we are being firm with him. Hopefully it will pay off.