He's on the move!

Well, we knew it was only a matter of time, he's had belly time since he was a day old and has been shimmying and rotating for a while now. He even moves sideways if he's on a smooth surface... like a crab. But my little guy is crawling already! I admit it, I let loose a tear when I saw him really moving for the first time, it's really an amazing thing how it's the natural human sense of curiosity that propels our progress. I mean, he just wants to reach and touch (and put in his mouth) everything that he sees and there's only so many things that we bring to him so he decided 'well if I'm gonna get that remote control in my mouth I'd better go over there and get it myself!' I respect his independent spirit, but why does he have to grow up so darn fast?
It doesn't look like he's moving that quick in the video but let me tell ya, we have to watch him constantly now because if I turn away for just a second he's already at the shoerack reaching for daddy's muddy snow boots. Things just got a lot more fun (meaning exhausting for us of course, this kid just won't stay put!).

The Drools of Survival

Yeah I know it's been a while, sorry, I've been busy, so far 2011 is off to a hectic start. Baby Elliot is doing fantastic of course, but mama is struggling to keep her sanity because my job has been demanding lately and my body feels run down and lacking in energy beyond the basics of surviving until the next day. Lets talk Elliot updates. Well as I had predicted he's leveling out a little in terms of growing, he's 19lbs now so he's not growing as fast as he was before but that's ok because he was in the 99th freakin' percentile so now he still looks like an 8 month old at 5 months but maybe he'll stay looking like that more or less for the next few months.

 He's got two teeth now on the bottom and he's eating real food - meaning mushy versions of real food of course - and he's doing much better at the whole swallowing without getting it all over his face thing. And let me tell ya, he loves it! No matter how much he gets it's never enough. And he's really interested in what we are eating too, to the point of getting cranky and reaching out for our plates while sticking his tongue out. At this rate I don't think I'll be nursing him for nearly as long as I had expected. He's just a big growing boy and I gotta listen when he says 'mama, it's been real, but I need some serious hearty food now'. And making baby food is actually pretty easy: steam it, mash it, freeze it. Since we're still doing one food at a time he's only had potatoes, rice cereal, and zucchini for now but he's about to try carrots this week and then maybe we'll start doing some combinations. In a way, I wasn't prepared for this food transition to happen so fast but he wants it and his body needs it so I gotta go with the flow. The more he eats real food though, the less he'll be nursing so my milk production will begin to decrease. On the one hand it'll be great to not have the discomfort of engorgement and the inconvenience of pumping at work but I'll definitely miss the connection and closeness that it brings. My giant baby is all grown up!

He's also really grabby these days, he so wants to touch (and put in his mouth) anything that is within reach. Toys are nice but he wants the remote, the lotion tube, the candy box, your finger, the cat's tail, and the magazines. It's still too early for crawling but he's like a caterpillar, he can shimmy himself and rotate and really get pretty far these days so it's getting to be unadvisable to turn away lest he begins to nibble on the computer plugs and dirty footwear. We're going to get babyproofin' real soon.

Sleepwise, we're still trying to figure him out. He's sleeping through the night but it depends on when you consider the night to be over, he's basically waking up at 5:30-6 every morning. And he really doesn't like sleeping during the day. He'll sleep for an hour at the most but generally loves to fool us by taking very short snoozes. Just when we think 'ah, he's finally asleep' and start to do something that needs doing he'll wake up 10 or 20 minutes later ready for action. He's like the energizer baby!
As far as me, I'm pretty exhausted all the time I ain't gonna lie. I'm doing more and more work at home at night and on weekends, I'm spending as much time with Elliot as I can, doing house chores and shopping, making baby food, NOT doing the physical therapy exercises i'm supposed to be doing, basically i'm a to-do list that never ends. I'm like a robot that goes from one task to another all day long and at the end of the day I power down for a few precious hours of sleep before the cycle begins anew. But I tell myself that this is the way it's supposed to be when you have a baby and i'm just living my life as it is now, it's definitely tiring but i'm balancing a career and a baby and i even manage to see my friends once in a while so that's pretty good.