First Steps & No More Bottle

This weekend was one of big changes for little Elliot. In a nutshell, he started taking steps on his own AND gave up the bottle.

Without much coaxing from us, he is getting braver about venturing away from tables and the couch to take a few steps on his own. It's funny to see him work it out in his mind, "Should I just sit down and crawl? No, I'll try to walk." And then he does, usually with a smile on his face that says "Look at me!" Sometimes he loses his balance and falls on his bum, and sometimes he does the Frankenstein walk to wherever he is going. On Sunday he took about 6 steps in a row, by far the most he has taken yet. We cheered for him and he was very proud of himself. Overall though, he is still a crawler.

Also, we decided that we need to get him off the bottle soon so it wouldn't be harder to do later. Drew and I expected a little bit of a fight because he just started taking to the sippy cup last week. But Saturday morning when he woke up, we gave him his cup of milk and he hasn't looked back. He sips it with meals and snacks, and sometimes near bedtime while we read him stories. He hasn't fussed too much at naptime and goes right to sleep at bedtime. Needless to say, we are very happy it was an easy transition. We put about half fortified soymilk and half whole milk in the sippy cup and he seems to like it just fine.

As for his sibling, Dr. Polon confirmed today that we are indeed having a girl, and she has turned from the breech position to head-down. My blood pressure was normal, gestational diabetes test was negative, and I am up to 18 pounds gained. We have about 8 weeks to go until the due date.

Here are some tidbits on Elliot right now:

• He makes noises that sound like words and responses to what we say. It is easy to hear in the tone of his voice that it is the beginnings of language. For instance, when we say "dog" he says "dah," or when we say "keys" he says "dah," or when we say "phone" he says "dah." You get the idea.
• He takes one nap a day from about noon until 2ish. Sometimes it's only 1-1/2 hours. Sometimes it's 3 hours. At night he sleeps from about 7:30p to 7am.
  
• His favorite food is guacamole and he could eat heaps of it in a sitting.
• He is getting pretty good at feeding himself with a toddler spoon or fork.
  
• Mama and Dada bought him some new toys this weekend that are hits: flashcards for learning to name everyday items, and a yellow plastic Tonka-style truck with BIG wheels that spin.
• His favorite Baby Einstein DVD is "Baby MacDonald's Farm" and we can do anything to him while he watches it -- clip his nails, put his hand in plaster for his first-year handprint, or even give him a haircut.
• Puppets are still a sure way to make him laugh.
• He crawls on top of Abby while she sleeps on her bed. She either ignores him or licks his face and makes him laugh.
• Chasing balls around the house has become a favorite game. So has unrolling the toilet paper. In the morning while I am getting ready for the day he likes to take my makeup and hairbrushes out of the bathroom drawers and dump them into the bathtub.

Easter and Preparing for Baby #2

This past week we have been making progress on preparing for a new baby. We hadn't done a thing with the nursery because we are both busy with work and all our free time goes to Elliot. But this past weekend we decided to start getting organized. The nursery was a catch-all room for everything Elliot has outgrown or is still too small for, so I started by boxing up his little clothes. Elliot was happy to "help." (Drew put them in the attic just in case we decide there will be a baby #3 someday and it happens to be a boy.) Elliot then helped me sort through the girl clothes we have already received from Nana, Grandee and cousin Sophia. Our girl already has quite a little wardrobe.

My mom is coming at the end of the month to help with painting the room, and we will make a pilgrimage to the Pottery Barn Outlet in San Marcos to pick up some final touches. The big stuff we already have -- bassinet, baby swing, bouncy seats, bathtub and other newborn items. But we are having to double up on some practical things since Elliot is still a baby himself. We bought another crib and need to put together another changing table. This is when using Fuzzi Bunz pays off as the new baby will use the set Elliot outgrew at about 5 months.

As for the baby herself, I see Dr. Polon next week. I was supposed to see him this week but a family emergency sent him home to South Africa for a few days. Good thing I am not due anytime soon or I would be in a panic. I can't imagine anyone but Dr. P delivering our baby. We are hoping he can tell us if she has turned. As of the last appointment she was still breech. Elliot had turned by now so I'm hoping she will do the same very soon. As of today we have only 67 days until the due date of June 18th.

Meanwhile, the Elliot update...

• His ant bites dried up and are nearly healed. They didn't seem to bother him too much after the initial attack but the sores looked terrible for about a week.
• I guess you can say he is getting closer to walking and did in fact take some steps this past weekend when we tricked him into it. But he is not very interested and prefers to crawl everywhere because it is faster and safer. He has terrific balance though so we don't think it will be more than another month or two. He just needs to gain the courage.
• We are starting to think about weaning him from the bottle. Not ready to do it yet but it is coming. We give it to him before his nap and before bedtime which is what Baby Whisperer said not to do but we did it anyway, and now we have to undo it. The good news is he is starting to take to the sippy cup. And, we are giving him milk now instead of formula. We were doing whole milk for the past two weeks, but he has had seasonal allergies/runny nose since then so this week we are trying fortified soy milk to see if it helps with the allergies. If not, we might go back to whole milk since it has more fat and protein (but less iron).
• He is going to Gymboree class every Tuesday morning and really enjoys it. The teacher is trying to get the kids to be more social and play together. Some kids go for it but Elliot still prefers to do his own thing which usually means chasing after balls or climbing through the tube tents.
• His fascination with wheels continues and he has discovered that all kinds of things have them, including the UPS truck and dad's bike in the garage. He would rather turn his Radio Flyer trike upside down and spin the wheels than ride it.
• For Easter, Drew and I gave him a colorful pinwheel that we put out on the deck and he watches it from the living room windows. We also gave him some sandbox/garden tools that he can take to the park.
• He has figured out exactly which button opens the drive on Dad's new DVD player. It goes like this: Elliot crawls up to the DVD player and his little index finger pushes the button. Dad says, "Elliot! NO TOUCH!" Elliot immediately crawls away with a smile on his face. What a twerp.

Texas Bluebonnets

It was such a beautiful afternoon yesterday that I took our baby boy for a neighborhood stroll in search of bluebonnets before dad came home from work. They are popping up all over Austin and the hill country right now—a sure sign that spring has arrived. In Colorado we call them lupine but here they are called Texas Bluebonnets and are the state flower. Anyway, we found a nice mound of them about 1/2 mile from our house, so I stood Elliot in a bunch of them and prepared to snap some photos. But then he started screaming, and I quickly realized that his left foot and shin were covered in fire ants! For those of you who aren't familiar, they are a Texas nemesis. The tiny ants crawl out of their mound and swarm, then send each other a signal to bite—all at the same time. So, it's virtually impossible to get only a few fire ant bites. I stripped his clothes off so fast and somehow got all the ants off very quickly. He was immediately happy so we found a new spot and took some photos. Today the 30+ bites are little blisters that itch, so I am giving him Benadryl and keeping his leg slathered in Aveeno anti-itch creme. The entire experience left me feeling like mother of the year, let me tell you.

Today at Gymboree the teacher gave some of the kids square platforms with wheels attached to the bottom and pulls so parents could tote their babies around the classroom. Elliot was busy playing with a bucket of balls so did not notice them, but as soon as a baby girl scooted by, he dropped the balls and made a b-line for her. He grabbed the platform and pulled it out from under the girl causing her to kiss the gym mat and cry. Elliot didn't even notice her; he was after her wheels. He promptly turned the platform over and began spinning them. He is obsessed with spinning wheels and genuinely fascinated by things that go round and round.