I Love My Daddy

A couple of months ago I went to a teacher's conference in Columbus. There were several booths set up with teaching materials, and you could enter drawings to win free things. Let me mention that I rarely win anything, but I put my name in several drawings regardless. I received an email a few days later notifying me that I had won an amazon gift card! When I opened up the envelope I was surprised to see that I had won a gift card for $2oo!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Cody and I decided to by a small point and shoot Canon camera with the money.

I was trying out our new camera last night and captured these pictures. As I was looking through them I realized how blessed I am to have such an involved husband! Cody watches Eli every morning until noon. I just have to feed Eli and prepare bottles in the mornings. Then I lay Eli back in his crib. Cody takes care of waking Eli every morning, feeding him, dressing him, packing the diaper bag, and transporting him to the sitters! Eli adores his daddy! The special time they get in the mornings is great! Thank you God for my boys.

Kisses all over:)

Open Up... Here it Comes!

On May 9th, 1 day after his 4 month birthday, Eli had his first taste of cereal. We sat Eli in his high chair for the first time and he just looked soooooooooooooo cute! He looked like such a big boy sitting there! We warmed his cereal and put the spoon to his lips... he opened his mouth wide and in went the rice cereal... and this is the face he made...

I think I made the rice cereal a little too thick, but it also made it harder for Eli to spit back out. Eli tolerated the cereal, but was definitely thrown off a little bit. For the first week, each time I prepared his cereal I played around with the texture until finally I found what seemed to work for Eli. The cereal has to be thick enough so he can't spit it out, but runny enough so I slides down his throat and doesn't stick. He's does great with it now! I don't think he's a big fan of the taste, but he eats it anyway!

Here it comes back up!!

This isn't so bad...

Wait a minute... what do you think you're doing

I'm a big boy in my highchair!

Baby Summary 4 months

I know I said I would try to do this once a month... but who was I kidding?:) I'm hoping that with only 5 more days of work, I will become better at blogging over the summer.

EATING
Eli is still eating great! Infact, we started to introduce cereal on May 9th. We knew he was ready for it because our little guy seemed very interested in food (he watches everything we are eating), he was teething, and he just didn't seem to be satisfied from just nursing anymore. I was hesitant to start because it seemed so early, but I thought we would go ahead and try to see how he would do. We could also take things really slow and watch for any possible food allergies. The first feeding was so much fun! I made the cereal a little think, but he did great! I love his first look when we put the spoon in his mouth:) (You'll see some pictures at open up here it comes). It took Elias about a week to get the hang of it, but he's eating 1 T. of cereal once a day for now!

GAS
Hooray! Eli doesn't seem to have much gas anymore. We even were able to wean him off of his baby Zantac. This could be as a result of age; he's just getting older, or I'm more careful about what I eat now and try not to overload on caffeine and dairy (two of my biggest weaknesses:) We are thankful that we no longer have to give him medicine and that he is digesting things better now.

BURPING
He burps like a pro now! His burps seem to resonate through his whole body!

NAPS
Eli is taking some pretty solid naps now ranging from 1 1/2 - 2 hours each nap. It's so nice because we are able to put Eli on his belly now, and he sleeps so much better! Just yesterday we rediscovered a stuffed animal that my sister Mel had given Eli. It's a lion holding a star and you can pull the star and it will play twinkle twinkle little star. I've found that this calms Eli down almost immediately and allows him to go to sleep with little to no fussing!

WAKETIME
We have waketime down still. It's usually around an hour long now, but I've transitioned from using the clock to using Eli to know when it's time to put him down. When Eli gets tired he starts howling like a hound dog, and his eyelids turn red. It's pretty easy to tell when he's tired now. I found the key to getting him down easy is to get him in his crib before he gets fussy. If he starts getting fussy, then I've waited too long, and he doesn't go down very easy.

MILESTONES Since my last post Eli has rolled over from his tummy to his back. He is also looking like he's getting ready to crawl! He can put his legs up underneath him now, but still hasn't figured out the arms. He desperately grasps the blanket he's on and tries to pull, he gets his legs under him, but he still doesn't go anywhere. He started to eat cereal too! Sleep wise, he seemed to regress. At 2 months he was sleeping through the night and I only would have to get up about 2 times a night to put his binky back in. However, around 3 months he started needing a feeding in the night again. At four months we're settling down again, but he still needs a middle of the night feeding about 1 time a week.

OUR SCHEDULE
5:00am - eat

8:30am - wake up and eat
9:30am - nap
12:00pm - eat
1:00pm - nap
3:00-3:30ish - eat (nurse and eat cereal)
4:15pm - nap
7:00pm -eat (and straight to bed, no waketime)

7:30pm -to bed for the night
10:00pm -eat