My Little Doggie

Eli LOVES Maggie, our golden retriever. We have french doors in our living room that lead out onto the patio where Maggie resides . Every morning Eli and I open up the curtains so he can say "Good morning!" to his favorite doggie in the world. I was scared at first when we brought Eli home that Maggie wouldn't realize how fragile he is and would trample him; she's not a mean dog at all, but she sometimes gets so excited and loves nothing more than to end up in your lap, which wouldn't be good for a little baby. For the first three or four months of his life, Eli never really ventured outside to see Maggie because it was just too cold. We always talked about her to Eli and we kept the curtains pulled back so she could look in on him. It wasn't until recently when the weather warmed up that we started venturing outside with him so he and Maggie could really get acquainted. We quickly found out that Eli LOVES Maggie. He started off just liking her from a distance, but now he'll even let her get close to him without getting scared. It is so much fun to watch him when he sees Maggie at the window. He'll drop whatever he is playing with and crawl as fast as he can grinning from ear to ear to the window to "talk" to Maggie. He'll sit at the window and just watch her smiling, talking, and laughing the entire time. I have a feeling that Eli's going to be an animal lover like his Mama :)

Unfortunately though, even a good thing can go bad...


I think Eli might be hanging around Maggie TOO much. He's starting to pick up some habits from her :) Sue was over at the house watching Eli for me while I worked on the never ending school yearbook and when I got home this is what I found! It appears Eli has watched Maggie one too many times pick up her ball in her mouth and he decided to give it a go. It was so funny to watch him crawling all over the living room with this teething ring in his mouth. He'd drop it, pick it up, put it back in, and start crawling all over again.

Let's just hope he doesn't watch her eat or drink...

Mama's Little Doggie :)

Eli's Chompers

I told you awhile back that Eli was cutting all four top teeth at once (Yeah, you're envious of us right now, aren't you?) I realized the other day that I never took a picture of them, so here are our attempts to get a picture of our son's teeth. As you can see, it was easier said than done. He won't let you anywhere near his mouth these days, because now we're working on teeth #7 and #8 (the next two bottom teeth). Oh, happy happy joy joy! :)

Photographing Eli's Teeth-Take 1

No teeth at all

Photographing Eli's Teeth-Take 2

You can see two teeth. We made progress!

Photographing Eli's Teeth-Take 3

We had to turn him upside down, but here are his top four teeth.
He's going to have a full mouth of chompers before long!
SUCCESS!

Lots of Smiles

We went over to Eli's Zue-Zue's house last night for supper and had a great time visiting with Zue-Zue, Mammy and Uncle Clare, and Uncle Tommy. Eli was in a wonderful mood and shared lots of smiles with everyone. He had everyone's undivided attention, so he was in hog heaven!

If you look closely, you can see the top of one of Eli's bottom teeth. He actually has two now! The second one broke through his gums about a week ago. I knew it was going to happen soon because he had been chewing on EVERYTHING!

You may also notice that Eli is quite fond of that bottom lip.

Josh and I call him a Papaw when he does this :)

First Tooth

No pictures yet, but I wanted to let the blog world know that Eli has his first tooth. I found it last night when I was giving him his bath. My little boy is growing up way too fast! No wonder he's been chewing on anything and everything lately!

Just Keep Chewing

This is what much of Eli's day consists of these days...chewing, chewing, chewing. He must be working on some teeth, but from everything I've read it can take months for just one tooth to come in. I may not have any knuckles left if that's the case! He will chew on anything that comes in contact with his mouth and he wants LOTS of pressure on his gums. So much that it really hurts sometimes! I've given him lots of teething rings and teething toys, but he seems to prefer his own hands or someone else's over everything else. I've read about freezing washcloths and then letting the baby chew on those...I may try that soon.

In other news, you'll notice that Eli is sporting a new accessory on his Bumbo...the Bumbo tray! I found it today tucked in the back of his closet. It's amazing what you find when you start organizing (again). I tried it out today, but Eli quickly proved that it's no match for his strength. One minute the tray was on his Bumbo, the next, it was flying across the kitchen floor. I'll have to weld the pieces together, I guess, if I want it to stay affixed to his chair. This little boy continues to amaze us with his strength and determination :)


Speaking of determination...guess who rolled from his back to his tummy TWICE today? Yes, yes yes! Eli rolled from back to tummy today for the first time! Not only did he do it once, he did it twice! We all clapped and cheered! We were so surprised! In fact, I was so surprised that I didn't even get a picture! (Don't worry, I will very soon!) For weeks, he has been SO close to rolling over, but never could quite get his shoulder over. Today he finally did it! He was so proud of himself when he saw the amount of praise he received from his adoring fans. He's growing up so fast!

Schedule Shemedule

Wednesday Grammy and Pop kept Eli all day while Josh and I went to work. I was so glad that they were able to get this one-on-one time with their grandbaby. I know they miss him so much! The day before Eli had his 4 months shots and did fine all day-no fever, not fussy, eating and sleeping habits were the same- but when he woke up Wednesday morning he was running a low grade fever. I gave him some Tylenol and hoped that would bring it down. I didn't want to leave my baby when he was sick and go to work, but I knew that he would be in EXCELLENT hands.

I wrote out a very detailed schedule so Mom and Dad would know when Eli normally eats, when he normally naps, the normal duration of the naps, his "I'm getting sleepy" cues, and a lot of other information. Well, look at the next picture and you'll see what Eli thought of my schedule :) Mom said he was trying to "read" it, but he pretty much took the schedule and threw it out the window. LOL! He woke up a little later than normal after his first feeding of the day, and that threw the entire schedule completely off, but they did great despite his little deviation :)

"No one tells me when to eat and sleep. I'm my own little man!"

Here are some pictures from their day. I think they had a wonderful time :) I'm so glad they were able to come visit us. We're going to try to get up to their house sometime very soon :)

Eli chewing on his teething ring with some assistance from Pop.
He's been chewing on his fingers and anything that comes in contact
with his mouth so much now.

Eli's second rice cereal experience. Yum, yum!
Dad videoed the entire feeding and it's so cute to watch, but unfortunately if I uploaded it, it would use up all my space (nearly!) on Blogger. Trust me, though, it's pretty funny to watch!

Mom said Eli spotted her Diet Pepsi can and wanted it so badly!
He loved the colors on the can.

Eli's "Going to School" picture.
He's got his book and he's ready to go.
Hopefully, he got a star on his sticker chart today for good behavior :)