On the Move!

As I wrote yesterday, Elijah is on the move!!! He has now ventured all the way around the first floor of our house (aside from the bathroom). This morning he found his way under his exersaucer.

We played peek-a-boo around the couch. Elijah likes to open and close doors, so he was happy to discover the play kitchen.
He ventured down the hallway and found...
...the stairs!! Time to get out the baby gates!

The baby tornado-knocking over chairs and taking names!When Elijah had his surgery, the neurosurgeon told us that there was a chance that he could be (temporarily) paralyzed on the right side of his body following the surgery or that he may have some weakness on his right side down the road. Thankfully, he came out of surgery just fine, and we haven't noticed any weakness on his right side at all since then. That's why it's so thrilling to watch him explore and get around on his own. He receives services through Early Intervention to monitor his development and to make sure that he stays on track. A physical therapist comes to our house once a week. Now Elijah is also seen by a Teacher of the Visually Impaired (TVI) every other week since he has a right visual field defect, or Homonymous Hemianopia, as a result of his tumor. From what we understand, he doesn't see anything in his right visual field of both eyes. He seems to be compensating amazingly well, though, by turning his eyes and head to the right, so it's hard to even tell that he has this issue. The TVI will give us strategies to help him as he becomes even more mobile. I notice that he bumps his head into things on his right side sometimes if he hasn't looked all around to see what's in front of and beside him. If this is the worst of his problems, we really can't complain! We're just thankful that he's happy and healthy and making great strides developmentally! We're also thankful to live in a place that has such great services to help us and Elijah!

11 Months Old!

Elijah is 11 months old today! It has been so fun to watch his personality develop over these past few months. He's a funny little guy who has a great belly laugh. Now that he's more mobile, I can see that he's going to give us a run for our money. I need to work on truly baby-proofing our house. He has a whole new level of curiosity than I remember either of the girls having. (My Aunt Sharon hoped that we would have a mischievous little red-headed boy. It looks like we have a mischievous little blond boy on our hands!) When he sees something that he wants, he goes for it!! We have a new cabinet for our TV, and he has already figured out how to open the sliding doors.

Elijah loves all dangling objects-hair, earrings, necklaces, and most specifically, any type of cord. If he spots a cord from across the room, he army crawls to it as fast as he can before I can take it away. He watches Mike iron his shirts in the morning, and Mike said that he fixates on the cord for the iron. We have to be really careful of that since the last thing he needs is an iron falling on his head!

Elijah loves taking a bath and he splashes like crazy! I always have to change my shirt after I give him a bath since he soaks me every time. We took him swimming at the Y a couple months ago and he loved that, too. He's our little water baby! The girls couldn't stand getting water in their faces when they were babies.
Elijah has 8 teeth now and he eats all sorts of table foods. He seems to prefer to feed himself so it's getting to be a challenge to spoon-feed him yogurt since he turns his head when he's had enough. He likes macaroni and cheese, yogurt, bagels, pancakes, waffles, chicken, cheese, graham crackers, all kinds of fruits, carrots, green beans, sweet potatoes, and Mike's favorite Polish dish, "pigs in a blanket" or Golumbkis (ground beef and rice wrapped in cabbage and baked in tomato soup).

Elijah loves to play peek-a-boo. He likes it when the girls peek around the sides of his high chair. When I flew to Ohio for my grandma's memorial service a couple weeks ago, Elijah got a kick out of playing peek-a-book with a little six-year-old boy in front of us on the airplane. Just as he started to get fussy, this little boy turned around and peeked between the seats. They must have played for 15 minutes straight and Elijah drew a lot of attention with his laughs. He was noisy but it was better than crying!! If I hide around the corner of the couch, he scooches around until he finds me and giggles.

Elijah is quite the wiggle worm now. It's hard to keep him in one place. If he wants to be held in a certain way, he can squirm his way around until he's comfortable. He's getting strong now, too! I hope that he doesn't catapult himself out of my arms one of these days!

Elijah still loves to jump and bounce on our laps, in his exersaucer or in the door jumper. Maybe we have a high jumper or basketball star in training!

From the time Elijah was a month old, he has slept on his belly. I know right now there's the whole "Back to Sleep" campaign, but this works the best for him. We have a special baby monitor that has a sensor pad under the mattress that monitors his breathing and movements. If he doesn't move/breathe for 15 seconds, an alarm sounds. This helped to ease our minds about having him sleep on his belly. I love how he tucks his arms under his chest and pulls his knees up when he snuggles into bed.
Elijah still gets a kick out of his sisters and he likes interacting with other babies now, too. He mainly paws at their faces and bops them on the head. Elijah and I participate in a baby playgroup through my MOMS Club when the girls are in school. It's fun to watch him start to interact with the other little ones who are close to his age. I can't wait to watch these relationships grow over the years. Before we know it, Elijah and his buddies will be heading off to school! Boo hoo!!! Time flies by way too quickly.

We're looking forward to having my mom and dad here to help us celebrate Elijah's first birthday next month! What a year it's been!!!! We'll be so excited to celebrate this milestone!

Face Painting

While Isabella was at school this morning, Sienna was pretending to be a kitty. She asked me to paint her face, so I gave her whiskers and a black nose. When Isabella saw her after school, she asked me to paint her face, too. Isabella and Sienna had four friends over to play today, and it turned into a face painting extravaganza!!! The four kindergarten girls had me paint four different things on each of their faces. Sienna and Lauren were content to be kitties with rainbows on their foreheads. My mom gave one of the girls a face painting book at some point, so we made good use of that today. I copied most of the designs from the book.

Lyvia, Isabella, Sarah, Hope, Sienna & Lauren

One tired kitty! Sienna rarely naps anymore. After everyone left, I found Sienna sound asleep in her bed. I thought that Sienna was just worn out after playing all afternoon with her friends, but she woke up with a fever. Both Isabella and Elijah had fevers within the past two weeks, so I should have known that it was only a matter of time before Sienna caught the bug. Hopefully, it won't last very long.

Sesame Street Live

Today we went to see Sesame Street Live for the fourth year in a row. It was a great show-as always!! Although, it wasn't quite the same without our friends, Liz, Chloe and Andre, who moved to France. Liz always organized this trip every year for our MOMS Club. We really miss them!!!

Isabella & John patiently waited for the show to start

Elijah was mesmerized when the characters first came out

Isabella & Sienna were engrossed in the show, too

Isabella, Sienna & Lily

Look Who's Crawling!!!

We have a crawler!!! Granted, it's a commando crawl, but Elijah still gets himself around effectively. It's just a matter of time before he's zooming all around. He'll get up and rock on his hands and knees, but he still slithers on his belly to get around. He sure is determined when he wants something!

Elijah pulled up to a standing position for the first time today, too!!! Here he is standing at the coffee table. What a big boy!

On the Verge

Elijah is right on the verge of crawling finally. I took this series of pictures today over the course of several minutes. He's very comfy on his belly, and he pivots and rolls all around.

Up on all fours!!!

Trying to push up to a sitting position

Maybe not...

Let's try the other side

Almost up again!

Scooching backwards

Taking a break to chew on a puzzle piece

Up again

Concentrating

Resorting to rolling

"Enough with the pictures! This is hard work!"