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!