Ugh

Poor Eli is sick. He has been feverish the past 2 days. How awesome that his first real bout with a fever comes at the time of an international health crisis! I don't really think it's swine flu, but it's not fun anyway. We did actually go to the doctor, and there's no infection that they can see. It just appears to be a virus. Other awesome parts of this illness:

1. We are set to fly to Florida for a wedding tomorrow. Awesomely awesome! We will have him thoroughly drugged up. Wish I could be drugged up too.

2. We are not getting enough sleep. I got about 4 hours of sleep last night. Not in a row.

3. Of the two things I've been told to do to take care of him, I can't get him to do one of them: drink. The kid just won't drink anything - not plain water, not apple juice, not pear juice, not gatorade. He will nurse though...so all of the advances in weaning are out the window. Blergh.

Here he is on a happier day:

Let them eat cake! Updated...in case you didn't realize it

Update: BTW, forgot to add that Eli's official numbers are in. As of 4/17/09, he measured 2 feet, 8.5 inches and weighed 27 lbs, 10 oz. He was above the 95th percentile in height, weight, and noggin size. He is slightly taller than he is heavy (percentile-wise)...just like one of his parents. Guess which one.

Eli is ONE!

I can't believe we managed to make it through a year together. He has changed SO much in the past 12 months (below is a pic from his first day home with us). I wonder what is in store for us next...



This past week has been nutty with him being sick, Passover, his birthday party on Saturday (see pic below), and Easter yesterday (and his official birthday). I think we could all do with a LONG nap. How about some highlights...



Eli doesn't like matzo. He does like cake (and smooshing it all over his face). (Photos to come, i hope. For now, look at how much he likes to play with combs...)


He is now attempting to do headstands (sort of - from a bear-crawl position).



He seems to have gotten over his hatred of shoes (we finally got him a pair last week).



He LURVES streamers and balloons and the swiffer. I have had to hide them from him - particularly the swiffer, which he seems to have a homing beacon on and can find it no matter where I stash it.


He got AMAZING gifts from our fantastic friends and family. I could play with them for hours myself. If only Eli were better at sharing...


Here is to many, many more wonderful years with our little cuterpie!

Self-Indulgent Weaning Post + Pictures

Lately I've been thinking about how in the heck to wean the kid. I have been planning to wean at about 12 months (and now have a more solid full weaning deadline of early August b/c of a conference trip). Breastfeeding just isn't that awesome to me. I'd really like to be done with it. Eli seems to have this weird relationship with it. When he's actually eating, he spends the entire time flailing around hitting me, and if there's the slightest distraction (e.g., Joshie walks by the open door of the room where I'm nursing), Eli whips his head around to see what's going on (this has been the case since he was about 4-5 months). If the boob were that great, would every tiny little thing be that distracting? But then whenever I or anyone else has tried, he won't take a cup of booby milk (and hasn't ever really enjoyed a bottle). And sometimes he seems like he wants to be on the boob forever b/c he LURVES it.

As for cups, we've tried four different kinds. I can't say he seems to prefer one over another really. He just doesn't drink a lot of anything. The other day he drank about 4 ounces of water (in the entire day) and that was a fricking miracle. So then I feel like if I tried to substitute a cup at a feeding, that would be even less fluid entering his body (b/c he wouldn't take the cup) and if I kept doing that over time, he'd die of dehydration. What do you think?

And for those of you who don't care...


Eli is now CRAWLING and pulling himself up on everything. I think it makes him a happier baby to be able to get around on his own better (see above for a good happy baby moment). This new-found independence is scary, exhausting, and yet fun. He is so into pulling himself up that the second he gets in his crib for a nap, he's standing up. Then I put him down, and he stands right back up. And repeat. And repeat. And eventually let him cry. I still feel mostly bad about that, but, then again, if I had a kid who never napped, I think that we would have serious problems.

Here is evidence of him pulling himself up on stuff...


And again...


Here he is reading one of my rejection letters...


Look! He has actually been out of our house:


And here he is...CRAWLING while carrying toys with him!


And, already climbing stairs...he has made it up those 2 steps totally on his own...yikes!


And for those of you wondering about his relationship with Mary Hatch...still the same (and, no, that isn't a spatial perception trick like what the used in LOTR to make the hobbits look smaller. They are sitting right across from each other. He is just that big.) He'll learn eventually...