8 months

So it seems like I just wrote one of these posts and here we are again. This month has been marked with a lot of changes. We now have a little person who moves around our house on his own and with his own agendas. Like a lot of homes, the dog bowls are serving as a constant form of entertainment. We finally got so tired of retrieving Elliott from the bowls, that we got one of those play yard divider things. We can snake it across the dining room and we don't even really have to block off the dogs bowls, the visible barrier is enough of a deterrent...for now.

I love the sound of elation when he sees Jenny start to drink out of her water bowl

In the span of the last two weeks, Elliott went from army crawling and sitting, to full crawling, to pulling himself up on his own, to sitting back down on his own, to starting to cruise, to starting to stand on his own. This last one was just tonight. It was brief, but he did it twice. I have a feeling he is going to be a prolific cruiser pretty soon. He currently tries to use just about everything to stand up on. Some things work better than others...the ground...not so much. But he is learning and getting more and more comfortable. We are also some of his favorite things to use as leverage and I do love it when he climbs on me.

He is determined to stand up using our lamp, which can only end really, really badly for Elliott, the lamp or both. But for now he can't quite get up high enough to pull it over.

The other thing that has developed and will surely make his grandpa John proud is his fascination with how things work. Before he used to play with the leg of the swing, now he plays with the metal button that holds the leg onto the base. The only part of the baby gate thing he is interested in (other than the fact he can use it to stand up) is the exposed connectors. If there is a screw or something holding anything together, that has his attention. He might not realize that these things are actually doing a job, but he notices they are different from the rest of the object for sure.

I love this photo. I'm not sure who is having the most fun!

He has also been able to spend a lot of time with his grandparents, both in person and virtually. My mom has been coming down every Friday for the last month and my dad came down as well on the 2nd for his birthday. This has not only given my mom more Elliott time, but also given Brad a chance to get some homework done in the afternoon and evenings. After Elliott goes to bed, we've been working on finishing a quilt that my grandma started many years ago. You can read about what we are doing here on my craft blog. He has also been able to spend a lot of time virtually with Brad's parents via Skype. Elliott LOVES playing with grandma on the computer and he is definitely interacting with them. Whenever grandma Mary pops up on the screen, he gets a super big smile on his face...and possibly even more so when she sings him the name game song.


Now despite the fact that he has two lovely pearly whites and probably would normally be starting on finger foods right now, Elliott is severely behind in his progression into solid foods. He has been plagued with constipation. He is currently eating only things that are supposed to help in that department and he is still having problems. We think he may have inherited an underdeveloped digestive system from dear old dad (since he also had this problem at this age). If his current diet of peas, prunes and pears doesn't fix him up in another week or so, we are going to consult with his doctor about whether or not we should cut out solid foods all together until his digestive system can keep up. We just don't know what else to do. This has really been the first time that my mommy intuition has completely failed. So far everything my gut tells me to do has been wrong. But on the other hand, this issue doesn't seem to bother him on a daily basis (minus the occasional traumatic pooping episodes in which Brad has really earned his daddy badge), so I'm really at a loss.


Oh and speaking of doctors, we also finally got in to see the Urologist on Tuesday. The news was mixed, but nothing more than what we expected. His left kidney is still enlarged, but within normal range and most likely on a course to being 100% normal. His testicle, needs to come down or be removed, depending on its condition. Elliott will go back in November for another follow up ultrasound to check on the kidney, but more importantly, to give the doctor an idea of where his other testicle is and what condition it's in. If its underdeveloped, they will remove it since he will be at an elevated risk for testicular cancer if it stays in. The urologist couldn't actually find the testicle, but I'm pretty sure it was just hiding since neither of his pediatricians ever mentioned that it might not be there. But it looks like Elliott has some surgery in his future. Ugh.


I also wanted to keep track of a couple things for my own 'records'. Right now Elliott is going to bed around 7:15 to 7:30pm and generally sleeps until 8:00 or 8:30am. He's waking up usually once each night, but that wake up time is all across the map, from 11:00pm to 4:00am. Every night is different. His morning naps are spotty, but he usually take a really good afternoon nap during the week. The weekends are a different story, either because I'm home or because we are usually out a lot more, so we try and compensate with an earlier bed time.

Elliott still really likes it when we sing and he has even been 'singing along' a bit...kind of on par with how a dog sings along. And I did hear him singing 'eeeoooohhhh eeeeoooohhhhh eeeeooooohhhhh' the other day when he played Old MacDonald on the Einstein (contrary to my own preference for this song, we sing it to him alot). Don't know how much it was intentional, but it sure seemed like it was ;)