9 Months Old

Dear Eli,

You were busier than ever during your 9th month and learned a lot. Your biggest accomplishment was that you learned how to pull yourself up to a standing position all on your own. Once you learned how to do it, there was no stopping you. For the first few days, you knew how to stand up, but you couldn't figure out how to get back down. It took some time with me showing you how to do it before you got comfortable doing it on your own. Then, it was great entertainment to watch you stand, sit, stand, sit, all day long. Talk about a thigh workout! You can even "cruise" a little all on your own. You will walk along couches, chairs, piano benches, bookcases, and pretty much any furniture that is at your level.

You've also gotten quite good at climbing the stairs. No one taught you how to do it, but one day we just set you down at the bottom of the staircase, and up you went! You surprise me daily with how smart you are and how much you learn.

You cut your first tooth a few weeks ago and were a total champ about it. You didn't even get fussy. One day I was just looking at you while you were grinning at me and I noticed a little flash of white. Upon further inspection, I felt a little tooth as sharp as glass poking through your gums. I was a little nervous about nursing a baby with a tooth, but gratefully, you haven't bitten me (yet!).

Your dad and I were talking a few nights ago about how you seem to have become totally disinterested in us this month. I'm sure you still love us and all, but you're much too busy for us. There are bookshelves to climb on, drawers to open, toys to play with, books to tear, countless things to suck on, and stairs to climb, after all. We're pretty boring compared to all of that!

Your accomplishment that I am most grateful for this month is that you learned how to sleep through the night. Yay!!! Your dad and I used, let's say, "controversial" methods to get you to do this. Once we got the okay from the pediatrician that you didn't really need to eat in the night anymore, we sat down and decided that we (meaning I) were done getting up to feed you. So one night when you started crying at 3:00 a.m., we shut your bedroom door, shut our bedroom door, put in earplugs, and ignored you! After a few nights of doing this, you got the message, and stopped waking up. When you woke up in the morning and still liked us, we didn't feel too bad about our methods. And honestly, I think we're all happier now that we're getting a full night's sleep, you included.

I am going to continue nursing you until you're at least a year old, but I'd like the weaning process to be very gradual so that it's not traumatic for either of us. However, you do not want to replace any of your feedings with solids, so you're still nursing 5-6 times a day. You do eat pureed baby food, but only as a supplement to nursing, not as a replacement of nursing. You absolutely refuse to eat tiny pieces of adult food and have the strongest gag reflex I've ever seen. We'll put a tiny piece of food in your mouth, and when you go to swallow it, you start gagging and then throw up. I mean, like empty the entire contents of your stomach throw up, not just spit up. One day last week, you threw up 5 times. Lovely. I guess you just need more time.

You will not drink from a bottle or a sippy cup, but you'll drink from an adult cup or a waterbottle like it's nobody's business. We've been known to give you breast milk in an adult cup when I wasn't around to nurse you because it's the only way to get you to drink it. Kind of weird? I think so, but hey, I'll do whatever works. I've been tempted to mix a little Hershey's syrup in with it, but I've resisted!

You are friendlier than ever! You will do anything to make eye contact with people to give them a huge grin. If you get so lucky as to have them hold you, you'll immediately put your hands in their mouths, pull their shirts down, try to pull their glasses off, and shriek at them with pure joy. It is so fun to watch. I hope you always make friends this easily.

We love you a lot, Eli. You are a blessing straight from heaven. We are so happy you're in our lives!

Lots of love,
Mama

9 month stats:
Weight: 22.4 lbs (73rd percentile)
Height: 29 inches (67th percentile)
Head Circumference: 18 inches (57th percentile)

Crawling for Realsies

I know it's been over a month since I made the claim that Eli was "this close" to crawling. Joke's on me, right? But this morning, it clicked and he totally gets it now, just in time for his 9 month birthday. He's been crawling around on his hands and knees all morning. Here's a video for his far-away family to see.

I love his little face in the last few seconds of this video. And I love his "Spanish angel" pajamas. They're from Spain (a gift from my parent's foreign exchange student) and the white makes him look like an angel. I could just eat him up.

Photo Booth Fun

Thanks to so many people are always telling Eli how handsome he is, his vanity now knows no bounds. He spent the afternoon taking pictures of himself with aunt Michelle. Unfortunately, some of the results didn't showcase his beauty in the way that he wanted.

The following photo has got to be the most unflattering, terrifying photo I've ever seen of Eli. This is exactly what I was afraid my children would look like before I had children.

His forehead is almost as big as mine! It's a realization of my worst nightmare.

This one isn't much better.

Adam and I laughed our pants off when we saw them. Thanks for the fun, Michelle!

Matchy-Matchy

Yeah, we're one of those families that loves to match. Pretty much whenever possible.

A few weeks ago, I walked into the Baby Gap and about had a heart attack when I saw a miniature version of the shirt Adam was wearing when Eli was born. They had Eli's size. I bought it. I got Adam's shirt out of his closet and wrapped it along with the miniature version in the same box. On his birthday, he opened the gift and was confused when he saw the shirt he already owned in the box. He was like, "Thanks babe, but I already have this." I asked him if he remembered what important event he wore that shirt to, and he replied, "Eli's birth." When he lifted it out of the box, he saw the tiny version underneath. It was such a fun surprise for him. I loved seeing my boys wearing them together!

I also found a miniature pair of Ray-Ban Wayfarers for E. I'm kind of obsessed with them and he doesn't seem to mind them. He will leave them on!

For Christmas, all of the boys got the traditional matching pajamas, and my mother-in-law Janie even sewed a tiny pair for Eli so he wouldn't be left out.

Let's hope Eli doesn't need glasses like both of his parents!

This picture is super old, but Eli and I are both rocking "Heartbreaker" shirts.

Ladies, you thought it wasn't possible to dress matching with your son? It totally is if you put them in a "unisex newborn gown" that matches your bathrobe!

Awesome!

29 Candles on the Birthday Cake

We all know I'm not one for a cheesy birthday blog post. So I'll just say that it's Adam's birthday and stop there.

Who am I kidding?! I love cheesy birthday blog posts (despite someone else in the house not being quite as fond of all the attention they bring). You can see previous cheesy birthday posts here, here, and here. But I guess I'll tone it down this year and just say to Adam: I love you. Eli does too. We are the luckiest people in the world to have you in our lives. Thanks for being born!

I'm a sleep training machine!

I can't get enough of his long, thick, curly eyelashes in this picture! What a doll!

I've been hesitating to write about this for awhile now because I didn't want to jinx it by recording it in such a public forum and then having it turn out to not actually be true. But there's no denying it anymore and I feel safe declaring it for all to hear. Eli is completely sleep trained! NAPS and NIGHTTIME, people! It's a miracle!

For the first 6 months of his life, Eli was a terrible sleeper. I spent more time stressing about his sleep habits than every other aspect of his life and well-being combined. Ask my friends and family about the drama that went on at our house surrounding his sleep schedule. You can read the saga here, here, here, and here. I cried. I screamed. I called friends for advice. I prayed. I sought help on Facebook. I kept all kinds of charts and logs to try to track his patterns and schedules.

But all of that is behind me, thank goodness. He's a total champ now. For the past 2 weeks, he has consistently slept through the night for 12 hours straight (7:30 p.m. to 7:30 a.m.) without waking up. And he still takes 2 or 3 naps per day that usually range from 1-2 hours each.

Should I let you in on our little secret? Do you want to know how we did it? Consistency. There was no magic trick or quick fix to getting him to sleep, but consistency is what won out in the end. Eli learned that when we put him in his crib, it's time to sleep. He knows that we mean business and that no amount of crying or fussing is going to get him out of it, so he might as well not even try.

My life is so much better now that he's sleeping because it means that I'm sleeping too! Heaven knows I need it because he is getting to be more of a handful than ever. He is nonstop! He won't sit still for even a second and gets into trouble if I look away for even a few seconds.

So for those of you mamas out there who feel hopeless and like your child is doomed to be a terrible sleeper for the rest of his life, it will get better! We are a success story, and you can be too! Just be consistent and remember that you're the mom and you're in charge. Don't let your little one run the show :)

Perfect Pizza Crust

After Eli was born and we were still living in Washington D.C., we didn't have cable. All we had was an old school antenna that picked up a few of the local stations. I spent countless hours nursing him around the clock, with nothing to do but flip through our few pathetic little stations. I spent more hours than I would like to admit watching WETA, Washington's public t.v. station. I grew quite fond of "Cook's Country from America's Test Kitchen" during this time (and the Wendy Williams show, but I probably shouldn't mention that one), maybe because it was actually a good show, or maybe because there was nothing else on in the middle of the night. But I loved how they tested each recipe until it was perfect and explained the science behind why it worked.

I was excited to try their pizza crust recipe because Adam and I like to make homemade pizza a lot, but are never completely satisfied with the crust we make. I tried it out on Valentine's Day for the heart-shaped pizza that I made for Adam (I even cut the little pepperonis into heart shapes!). It was by far the yummiest crust recipe I've ever tried and I think you'll love it too.

Ingredients:
½ cup warm water (about 110°)
1 envelope (2 ¼ tsp.) instant yeast
1 ¼ cups water, at room temperature
2 tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil
4 cups (22 oz.) bread flour, plus more for dusting
1 ½ tsp. salt
Olive oil for greasing the bowl

Directions:
Measure the warm water into a 2-cup liquid measuring cup. Sprinkle in the yeast and let stand until the yeast dissolves and swells, about 5 minutes. Add the room temperature water and oil and stir to combine.

Place the flour and salt in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Briefly combine the dry ingredients at low speed. Slowly add the liquid ingredients and continue to mix at low speed until a cohesive mass forms. Stop the mixer and replace the paddle with the dough hook. Knead until the dough is smooth and elastic, about 5 minutes (it will be sticky, but don't worry- that's how it's supposed to be). Form the dough into a ball, put it in a deep oiled bowl, and cover with plastic wrap. Let rise until doubled in size, about 1 ½ to 2 hours. Press the dough to deflate it.

Preheat the oven to 500°. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured work surface. Divide the dough into two equal pieces. Form both pieces of dough into smooth, round balls and cover with a damp cloth. Let the dough relax for at least 10 minutes but no more than 30 minutes.

Working with one piece of dough and keeping the other covered, shape the dough and place on a pizza pan or stone. Brush dough with olive oil and minced garlic. Bake at 500° for 3-4 minutes. Remove from oven and top as desired. Bake until the crust edges brown and cheese is golden brown in spots, about 8 to 12 minutes. Repeat with remaining ball of dough or freeze for later use.

On Staying Home

I am home by myself a lot (well, with Eli obviously, but he hardly counts) and I get kind of lonely. Adam and I share a car, but because he works in downtown SLC, he takes it every day, so I'm stuck at home. And because we haven't lived in Centerville very long, we don't have any friends that live within walking distance.

Thankfully, we live close to Adam's family and I see them a lot, which keeps me sane. Adam's mom is sweet and lets me borrow her car when I need to run errands and always offers to watch Eli while I go out. But I always feel guilty while I'm gone and have a hard time enjoying the freedom because I feel like I'm putting her out despite her constant reassurances that she's happy to do it.

Taking care of a busy 8 month old is a full time job, but sometimes I get bored with the monotony of all of the daily mommy tasks. Every single day is the same. Wake up, breastfeed baby, change baby's diaper, play with baby, feed baby solids, change baby's diaper, breastfeed baby, put baby down for a nap, clean up baby's messes, take baby for a walk, play with baby, feed baby solids, give baby a bath, breastfeed baby, put baby down for a nap, change baby's diaper, etc, etc, etc all day long.

Adam has been working long hours lately because he's new and is trying to get a handle on things at the office. Time goes by so slowly while he's gone, especially towards the end of the day. I can't wait for him to walk through the door, mainly so I can have someone to be with. I try to keep busy by trying new recipes, organizing the house, reading, staying on top of the laundry, and working on home decorating projects, but sometimes at the end of the day, I look back and think, "What was the point of all that?"

While I was working, I couldn't wait to be schedule-free and able to do whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted. I dreamt of taking myself out to lunch every day, taking naps while the baby was, and being able to visit my parents in St. George whenever I felt like it. Ha! What I didn't realize is that I would still be on a schedule. The baby's. My days completely revolve around Eli and his schedule.

I guess the point of all of this is that it is taking me some getting used to. I've never been good with change, this whole stay-at-home mom business included. I compare myself to women who make the transition from being childless to being a mother look graceful and effortless, and I want to cry. I feel guilty for feeling this way.

Adam and I have gotten a few comments from people lately who have questioned my staying home. Why would I throw away my career as a paralegal? Why would I take myself out of the workforce? Does Adam make enough money as a public defender for me to stay home? The answer is that this is my choice. I choose to stay at home to be with Eli. No one is forcing me to be here. Adam certainly wouldn't mind if I went out and got a job (heaven knows we could use the extra cash).

I just need to remind myself every day that what I do is important, even though sometimes it doesn't feel like it. It's a blessing for me to be able to stay home with Eli. I get to witness him learning and growing. I'm there to see all of the funny things he does. I am so blessed!

Standing Up

When I went into Eli's nursery to get him up from his nap this afternoon, I was surprised to find him standing up in his crib. The little stinker figured out how to pull himself up! He was so chill about it, like, "Don't freak out mom. It's no big deal. I've practically been able to do this my whole life."

It looks like we'll be lowering his mattress tonight so he can't fall out!