Category: Elia

Elia Turns 8 Months. Last month we were watching Elia develop her coordination, this month a lot of it came to a head. For crawling, she was up on all fours rocking trying to get moving, a phenomenon that still happens as she gets going, like a car revving. Elia began to crawl on the 8th of August, Father’s Day in Chinese. She crawls everywhere now, but doesn’t turn all that well. She will rest on her belly to turn or bump her head against a wall or obstacle repeatedly as if not understanding that it is in her way. In fact, she would do the revving thing and bump her head a lot.

When Elia started crawling, she still had not pulled herself to a sitting position, but would work to stand as much as she could. She would put her hands on Albert’s chest while he was lying down and bring herself to her feet. On August 12 she stood up holding her play saucer where Erin took her picture. Shortly after this she began sitting on her own.

In August, Elia started not sleeping unless she was held, something that Curie did as well for a while. When we put Elia down, she would start crying. She didn’t want to nurse, she didn’t want a bottle. Albert would pick her up and walk until the wee hours so she would have some sleep, then he would switch with Erin to hold her for the rest of the night. Untenable right? Albert was a lot grouchier at work (but did not let anyone go), Erin was shorter at home. Elia had been starting baby foods, and one night Albert just fed her an extra one, and she slept longer, so this meant she was hungry. We started giving her more for school and at home, and that helped. The other day, we had an air conditioning problem again and it was warmer upstairs – Elia slept longer still. She is still afraid to be alone, but we are hopeful that she will sleep longer – until teething of course.

Here is a crazy thing. Elia is trying to communicate with us. She is using the same sounds over and over in certain moods. We think she has said “mama” but that might be hopeful speculation. She claps one hand on a fist when she wants to be picked up or changed. When Albert feeds her water with a glass, she hits the glass with her fist to say she wants more.

This month Yischon’s family visited and we went swimming in the hotel pool with Elia. She went for much longer this time. She played with the mobile for the first time and was mesmerized – the mobile is in Curie’s room, and the crib is in ours. Elia rode in the shopping cart and Curie’s push car for the first time this month as well, prompting Curie to want to ride with her (Costco carts are two seaters).

As a mobile baby, everything is fantastic to her, she explores every nook and cranny prompting cries of “woah, not there!” and “Mommy, Elia wants my <fill in the blank>.” Still, it is pretty amazing. Curie is the only person who can consistently make Elia smile, and Elia is much more alert and interactive. This month they started to play together; a little rough-housing that needs to be monitored, but they are sisters: holding hands (Curie holding Elia’s hand), hugging (Curie hugging Elia), and playing together. As Alberta commented in a previous post, they are BFFs, best friends forever.

 

Elia turns 7 months. Erin has been holding Elia back. Prior to Elia’s 6 month check-up when the doctor started asking about her milestones, and though Albert had been citing Curie’s timeline, Erin had been professing that Elia was still too young to do many things. The reality was that Erin was saddened that this was the last baby, and we would never have a child this small again. We have this plan that once the kids are old enough to be away, and we were able to do so, we would consider adopting two more.

So in this seventh month, we let Elia eat Baby Mumums, one Cheerio, suck on an orange, and drink water from a bottle and a cup. She even drank the juices from Erin’s watermelon, but she did not like the lime (which Curie loved along with lemons at her age). On the weekend of the Fourth of July, Elia went swimming for the first time – though we did have her in a wet suit and coast guard-approved life jacket. We also took her to her first water park. Finally, Elia moved from her side-sleeper to the play-pen to sleep; it is still next to the bed but she gets a lot more room.

Elia scoots around quite well, but doesn’t crawl yet. She can almost clap her hands, and still puts everything she can into her mouth. You can see in the pictures that she is becoming more alert and aware. And she is such a good baby. We are all sick with the rotavirus at the time of this writing. Curie had it first (lots of throwing up), Albert had it the worst, and now Erin and Elia have it, but Elia takes it in stride with a wan smile even after throwing up.

Curie still calls Elia her best friend and says that she loves her. She tells us when Elia is crying and even insists that we help her before helping herself. Having the two of them is really quite joyous and it will only be a matter of time before they play together (and fight and make up and everything else). Curie says it best when she says, “everybody sit down, we’re a family.”

Elia turns 6 months! Who knew that birth order had such an impact in raising children? With Curie we had all the time in the world to marvel at her milestones and growth, with Elia, we blink and it is six months, she can roll from back to front, has started teething, can hold an 0-ball, can put her pacifier back in her mouth, loves her exersaucer, is scooting along and has learned to sit (whew!), all in one month. With Curie, Albert would exercise her legs, hold her middle up with a blanket so that she could experience the sensation of crawling to practice, balance her to help her sit (okay everyone said Albert was trying too hard), with Elia, we have to split our attention between the two children while still managing all the other parts of life.

The other day, Jim and Brenda were taking care of Curie (or should I say Curie was playing with Brenda and Jim?), and we had a moment on the bed with just Elia, and Albert remarked, this is what it was like with Curie, and we realized that Elia does not get as much attention as Curie did even though we try otherwise. Then, Albert (a  middle child) had the realization that with a third child, the oldest child can then help with the middle child and the youngest gets more attention. But, we are only having two, so Elia will be the “baby.”

This month we drove up to the Cape for Grampy’s funeral after our flight was canceled and Elia had her first car ride to New England. She did great and had the most sleep of all of us. She was quiet at the service and charmed Marsha when she woke. We went to Ottawa as we said in Curie’s blog entry and Albert let Elia fall off of a low bench at Taylor and Eric’s house which caused quite the scare (Erin did the same with Curie at the same age). All is well though.

Elia is happy and outgoing, she loves to get attention and will cry when left alone. She loves holding things and exploring the feels and textures of what she touches. She has started solids with baby food, though hates rice cereal. She loves bananas, and peas and eats the best while watching TV (don’t we all?). Curie loves her sister and calls her “sweetheart” and “honey” all the time. She smiles when you sing, when you pick her up, when you just enter the room. She lights up when she hears Curie or Erin and lights us up when she smiles.

Yes she is the second of our children, and yes, it is harder to make sure we take a picture a day, and yes, she has to sit a little longer because more than one child is fussy (we include Albert or Erin in this category depending on who is tired – meaning we can have up to four tired children), but that doesn’t change the fact that she is our daughter and we love her every bit as much. And on top of it all she also has Curie who loves her dearly, one more than when Curie was born. Oh and that last picture with the cute dress? Elia pooped on it right after we took her picture. She is in a cute overall today.

BTW people have been saying she looks like Julie, anyone else think so?

 

Elia Turns 5 Months! Wow, how can that be? So milestones first: Elia began turning from back to front on the 17th three days before her fifth month. She has begun grabbing at things and sleeps holding the edge of her bassinet. She holds her blanket to her face when she is awake and loves rubbing her face in it. Just today, we gave her the o-ball and she grabbed it immediately (and tossed it). If you hold her by the hands and lift she will get to her feet.

Elia has just started solid foods with rice cereal, but has not taken to it like Curie did; we have not started her on other foods yet. We have yet  to put her in the jumper chair, but she loves the exer-saucer.  Curie seemed ready to crawl at this point, but Elia is on her own schedule enjoying life from day to day; she always wakes up happy in the morning and is always smiling.

Elia recognizes when you come by and definitely prefers Erin when she can see her. Curie can make her laugh and loves to hug her and kiss her. Even when Curie is fussy she will light up when she sees Elia and calls her “my best friend Elia.”  She also has taken to wanting to feed Elia both rice cereal and bottle.

We were so busy waging the war against pink when Curie was young (our theory was that the percentage of leak through would make an acceptable level of pink), that we never really thought about whether people would think that she was a boy. Recently though, people have been assuming that Elia is a boy (wearing many of Curie’s old clothes, which are often blue boy’s clothes) and somehow it is not okay; as a result, we have begun putting bows in her hair and even buying a pink swim/sun suit specifically to indicate that she is a girl.

We took the family for a stay-cation at the Westin at Tysons, even though we normally go to the Sheraton Premiere (the Sheraton Premiere is better, bigger rooms, more amenities, though the Westin had a great brunch). We went to the Taste of Arlington (next year only buy the restaurant challenges), Elia and Curie each gave Erin necklaces for Mother’s Day, and Albert went to Thailand.

Albert has been holding Elia more these days – perhaps because she is more interactive, or perhaps he needs her more now, or perhaps traveling to Thailand was a lot of time away. The idea of baby therapy when you are down is not so crazy; when the work day gets you down or you just need a hug, sitting with a baby for a while all alone is not the worst way to feel better. There is nothing cuter than a smiling baby (except perhaps a smiling toddler), and there is nothing like their unconditional adoration – oh yeah, and Elia pooped in the bathtub the other night, very gross – ah memories.