Safety 1st!

I think I've mentioned, somewhere along the way here, that I'm trying to raise as close to a "free-range" kid as possible. It seems like a frightening prospect in this day and age, but evidently "this day and age" really is pretty safe.

So ... we oscillate between extremes in our efforts to not shelter Elliot too much.

Kitchen Kid

Like I'll let him play in the kitchen next to our under the sink cabinet without doors, but the toilet is on "lock down."

Or, a plastic bag is a dandy toy, yet the electrical sockets are plugged.

But, the difference is that I would never leave Elliot unattended in the kitchen, or playing with a bag. We only use safety products in the places where he's apt to be left alone for a minute or two. He's in the bathroom with me in the mornings while I'm taking those "whore showers" so I need to make sure he can't dunk his head in the toilet. And those electrical outlets are in the hallway where he walks up and down all day.

The only lazy parent type of "safety" item that we've induldged in was this gate for the xmas tree.



We removed it for the actual xmas festivities and, as it turns out, Elliot didn't want to mess with the tree anyway! Ha, go figure! Maybe this "free-range" kid stuff makes a better kid ... he gets to mess with so much stuff that he doesn't want to mess with the stuff we don't want him to? Just a theory.

I have a TODDLER!

Big Guy

WOW! When did that happen??

Since we co-sleep, Elliot usually wakes when I wake. This morning he was still asleep as I slipped out of bed. He's been working on changing up his sleep schedule ... dropping his 2nd nap and sleeping closer to 12 hours (instead of 10) at night.

So, even though I was a bit concerned about leaving him to wake by himself, I needed to start getting ready for work. I left the bedroom door and the bathroom door open and took what a friend told me was a "Puerto Rican" shower, but I've actually learned it's a "Whore's Shower" ... boy does that make me feel better. Anyway, midway through rinsing my hair I feel this little hand on my back.

Awww ... my little man (who I have been calling "big guy" a lot lately) had woken up just fine without me and decided to go find his mommy!

Tonight I was downloading pictures on the mac computer and Elliot was in the room with me. He was playing with some of my scrapbooking materials when he decided to stand up. He's taller than the desk. It's like "poof!" all of the sudden he's this little boy ... not a baby anymore.

I'm only slightly sad.

I'm enjoying this "big guy."

The Christmas Report

Sorry the post with all of the Christmas pictures is SOOO late! We've been a little busy enjoying the time off together!

Elliot seems to have had a wonderful Christmas ... I want to call it his "first" Christmas, as he wasn't really aware of things last year ... but I suppose it wasn't technically his first, so I won't confuse people.

Christmas Eve & Day 2009

The pictures start with our Christmas Eve festivities at Steven's parent's house and follow through to Christmas night when Elliot finally just passed out from exhaustion. It was a very exciting day for a little boy!

I'm warning you, there are a TON of pictures. And, yes, I did weed them out ... there were a TON and a HALF!

Happy Bites = Happy Momma!

Today we went to Charlotte in search of Happy Bites, toddler food by a company called Happy Baby Foods .

Now, we didn't go to Charlotte just for this food. Anyone who knows me knows of my obsession with all things IKEA. So a trip to IKEA is like a pilgrimage to my personal Mecca. Except it obviously happens more than once in a lifetime. ;)

Trips to Charlotte usually entail IKEA and then a stop at The Children's Place at Concord Mills. A trip to Charlotte will now include a stop to Super Target. Creating what I will now term the "Charlotte Trifecta!"

So ....

IKEA
The Children's Place
Super Target

Got it?

Okay.

Why Super Target, now, you ask? Because they stock Happy Bites!!! I've been searching for the Happy Bites for MONTHS now! It is essentially organic convenience food for toddlers. Or, organic convenience food for mothers to feed their toddlers. ;) They also stock a couple of other frozen organic foods which will undoubtedly make my life easier!

Here's Elliot enjoying the fruits, or chicken nuggets, of my labor!

Happy Bites Baby

We have WORDS!

Pea

Elliot can say "Pea" now. He was in the bedroom with Steven and he kept pointing to something and making a "P" sound. Steven was puzzled and just kinda watched him do it a couple more times. I guess he finally figured out Elliot was gesturing to him about something ... so Steven stretched over to the other side of the bed to find that Elliot's favorite book Little Pea was on the other side ... where Elliot was pointing. The kid was saying "Pea!" He wanted his book. How cool is that?

Butterfly

He's been saying "buh" for months now in response to the butterflies that adorn Grandma's walls. And the same day he started really walking ... he also started identifying objects! I was reading a short board book to Elliot when I decided to see if he could point to objects when asked. So I said "Where's the butterfly?" and he promptly sprung his little pointer finger out and touched one butterfly, and then went across the page to touch the other. I jokingly told my friend I was going to enroll him in Entomology classes for tots. Still, I was pretty impressed!

Ball

The same day as the butterfly incident, Elliot was given a ball by one of my coworkers and when she handed it to him, he made a noise like "bah" ... it didn't phase me at the time, but then yesterday he said the same thing when I toss over his soccer ball to him. Bah. Now my kid can say ball. It's just wild to me!

Pretty?

He also says something that sounds a lot like "pretty," but I'm not quite sold on it yet. You know, it's SOOO hard to know what babies are really saying when they are learning to talk. I don't want to attribute a sound he makes to the wrong word, so I try to be reserved with these things ... especially since the word pretty is a descriptor, an adverb or adjective. But, I will tell you ... when he says the sound that sounds like "pretty" he's saying it about people and about decorations. Often when he looks at the xmas decorations we have adorning the walls he makes the sound ... he always looks like he's amazed and awed ... so maybe he knows a couple of nouns and one "pretty" cool adjective. ;)

I don't want to sound skeptical about my child, but I don't want to sound like I think I have the next Charles Dickens (usually people say Einstein, but we're talking WORDS here.)

Ladies & Gentlemen, we have a WALKER

Okay ... so Elliot has been "really" walking since last Friday.



For whatever reason, Friday was his day 12/18/09. Sounds good. He's been taking steps here and there since his first on 11/1/09 ... but he hasn't really just "gotten up and walked" until this past Friday. It has been exciting.

He's been cruising for MONTHS now, since 6/25/09 ... so he's been "into everything" since then. His walking hasn't added any additional trauma in that regard.

Walker

My next area of concern centers around door knobs. He's tall enough now to reach them, but not tall enough to try and turn it. Oy! I have a lot of knobs to cover with safety devices. You've seen my hallway of doors!

I try to avoid as many of those safety products as possible ... sometimes I think we make our children's lives "too" safe. But I did break down a couple of weeks ago and buy a thingy that holds the toilet bowl lid down ... and now I fear it's like the safety gadget seal has been broken! In my defense, it was not a frivolous, lazy-parent purchase. Elliot hangs out with me in the mornings, in the bathroom, while I'm getting ready for work. He has free reign of cabinets and drawers and all other sorts of goodies, but I had to draw the line at the toilet. For one, I am a germaphobe (which got 10x worse after childbirth) and for two, it really is dangerous to allow your child carte blanche access to a vessel filled with water if your eyes are not glued to them. Given that part of the "getting ready for work" process always involves me washing my hair, I needed a way to prevent a horrible accident.

I feel 100% justified in my toilet guard purchase, but will door knob safety thingys bring me into the realm of lazy-parent? I guess only I can answer that, as it is a personal issue and typically not something I label other parents with.

Snow in High Point

This past Friday it snowed in High Point!

While those of us in the office who have lived in areas that snow had a good laugh at all the drama ensuing, I was looking forward to putting Elliot in the snow.

Sadly sometime during the dark hours of Saturday morning the snow turned into freezing rain and so there was a hard layer over the actual snow by the time we got Elliot outside.

I honestly thought about not putting him out in the snow because I figured it wouldn't be too much fun with the layer of ice ... but then I realized that I would be pretty ticked off with myself if I let the snow melt without pictures of Elliot in it!

So ... I bundled him up in a sleeper, his lined overalls, and a pair of lined nylon pants ... and on the top his NC State hoodie sweatshirt and his lined nylon jacket over that. I'm sure he was over bundled, but I wasn't sure how long we'd have him out there. Funniest part to me was his Daddy out there with him, with just a short sleeved shirt!

There wasn't much opportunity for real "fun" but we got some cute shots!

Snow in High Point