First Day of School

Today was my first day back to school for meetings. I'll be teaching Bible part-time for 1st through 5th grades. This year I plan on teaching a "sweep" through the Bible, focusing on God's love for people, with emphasis on how Jesus reconciles us to God, and how God's "rescue plan" is seen through the whole story of time. I can't wait to start! This will be great accountability for me, too, to spend time reading the Bible and praying.

Today was Elijah's first day in the nursery. David got a kick out of the name of my school's on-site nursery, the "Wiggly Warriors." Their mission statement is to help train up little wiggly ones to be leaders for the Lord. Elijah was so good! He grinned when I came to nurse him, but was clearly enjoying himself sitting in a vibrating bouncy seat watching the little kids.

David and the Dissertation

After 21 and a half years, the time has come for David to write his dissertation. Always the resourceful thinker, David will be pulling from not just his present research (as most people do,) but his undergrad and Master's work as well! His topic? How to make satellites cheap and quick (Jamie paraphrase... I may be leaving something out!)

Some day soon David will be able to enjoy his evenings and the beach without working on his paper, but until then, he works hard!

a clever use of hands and feet

When you aren't very steady with your hands, it helps to brace your toy with your feet!


I love how Elijah brings his hands to mid-line ("praying hands.") He'll hold both of them together, and grasp at his toy in a wobbly way, using his hands to steady each other.

Look, Daddy!

Elijah thinks his Daddy is great. He lights up when David comes home from work, showing off his smiles and wiggles. Today David stayed home to do some writing on his dissertation. During "tummy time" today, Elijah summoned his strength and heaved his head up farther than he ever has. When David looked up from his writing and cheered, Elijah beamed with pride. Moments after this picture, he collapsed in exhaustion on the blanket, but you could tell he was pleased.

U-Haul

Maybe I should cite U-Haul as a reference on my disseration.

3 months old!

Yesterday Elijah had an Early Intervention evaluation. He qualified for this service having been in the NICU and having had early feeding issues. David and I decided to go ahead with the free evaluation. We were glad, but not surprised, to hear that Elijah is right where he needs to be in terms of development. He did rank lower on the "playing with toys" section (cognitive) because he kept looking past the toy and smiling and cooing at the therapist waving it. Of course this caused his high ranking for "social/emotional" and "expressive language," and the nurse kept laughing about how happy and social he was. She told us she wasn't at all concerned, but that by the end of the month he should be starting to grab at toys and put them in his mouth, which of course, he did that afternoon, right after they left!


Elijah is now:

• sleeping between 6-8 hours a stretch at night (thank you, little boy!)
• smiling all of the time (see above story!)
• cooing and making baby-words
• cuddling and snuggling (I love this!)
• "playing" with toys
• lifting his head to a 45-degree angle (though he still HATES tummy time, like most little ones, I guess!)
• following us with his eyes and turning his head (very much a people-person so far!)
• growing fast-- he's out-lengthed his frog!

Uncle Jeremy visits Boston

My brother Jeremy was able to visit us this weekend. We walked to the beach, and saw the sights on the Freedom Trail. We also ate well on clam chowder and fish sandwiches, drank iced coffee, and sampled cannoli, gelato and Boston Cream pie. Jeremy declared that he had pretty much "done Boston" in 32 hours. We told him there was a lot more, and that we'd have a new tour ready for him when he came back. Elijah and his Uncle Jeremy had a great time grinning at each other!

we're going cloth, baby!

Here's Elijah on top of his clean cloth diapers. It's as clean as they'll ever be, and the last time they will all be clean at the same time!

sleep and swaddling

In a lot of ways, Elijah still has some of his sleepy-baby habits. He naps during nursing, drifts off during stroller rides, and snoozes in his carseat. As he gets older and more active, though, we are watching these habits change, and are having to learn the art of putting him down for a nap or to bed.

As wiggly and active as Elijah is, swaddling is what helps him fall asleep. If we don't swaddle him, he startles himself out of sleep with a jerk of his arms and legs. Once he's asleep, though, without fail he worms his arms out and either throws them back, or tucks them behind his head. He's done this since he was first born.

The month of July was unseasonably cool (see the warm nest David made for Elijah on one such evening stroll,) so this wasn't a problem, but August without air conditioning made us concerned about poor little Eli's need for swaddling. My friend Laura heard about this, and made us some very cute light-weight swaddling sheets that are big enough for our tall boy with room to grow! Thank you, Laura! (Don't worry- he doesn't sleep with the frog-- it's just there for the picture!)

moving right along!

We're finally moved in! What a move it was, too...

1. Truck reservations are a pain... We found out that our truck was only available at 5pm on Saturday, instead of 8am. Apparently August 1st is the 2nd busiest moving day of the year (after September 1,) and it being a Saturday made it even worse. We picked up the van and were told that we only had it from 8pm-8am. WHAT?! David and I did a mad-packing job, throwing things into boxes, while juggling feeding and putting Elijah down to sleep (crazy!) Finally, we decided it was worth the fine we would have to pay to keep the truck longer as we were too exausted to drive up to Manchester. We felt guilty that we were taking the truck from some other people like us, but reasoned that we had reserved the truck-- it was UHaul's problem... When we returned the U-Haul the next day at 5pm, ready to pay a hefty fine, we found out that the previous night's staffworker had made a mistake, and that we had it until 5pm after all... sigh. At least we didn't do an all-night unload!

2. Moving with an infant is way more complicated than moving just as a couple! My time was cut by a third, and Elijah sensed the commotion. I suppose it is easier now, though, than when he's two, wanting to explore, confused why his things are being boxed, and what strange room he's sleeping in...

3. Good friends help! We could not have left BU without 2 wonderful friends from Residence Life helping David load the truck (down two elevators and through security!) while I stayed up with Elijah. Some good friends from our small group came over to help us unload after church and we finished in record time!

4. My mom is a superhero! David worked at a crazy pace unloading us, and did an unbelievable job setting us up before he had to leave the next day for a conference in California. Mom Otten came out here to help while he was gone. Our definition of "ready to move in" was a little different than our landlord's-- cleaning needed to be done. Basically, my mom is a superhero. She got down on her hands and knees (diapers strapped to her knees as pads) and scrubbed our kitchen floor. What we thought was a beige and brown floor was actually white and green. She was amazing! I didn't take pictures because I didn't want to remember the sorry shape the floor was in! When she left, the apartment looked like a vacation home!

Elijah enjoyed having his Oma with him, especially dining al fresco at the beach, and visiting Kelly's for clam chowder.

We are basically "all moved in," and are working on putting the finishing touches-- hanging pictures, etc. We'll put up some pictures soon! We only just got internet yesterday, as Comcast blew it twice!

Throughout all this Elijah has made a few developmental milestones, including blowing bubbles, grabbing his toes, and playing with a toy. Check out the picture of Elijah's foot peeking out of the top of the crib as he attempts to grab it! We put up his mural in his new room, and today he laid on his tummy and arched his head to check out the lion on the wall. He smiles and coos at his partially completed mural! Cute!

Sleeping through the night!

Elijah slept through the night last night! He went down to sleep around 10:30pm and didn't wake until 6:30am! What a sweet little boy. He must have known we needed a full night sleep before our big move today. Of course, I woke up several times to check on him because I couldn't believe it was true!

We leave Warren Towers today and move to our "beach house." We won't have internet, so we'll have to wait until August 7 to update you again because clever Comcast went to Manchester, NH instead of Manchester, MA! Our landlord thought that was hilarious!