8 month stats

At Elijah's 8 month doctor's appointment our big boy measured:

21 pounds exactly

29 inches

Our sweet pediatrician, Dr. Goodman, hadn't seen Elijah in a while.  She was so surprised at how big he was, saying, "I cannot stand how cute he has gotten!" There were tears, however, as the nurse could not find his veins for his blood-draw.  It took far too long.  Tears from him and me.

 Eating: Elijah loves it all! Our little goldfish would eat as much as we would give him, though he spits it up afterwards if he gets too much… He’ll learn to self-regulate in time!

Moving: Elijah has been rotating like a clock, and then rolling where he wants to go fairly efficiently. This Saturday, he learned to “Army Crawl” across the floor, reaching an arm out and dragging his body after it. Crawling is just a glimmer away, though he has his sights set on walking. “Jumping” continues to be his passion.

Sleeping: This is the big success! Elijah has gone from waking 3-4 times a night, down to 1-2 times! He now will go down for either David or me, and has learned to “put himself back to sleep” when he wakes in the night. We just wish we knew what we did…

Teething: A tiny tip of a tooth is poking through the bottom, and it looks like another one is following.  Poor Elijah has all the symptoms, but most of all the teething runny nose.

covered in bananas-and-barley with a snot bubble...

All of this teething has made Elijah want to be held even more than he usually does.  He loves being "worn," but facing forward, Little Mr. Inquisitive grabs everything in sight.  We decided on a back carrier this weekend.  We got the Beco Butterfly II-- pricey, but worth every penny!  Elijah got a kick out of hanging out on my back as we made banana pancakes this morning.

 

the little sous chef is back in business!

San Francisco

Before Christmas, Jamie, Elijah and I went to San Francisco for me to attend the AGU (American Geophysical Union) Conference.  One of the highlights of the trip was Dad and Mom Voss joined us in San Francisco, as Dad wa going to the conference as well.  It was kind of an initiation process as both Dad and my professor Fritz had been attending the conference for decades, and were shocked to find out that this was my first AGU conference.

The center where I presented my poster.

We took a couple of days to go sight-seeing, amazed by the steep hills, colorful people, and breath-taking views.

Chinatown-- the largest in America

Felt like Japan, for Jamie

We took the stroller up and down the crazy-steep hills (in the background is the Bay Bridge... notice how the road just drops off!)

Coit Tower

Alcatraz Island

"Property of Alcatraz REJECT: Too Cute!"  Thanks, Grandma, for the outfit!

crooked Lombard Street

the Golden Gate Bridge

Elijah enjoyed charming the passersby while hitching a ride from Dad

downtown (yup, we did push the stroller up a HILL to take this picture!)

We enjoyed some hot chocolate at Ghiradelli Square.

the old Ghiradelli factory

and took a cable car

Elijah "holding on!"

our little family on the cable car

We had lunch at Fisherman's Wharf

Elijah enjoyed his exclusive time with Grandma,

and especially enjoyed Grandpa's moustache!

Jamie: Our trip made a wonderful Christmas present.  The best part for me, though, was that every morning David got up with Elijah and brought him downstairs to the Starbucks in the hotel lobby.  Elijah charmed the security guards while I got an extra hour of sweet sleep!  We had delicious meals, had fun shopping and having Mom and Dad Voss to ourselves.  Our hotel was downtown, so we enjoyed seeing the store windows decorated for Christmas. We took a drive over to see where David grew up, checked out their old property (bummer that the camera battery died, so no pictures!), bringing up lots of memories and entertaining stories!

a tooth!

a tooth!  the little man has a tooth!  we'll try and get a picture soon, though it's hard to get him to stay still with his mouth open "just so" long enough...

playing with lighting

We took these shots with our new camera, experimenting a bit with lighting, and with getting Elijah to smile...

Elijah at 8 months

Elijah at 8 months...

observant and inquisitive

babbles to himself

jumping continues to be his passion

strong

enjoys eating with us at the table

does not crawl, but rolls where he wants to go

Elijah's New Car Seat

Finally outgrowing his infant seat meant a trip to Babies R Us, where Elijah tested the seats for us.

Here's our big boy rockin' his new car seat on the way to church.  He loved it!

Elijah's 1st concert

I took Elijah to the Manchester Mother's Group's monthly concert.  We sat in a circle while Brian Dozer played his guitar, and the children danced.  Elijah "jumped" in my lap the entire time, loving watching all the kids.  The highlight for him was when a song called "Jump Jump Jump" was played, and all the kids and guitarist began jumping.  Elijah got a look of wild glee on his face as if he was thinking, "They're all doing what I LOVE to do!"  People started laughing, including Brian Dozer, as they saw Elijah come into his own!

no more paci

I think it's pretty much official... Elijah has decided he does not need his pacifier any more. It's been 5 days of absolutely no paci tolerance on his part, following 3 weeks of minimal, grudging interest. And here I was worried about having to tell him he couldn't bring his paci to kindergarten... We'll see if this is a passing phase, or a baby resolve?

the last paci photo?

(taken 2 weeks ago)

Elijah Dances

We hung up Elijah's Johnny Jumper this evening. We had a good feeling he would enjoy it as one of his passions in life is jumping on our laps, but we didn't quite realize he would enjoy it this much. He squealed with glee as he jumped for 45 minutes.

Winter Wonderland

One of the reasons we moved out to Manchester-by-the-Sea was to enjoy the winters a bit more. When you're in the city the snow looks absolutely beautiful... for about 1 hour. Then it turns into mushy, nasty piles of dirty snow. Seeing as we were going to be in New England for at least one more year we wanted to see what the winter was like while not living in a non-snow friendly environment (i.e. BU).

The pictures are from the snow that has fallen in the past couples days.