Elliot is 7 months old

I never thought Elliot would be crawling so soon. He's not crawling to the point that he can get from the living room to the kitchen (unless I left him alone all day) but he's definitely figured out how to move from the crawling position to sitting up and vice versa. He has figured out how to move forward, but he only does it in very small amounts at a time (thank god). He's also starting to pull himself up on furniture, which is the prelude to standing and eventually walking. Yikes! I'm not ready for that at all. Where's my cute little baby that just laid in my arms all day?



He also has two bottom teeth and two top teeth now. His first top tooth (right one) poked out during our Tahoe trip mid-Feb. Those were some miserable nights - it culminated in him walking up every hour screaming (definitely not a vacation). I guess my kids get their teeth early. It's funny that he barely has his top teeth and he grinds his teeth all the time! I remember my little brother used to grind his teeth when he slept as a kid (don't know if he still does it now). It's the most annoying sound. I guess Scarlett did it too. But I just didn't expect a baby who barely has teeth to do it.

Today Elliot went back to daycare. It was both a relief and sad at the same time. Pulling him out of daycare made my life so much more challenging in Feb. But it was worthwhile to see him healthy again, happy again, and to watch him learn to crawl, and spend a lot of time with him. During this month, he and I really developed a relationship where whenever he saw me, he usually smiled or wanted me to pick him up. My husband even commented that he seemed to prefer me. During this past week, he also finally started sleeping through the night again (well, waking up once at 3 or 4am or 5am to feed, which is fine with me). Not only was he a happier boy, it was also nice for my husband and I to actually get some decent amount of sleep. So it was sad to not have him with me all day. But it was nice to be able to go to a business lunch, catch up on work on my computer, and spend an unhurried hour making dinner (meatloaf) where I didn't have to hold Elliot. I just hope that he stays healthy now (knock on wood).

Progress on Eating Solids

Elliot was 8 pounds and 4 ounces when he was born. That's a bit above average. At his two month check-up, he was 65th percentile for weight. At his four month check-up, he had dropped down one growth curve and was at 41st percentile. By his six month check-up, he had dropped another growth curve and was at 16th percentile. I feel that his lack of robust growth is attributed to him being sick so much after starting daycare. His sicknesses led to lack of appetite, which led to low weight gain. Typically, pediatricians want babies to pick up more weight if they drop two growth curves. So our pediatrician told us to start him on solids if we haven't already and hopefully, the solids will bring his weight up. Well, for a month, he hardly ate any solids. It was so difficult to get him to open his mouth, let alone eat several spoonfuls of rice cereal or sweet potatoes. Luckily, he turned a corner a couple of weeks ago, around when he turned seven months old. Maybe he found something that he really liked but he ate two cubes of pear and a half cube of sweet potatoes in one sitting! After he had his first cube, he asked for more! A mommy friend told me that she couldn't feed her 5 month old fast enough and I thought, boy, I've never had that experience with either one of my kids. Now I see what it's like. Elliot hasn't eaten that much in one sitting since that time but he's gotten better with eating and I'm so glad that I made him homemade baby food. He's had sweet potatoes, butternut squash, pears, and apples. I still have carrots, peas, and zucchini in the freezer but I'm afraid to try peas for fear of rejection. Maybe I'll have daycare try it with him.

The Negotiator

Scarlett has become quite the negotiator. No wonder people say that 3's are tougher than 2's, despite the saying "terrible twos". She negotiates everything now. If we tell her 5 minutes until bathtime, she immediately replies, "no, 7 minutes." It becomes a push-pull conversation: "no Scarlett, 5 minutes." "How about 10 minutes..." If I ask her to eat her dinner, she tells me, "how about 2 more bites?" It gets old sometimes. Maybe she will be a great business person when she's older but for now, no negotiating!

Death

Have you ever tried to explain the concept of death to a 3-year-old? It's very hard. Even though Scarlett has talked about something being "dead", she really doesn't understand the concept of death. I didn't think it was a big deal to explain to her what it means at this age until this past Monday. The husband of the woman (Wally) who owns the daycare/preschool that Scarlett goes to passed away last Friday. They held a wake and prayer service at their home (where the daycare is) on Monday and I took Scarlett to it while my husband stayed home with Elliot. It was an open-casket service and so Scarlett got to see Wally's husband lying in the casket from a distance. I tried to explain to her what happened and the fact that he will be "asleep" forever. She didn't get it. She asked how long he was going to lie there and when he's going to get up. I tried to explain some more by telling her that everything dies eventually. Flowers grow from seeds, bloom, and then die. She then tells me, "but in spring the flower grows again. Lots of them." Hmm, okay, maybe that analogy doesn't work this time. Ok, maybe I'll talk about people. For example, her dad and I would die some day, most likely before she does, because we're much older than her. So she asks me, "mom, when will you die?" How do I answer that? I tell her that people are buried in the ground after they die. Then she asks me, "why do we bury them in the ground?" So I say, so that we can visit them. Okay, that doesn't help. Ok, I give up.

Sibling Entertainment

It's pretty cute to see positive interactions between Scarlett and Elliot. Sometimes, Scarlett can get Elliot to laugh just by looking at him. Sometimes, she reads or sings to him.

Ice Skating

I took Scarlett ice skating for the first time two weeks ago. It was a free event as part of the parenting forum that I subscribe to. I figured that since it's free, it would be nice to try and if she doesn't like it at all, we can just leave. My husband was still recovering from a stomach virus so it was just Scarlett and I. I figured that she may be too scared to try so I could just push her in the stroller on the ice. Well, I have to give her credit for being more adventurous than she usually is. After we got on the ice, I held her back and skated and after a few minutes, she didn't want to skate anymore. So I pushed her around in the stroller for a little bit, then she didn't want to do that either and wanted to have lunch. So we ate the pizza lunch that they provided and surprisely, she wanted to try again. She ended up holding and moving along the edges for quite a while. Then she decided that she wanted to play with the "snow" that accumulated around the corners of the ice rink. By the end, she warmed up to the idea of having me hold her back and skating around the rink. But by the time she enjoyed it so much and wanted more, time was up and we had to get off the ice.


Last weekend, we went skating at Northstar's ice rink while we were up at Tahoe. This time, it wasn't quite as fun or enjoyable. I held her back and skated for quite a while and ended up throwing out my back. I couldn't even bend over to take off my ice skates and had lower back pain for two days.

Year of the Rabbit

This year was the first time that we did not go down to LA to celebrate Chinese New Year with my family. Unfortunately, this year's CNY fell in the middle of the week so we decided not to visit LA. Of course I didn't know a few months ago when I checked the calendar and decided not to book plane tickets that we'd be too sick to make the trip anyway. So this year, I just made some Chinese food and bought a few Chinese New Year desserts. The CNY Eve 'celebration' was a hurried affair. I was attending a talk by Po Bronson (who wrote Nurture Shock) at a local preschool that evening so Scarlett and I ate dinner before my husband got home. As soon as he got home, I took off. But while we ate dinner, I explained to Scarlett that we were having a CNY Eve dinner. She then told me that I'm "a Chinese people." It was so funny I had to laugh. I know that kids recognize race even if we don't talk about it but I didn't think that she thought of herself as non-Chinese. I guess I better work harder at teaching her about her culture.