Dear Eliana

Dear Eliana,

On January 4 of this year, we celebrated you first birthday! I can hardly believe the time has flown by so fast.  It does not seem like a year ago already that you made your hasty, miraculous entrance into this world. After a pregnancy wrought with complications, your arrival four weeks early and a mere twelve minutes after arriving at the hospital should probably have given us a little window into your little personality and the fulness with with you live life.  You were truly named “Eliana Joy” with good reason–you are our answered prayer, and such a joy to this house!  “Full of Life” and “Bundle of Energy” come to mind when we think of you.  “Spitfire” and “Pistol” are also words that readily to to mind when describing your vivacious, precocious personality:-).

You were a little peanut when you were born, weighing in at 5 lbs 12 ounces, and you remain a little peanut, barely making the charts with your 18 pounds and 26 inches.  You crawl around the house with the speed of a train, but you have not attempted walking yet.  Lately, though, you are trying to stand by yourself, and letting go of things to stand up unassisted for seconds at a time.  I know it is only a matter of time before you take off running and never stop!

You climb over everything in sight!

Though for the first few months of your life you slept and ate and ate and slept like most newborns, as you began to outgrow your 0-3 month clothes, you began to outgrow your need for much sleep. You don’t require nearly the amount of sleep most babies your age do (and certainly not as much as your older brother has!), and so we have learned to adapt our expectations accordingly.  Most days, your brief nap time is followed by a period of independent quiet play while your brother finishes his lengthy nap and this Mama can work around the house for a little bit longer before you descend upon the place again, ready to tear into whatever is nearby.  When you do sleep, you love to bunch up your blanket underneat you and sprawl out across it in a most humorous way.

You absolutely adore your brother, and when you wake from a nap and hear him playing away, you instantly come to attention, scramble to climb out of my arms, and crawl full-speed ahead towards him.  Your brother, on the other hand, is not as enthusiastic about you joining in his fun, as he has usually built or assembled something that he has a definite plan for.  When you descend upon the scene, your greatest pleasure is to undo everything that he has worked so hard to build. It’s all in good fun to you, but your poor brother is devastated, and you typically begin stealing toys back and forth from each other, followed by subsequent shrieks of outrage at the audacity of the other.  My greatest joy, though, is when I hear the two of you laughing together, smiling over toys, and sharing sweetly.  I hope you will always love and cherish and care for each other as you grow older.

As you outgrew the newborn days, you became less and less snuggly, so eager to see and explore the world were you.  When we would hold you close, you would turn your whole body around and hold yourself up stiffly, refusing to be held close as it might obscure your view of your surroundings.  In the last couple of months, however, you have begun to love to be held close once again.  Now, we delight in your throwing your arms around us and burrowing your face deep into our shoulders as you give us a long, delightful hug, typically humming merrily as you do.  Your daddy recently rejoiced as you began reaching for him as soon as he comes home from work, or when you hurt yourself, that you crawl to him for comfort, hugs, and kisses.

This was the night you regained your snuggles. You awakened late in the evening, feeling sickly, and Daddy snuggled you for an hour before putting you back to sleep. You’ve snuggled again ever since:-)

Speaking of your love for your daddy, he lights up your world!  If you are in another part of the house and you hear your daddy come home and begin to wrestle with your brother, your face lights up and you let out a shriek of delight, crawling towards the sounds of merriment as quickly as your chubby legs will carry you.  You then join in the fun with all the energy in the world. You are one of the toughest girls I know, rarely caring if you get tackled, knocked over, or trod upon by your brother in one of your many wrestling matches.  You typically bounce right back up with grins and giggles, ready to take on the world, as usual.

You followed in your brother’s footsteps as far as your eating habits are concerned, skipping purees and going straight to table food at about 9 months old.  Until then, you were exclusively breastfed, and you still nurse a few times a day. You’ve always been a bit of a “bottle snob,” and we have always had a difficult time leaving you if it was over a time where you were supposed to nurse.  You still refuse most bottles and sippies, prefering instead to either drink straight from a glass, or out of a straw (your absolute favorite).  If it is milk you are supposed to drink, though, we might as well forget it.  You turn up your nose at it and refuse to drink any. Eating table food was harder for you than your brother, as he had a mouth full of teeth by your age, and you barely had two until only a couple of weeks ago.  Now you have 6, and chewing foods is much easier for you.  You don’t like things cut up, but rather prefer them handed to you whole, and you take little (and sometimes big) bites out of them until them are gone.  You then exclaim loudly, “Mah! Mah!” (to which your brother replies, “No, no, Baby, Mama is right here,” thinking you are calling for Mama).

Guacamole Girl!

You are such a bundle of joy, we can hardly contain ourselves.  Big Sister Rehan cannot resist kissing you over and over until you wriggle out of arms, pushing away with an exclamation of indignation.  But for all your fiestyness, you are the sweetest little girl I could imagine, and we love you to pieces!

Love you always and forever,

Your Mama

Eliana – 6 Months!

Eliana, you’re 6 months old!!

By the numbers: 6 months old. 5-6 daytime feedings and an occasional MOTN feeding.  2-3 naps per day.  size 3 diapers. size 6-9 month clothes.  16 lbs, 24.5 inches.

With Cousin Cora, 18 days younger

I cannot believe how quickly this month has flown past and how much you have changed! You hit a number of milestones this month, including moving from your bassinet to a pack ‘n’ play, scooting distances, sitting alone, standing alone (well, leaning up against the coffee table), and introducing solids.  You are still as happy and content as ever, filling our home with giggles, smiles, and an abundance of joy.  I especially love how much your big brother adores you.  When he is grumpy, just one smile from you will instantly change his sour mood into delighted laughter as he joins you wherever you are playing. He especially loves to share his tractors with you and watch you clumsily play with them.

This month, I buckled down on both routines and potty training.  I re-instituted your eat/wake/sleep routines, as well as your bedtime routine.  As usual, you responded instantly to the new routine with as much contentment as ever.  A typical day looks a little something like this:

5:30am – Nurse and right back to sleep

7:00am – Awake! Nurse, potty, dressed for the day

8:00am – Potty, Nap

10:30am – Nurse, potty, awake

12:00pm – Potty, Nap

3:30pm – Nurse, potty, awake

5:00pm – Potty, Nap

5:45pm – Nurse, potty, awake

7:30pm – Potty, Nighttime routine, nurse

You still occasionally randomly wake up in the night, and I either give you your paci or nurse you if you are inconsolable.  Every time you wake from a nap, you nurse, and then I take you to the potty.  You fit perfectly on Shuah’s little potty seat and coo and laugh the whole time you’re pooing and peeing, reaching for your toes and attempting to pull them into your mouth.  If we aren’t heading out any place, I just keep you diaperless during your whole awake time and take you potty when you either give me a sign that you need to go, or once 30-45 minutes have elapsed since you last went.  You go nearly every time I take you, and I am really enjoying the lack of poopy diapers to clean!

You have been growing in leaps and bounds this month!  When you see something you really want (which is nearly everything placed in front of you), your eyes grow large, and you do whatever you can to reach the object of your affection.  You roll and scoot and slide across the floor.  You love playing with your brother’s toys and will stand up all by yourself at the coffee table, turning his toy tractors over and over in your pudgy hands and shoving them in your mouth.  Just a couple of days ago, we sat you up to see if you could sit by yourself.  You quickly took to the new position, self-correcting to the right and left as you began to lean.  You enjoy the new view of the world, but you still would rather stand up!

You have been eyeing food a lot lately, watching us intently as we eat our lunch or dinner, so last week we decided to sit you in the high chair and give you a cooked carrot to experiment with (since we do Baby Led Weaning, we skip purrees altogether and go straight to table food).

You rolled it around your tray for a bit, grasping it with your little fingers and pulling it to your mouth.

Once you got it in there, you weren’t so sure about it!

Whenever you are awake during a meal now, we let you sit in your high chair with us, put some food on your tray, and you explore the texture and taste.

You are growing and changing so quickly now, it is hard to not want you to just stay little.  But I know with each new day, you grow more into the person God has created you to be, and I rejoice in that.  You are our Sweetie Punkin Pie, our Little Princess Piglet, and we love you more every day.

Eliana – Five Months

Eliana, you are five months old!! By the numbers: 5 months old. 5(ish) daytime feedings and 1 (or 2, or 3) middle of the night feeding (usually around 4:30m…or midnight…and 3am).  2-3 naps per day.  size 3 diapers. size 6 month clothes.  14.5 lbs.

As you can tell from the numbers, this month has been anything but predictable!  Between attempting to wean you of your paci (which ended in dismal failure) and the cold you have had for a week, we have not gotten much sleep this month.  Because of your haphazard sleeping patterns your eating has also been thrown off.  We are all around off kilter here, but so far at least, you remain just as happy as ever!  The routine you are typically following (and I use the word “typical” very, very loosely) is eat around 4:30 or 5am, so when you wake up around 7, you are not in the least hungry.  So then halfway through your morning nap, around 9:30, you wake up absolutely starving, eat some food, and then go back to sleep for another hour or two.  Of course, when you wake up at 11, you are not hungry, so you eat again before your next nap around noon.  Your afternoon nap has been hit or miss lately–either a mere hour, or a lengthy three-hour nap, and I can never guess which it will be.  If you wake early, you and I just play, or you “help” me with the housework until your brother wakes up.  You are typically hungry for your next feeding around 3 or 4, which is right before your final nap of the day, which is only 45 minutes.  Your normal eat, wake, sleep routine is out the window.  Perhaps we will get back in the groove soon, but for now, we are managing just fine.  Your bedtime has also been unpredictable, because sometimes you take your late catnap, and sometimes you don’t.  So sometimes you are ready for bed by 7, and other times, you don’t fall asleep til 8 or even 9 a couple of nights!  Thankfully, as I say many times on a daily basis, you are not my first born, so we all just “go with the flow” together, and I do not stress out about it like I would have with your brother:-)

You have not had any major milestones this month, other than your sheer cuteness.  You are becoming very easily distracted, though, and I usually have to disappear into a dark room to feed you now, as everything in the house is simply so exciting, who needs to eat??  I love the way you are so observant, that whenever you are playing on your floor gym, if anyone walks past, you instantly stare at them, your eyes following them around the room in an effort to get their attention.  Sometimes you coo or laugh to get people to notice you, and when they do, you laugh and squeal and kick your legs in delight.

Your favorite person is still your big brother-and you are his!  Oh how you love his hugs and kisses! He loves to come up when you are playing in your exersaucer and (after giving you a multitude of hugs and kisses) show you how to do all your toys and gadgets.  Whenever you wake up from your naps and come out to play, he squeals “Beebee!!” in delight that you’ve joined us.  He always wants to make sure you are coming with us on outings, and often has trouble going to sleep if he did not get to say goodnight to you.

Regarding potty training, I realized with horror that I have been letting too much time get away from me in my laxity on the potty training thing–your brother went poopy exclusively in the toilet from 8 months old on–I only have 3 months to catch you up!  My weariness of changing poopy cloth diapers is my motivation to get back on track.  Now that you can sit up on your little potty so well, it will be much easier to just take you potty every time I change your diaper.  I was worried you may have forgotten how, but as soon as I sat you on the potty just now, you happily relieved yourself!  You will be just as happy not to have to sit in your stink as I will be not to change it anymore:-)

Your daddy and I were in a wedding this month, and so your Uncle Alex and Aunt Jess came over to take care of you for the weekend.  While you were a little extra fussy due to your cold, I think you all had a lot of fun!  They got you all dressed up for the wedding, but you both napped too late to attend.  We did manage to get some cute pictures, though!

You are our Princess Piglet, our little Cutie Pie, our Darling Dumpling, and we love you.

Love,

Mama

Eliana – Four Months!

Eliana, you are four months old!

By the numbers: 4 months old. 5 daytime feedings and 1 middle of the night feeding (usually around midnight-2am).  3.5 naps per day.  size 2 diapers. size 3-6 months clothes.  13 lbs.

You are growing up so fast, I can hardly believe it!  This month, you began your pursuits in mobility, as you rolled over for the first time!  You also succeed in scooting way off the play mat when you are laying on your back under your floor gym.  Something tells me you will be crawling before we know it! People don’t comment as much on the size of your eyes–as your Aunt Sister puts it, you are “growing into them.”  You are growing rounder and chubbier by the day, and we love counting all your little rolls of chub!

Your sleeping has been somewhat erratic of late, but you can blame that on me.  I have to admit, I am not as concerned (read: obsessed) with your sleeping habits as I was with your brother.  You were sleeping through the night in nine, ten, and eleven hour solid stretches, without even waking to eat.  But a few weeks ago you went through a growth spurt and we haven’t quite been able to get back on track since then.  I am hoping that moving you to a four-hour eating schedule during the day will help. I can tell you are ready for it, I have just been lazy about implementing it.  Your daily routine is beginning to look something like this: 7am-eat, wake, sleep. 11am-eat, wake, sleep.  3pm-eat, wake, sleep.  6:30pm-eat, nighttime routine, down for the night.

As far as potty training is going, well, it mostly isn’t.  You have “naked time” after every feeding, and when I take you to the toilet, you do go occassionally, but mostly, I am just not making much of an effort to take you.  I blame it on the chaos that is our basement being remodeled and that we don’t actually have any “place” for your or your things, except mostly in piles in our bedroom.  When things are more settled, I look forward to having a changing/diaper station with your little toilet next to it so we can really start working on no more poopy diapers! 🙂

You are more observant than ever.  Now people exclaim on how alert you are.  You are always looking around the room, eyes wide or brow contemplatively creased, taking everything in.  You most commonly find anyone who is not noticing you and begin grinning to beat the band until they finally notice you and ooh and ahh over you.  Your delightful, open mouth grin is almost always being displayed while you are awake.

And no one can make you grin more than your big brother.  Jeshuah continues to be infatuated with you.  From the moment he wakes up in the morning to the  time he is getting ready for bed, he is asking for “Bebe,” which he affectionately calls you.  He has always enjoyed giving you kisses (mostly by simply smashing his face and or chin onto your head), but you now enjoy kissing him back, opening you mouth wide and slobbering all over him, sending him into fits of giggles.

Our new favorite activity is making you “do things” with him, such as singing “Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes” while “pointing” them out with your fat little fist.  Jeshuah also enjoys when you join in with our evening dance routine throughout the living area, either by dancing with him and Daddy, or by “chasing” him around the house in circles.

You are growing up before our eyes, and we love every minute of it! I want to just freeze time and keep you as you are forever, while at the same time, I love watching you grow up and seeing the person you are becoming.  You are our joy and our delight, and we wake up each day eager to see what you will do next!

You’re our Precious Pumpkin Muffin, and we love you!

Eliana – 3 Months

(Format borrowed from dear friend, Andrea, at Entrusted.)

Eliana, you are 3 months old!

By the numbers: 3 months old. 6 daytime feedings and 1 middle of the night feeding (usually around 4am). 4-5 naps per day, sleeping through the night from 7pm to 7am (or sometimes 9 or later…).  size 1 diapers. size 3 months clothes.   11 lb 8 oz.  (approximately)

Eliana Joy, you are truly living up to your name! When God gave us your big brother, we thought we couldn’t be happier.  But now that we have two precious gifts from God, we continue to be amazed at how much deeper our love for you both grows daily!

This month was a month of milestones and turning corners for you.  You started smiling all the time, cooing and sticking your tongue out in delight at anyone who will smile back.  We love, love, love your one sweet dimple!

You also started laughing–though it sounds more like a cough–and you enjoy looking at your Mama or your toys and laughing aloud.  Another thing you started doing this month is sleeping very consistently through the night in long, uninterrupted stretches.  You get in your jammies and nighttime diaper around 6:30, have one last feeding, and fall asleep around 7pm, allowing your paci to fall out of your mouth soon after you drift into sweet slumber.  Then we don’t hear a peep from you until between 2 and 4:30am, when you wake for a quick feeding and go back to sleep until 6am, when I give you another quick feeding and put you back to sleep until you wake for the day around 8am.

You take after your brother in the excessive sleep department.  At 3 months old, you still sleep about 20 hours out of every day and stay awake for only 45 minutes to an hour after each feeding.  You are a much lighter sleeper than Jeshuah was, and when we tote you around on errands in your car seat, you wake up as soon as the car stops every time. (With your brother, I could carry him around from place to place all day long and he would stay asleep!).  But you sleep very well at home, unless you have an upset tummy, which has been happening more often lately.

Everyone’s first two comments when they see you now are always the same: “Wow, she is really filling out nicely!” and “Look at those HUGE eyes!!”  A lot of people also look at you inquisitively and say, “I’m just trying to figure out who she looks like–mom or dad?” You are also told regularly that you do not resemble your brother very much. Your aunts and uncles especially love getting pictures of you with your eyes wide, taking in the world.

You love your brother and he loves you! He loves to lean over you on your play mat and laugh at you, pulling your hands up and making them “tickle” under his chin. He loves to give you kisses and hugs and shove your paci in your mouth when you are sad (which is not very often). Jeshuah also enjoys playing the game where we find your feet, hands, knees, and all your facial features.  You do not always enjoy this as much as he does, though.  Lately, you have started interacting more with him, gazing at him intently, then bursting into smiles and coos, attempting to gain his attention when he is distracted.  He laughs at every little noise you make, mimicking it himself and then laughing again. I love watching the two of you play!

You’re our Precious Pumpkin, our little Goosey, our Piglet, and our Cupie Cutie Pie.

We love you so much!

Mama and Daddy