Ephraim is always asking to make things in the kitchen. I had been sitting on this eclair recipe for a few days hoping that I would have enough energy one afternoon to try them. He saw the page open on my computer and asked to help. Sometimes the extra energy I need is just someone else being enthusiastic about a recipe.
[Read more…]fifteen months (eldore rex)
Eldore turned fifteen months on the nineteenth of February.
As I’m typing, the little man himself is busily darting from one end of the room to the other. He has a washcloth in his hand. He runs this way, then that way, then sits down by the door, then disappears for a second (Mom! Dodo’s in the trash! Clive yells at me.) Then he’s running back near me again, now with one of my hair ties, and he’s trying to fit in on the back of Elvie’s junior chair.
Then he’s got pencils, and I tell Clive to get them from him. Eldore complies willingly, like it’s all part of the game, then goes straight back to drawer where he found them in the first place. “No, Eldore!” He looks at me for a second like I’ve grown another head, then throws himself down to the floor on his belly, stretching his arms in front of him and his feet in the air. He never breaks eye contact when he does this. I’m not entirely sure what the gesture is supposed to communicate.
[Read more…]fourteen months (eldore)
Eldore Rex turned fourteen months on January the 19th.
This month he took two leaps (or steps, as it were) forward: he started walking and talking.
The walking was partially at my insistence, picking him up and making him stand and take steps forward, which he mostly did gladly (except when he learned that sitting down made me react in a rather comical fashion, so then he did it on purpose.) After we indulged in this exercise for a day or two, he took it upon himself to begin taking steps around on his own.
Now, about two weeks later, he positively careens about the house, his legs still stuck in that stiff baby-walking way but his mind clearly set on running wherever his marionette-limbs will take him. He falls down, but mostly pops back up and keeps on rolling without even a second thought.
He’s officially the earliest walker we’ve had, but only by about two weeks. He may certainly be the most determined and haphazard walker we’ve seen yet.
[Read more…]thirteen months (eldore rex)
Eldore turned thirteen months on the 19th of December.
I will try to remember what he was like then, and not what he is like now, after Christmas and New Years, when he’s really thirteen-and-a-half months old. At this age, change comes constantly and rapidly, and if you’re a couple of weeks late on an update (as I am now) you almost have a different child on your hands than you would have if you had written said update when you were supposed to.
eleven months (eldore rex)
ten months (eldore rex)
Eldore Rex turned ten months on the 19th of September.
I missed his nine-month post, partially because I was sick and partially because he started crawling not long after he turned nine months, and there just wasn’t a whole lot interesting to say about the previous month in comparison.
So that’s our biggest news: all of his efforts reaching for things, getting up on one knee or maybe both, and rocking, rocking, rocking back and forth finally paid off in forward motion. Now there is simply no stopping him. He is into everything–I’m sure you’re shocked–he spends his time busily crawling from cabinet to cabinet and drawer to drawer to find all the things he’s not supposed to touch.
inconvenient babies
The year was 2017, and Eldore Rex upset the whole thing. From the early Spring when I found out I was pregnant, to the garden I was unable to plant for morning sickness and first trimester fatigue, to the summer activities I could hardly participate in for pain, to the Autumn I barely had thought for as I tried to scrape our lives and routine back together in preparation for a new baby, all ending on that lovely November evening, just a few days before Thanksgiving, when he was born.
thoughts on baby number five
This post was originally written in November of 2017, and probably never finished because Eldore was born just a few days later. The emotional upheaval did recede with his birth, like I thought it would, and we have enjoyed a lovely nearly-nine-months of having him in our family.
seven months (eldore rex)
Eldore Rex turned seven months old yesterday.
As I type he is seated on the floor behind me, nestled in the boppy pillow; although when I turn to look at him I find him flung backwards and looking at me (upside down) with an eager expression. He will not sit up for long–not because he can’t, but I think maybe he is not content to–he flings himself at whatever toy is nearby (always better than the one he has in his hand) and ends up on his belly, or on his side, or draped across the pillow backwards like he is right now, and inevitably blowing raspberries.