History of the J Man

There’s been a Buzz Lightyear resurgence in our house.  First Jonah spent the weekend in his Buzz PJ’s - during the day that is. He had to take them off so we could wash them overnight. Then today he wanted to wear his Buzz Halloween costume to school.  My feeling is that as long as he gets dressed himself he can wear whatever he wants! And at least I’m getting my money’s worth out of that costume.

My one fear is that he talks about how everyone will wear space helmets at his birthday party…not sure that’s going to happen…

Elliott had a good first birthday.  The extended family came over to our house for Mother’s Day/Elliott’s birthday.  We had a nice brunch then Elliott got to open gifts.  Or should I say, Jonah got to open Elliott’s gifts then maybe he let Elliott play with them.

Then of course there was birthday cake from which both boys only ate the frosting and left all the actual cake.

That was a couple days before his birthday so last night we also had cake and let him open a gift.  Elliott is our musical baby so he’s been enjoying all his new music making toys.  He got a little piano as a gift and I found him in the play room yesterday morning.  He had pulled it off the shelf and even turned it on by himself.  There’s a microphone on the side and he knows to “sing” into there.  It’s very cute.

What wasn’t so cute, however, was him not sleeping on his birthday night.  He went down fine at 8pm but then was up from about 10pm - midnight.  I have no idea why.  But he’s one now!  And walking everywhere!  Isn’t the sleeping supposed to kick into high gear right about now?

I have a lot of updates that I’ve been meaning to write about for weeks.  I’m not working full-time these days but between juggling a couple clients, interviewing for a new job, researching to find a new job and spending time with the boys I feel like there’s less time now than there usually is.

Jonah

Jonah continues to love school.  I swear he comes home each day singing a new song and talking about a different kid.  He does have a couple BFFs but he does a great job of playing with other kids on days his BFF is not there.  His vocabulary is also expanding rapidly.  Some of our favorite new words of his include: dead end, muck, nocturnal and automatic.  He’s also been counting and doing simple math problems both at our prompting and on his own now.  We do them a lot at the dinner table.

This session of gymnastics just ended but he’s come a long way.  I’ve been able to take him myself a few times this session and it’s great to see him running and participating in the activities and also answering the teacher as she talks to the group.  I think school has been great for Jonah’s self-confidence.

Elliott

Elliott has been growing and learning new tricks a lot lately too.  The biggest ones are walking and signing.  He’ll do sign language signs now for ‘milk’, ‘water’, ‘more’,  and the other day I swear he did the sign for help as he reached for the door knob on the front door.  He knew it was time to go an apparently didn’t want to wait for the rest of us.

I was prepared to write and tell about how often he will now stand on his own and will occasionally take a few steps in between furniture but by Friday those couple of steps have begun to stretch out to 4-6 at a time.  Usually it’s with us calling to him and pulling away as he comes towards us but now I’ve seen him take a few all on his own too.  Today he was literally laughing out loud as he walked between Chris and I.  His other trick is playing catch.  If you roll the ball to him, he will throw it back and laugh.  Chris is also sad that he is using his right hand to this almost exclusively, which means his dream of Elliott playing major league baseball one day probably won’t come true.

This won’t be news to anyone who I’m friends with on Facebook but Elliott is also out-eating Jonah at times.  I hope they both continue to be good eaters who like a lot of different foods as they grow up.  On the other hand, at this rate Chris or I will have to pick up a 2nd job during their teen years just to keep food in the house.  Elliott does eat well but so far I think he’s trending slightly smaller than Jonah was at this age but with more hair (and in certain lights his hair is reddish!).  There’s not a huge difference between their sizes but he’s not as heavy as Jonah was, based in their doctor visit records at least.

Unfortunately, Elliott still isn’t sleeping through the night very well.  He’ll still wake up a couple of times a night, though there are some nights where he doesn’t wake up at all, so it’s a little hit or miss.  He definitely not anywhere near as good a sleeper as Jonah was and remains.  You can change Jonah’s clothes if he’s truly out, but the other day Chris took Elliott for a walk in the stroller.  He was asleep when they came back and all he did was raise the shade on stroller and Elliott was awake.

Lastly, I need to get Elliott signed up for a music class.  Jonah likes to sing but Elliott seems to be our musical boy.  He likes it when anyone sings, he dances to his toys that play music, he likes to play with Chris’s guitar and he even starts to hum a bit himself when he’s tired.  It’s very cute.  Maybe he’ll take after Chris and have some musical talent.

When we go out everyone always thinks Elliott is a girl. We wanted to make sure to document this look. We haven’t gotten his hair cut professionally yet. We probably will when he’s closer to a year old. In the meantime I prefer to think of this as his Justin Bieber hair style. Maybe it helps hide his crazy teeth.

In other Elliott news, we’re pretty excited that he is beginning to sign.  When Jonah learned how to communicate what he wanted, it seemed like he wasn’t as cranky.  Right now, he’s got the sign for “milk” pretty much down, and tonight he did “more” for the first time.  When we ask, “How big is Elliott?” he will put his hands up (usually) when we say, “Soooo big!”  At least he seems to be learning that when he does it, it delights everyone, which of course makes him excited.  He’s also started to clap his hands here and there, but usually just when he sees someone else doing it.  A couple of other motions he does is he waves when you say hi or bye and he is also starting to kiss, which is very cute.

One thing Elliott has really picked up on is when he has a toy phone, he will hold it up to his ear like he is really talking.  I guess we must do that a lot.  :-)  He also loves the remote controls and the humidifiers, mostly for the buttons.  He has toys that have buttons too, of course, but I think he likes the remotes because he sees Mama and Daddy using it so much.  And finally, he all-time favorite object is whatever his big brother Jonah is playing with.  Doesn’t seem to matter what it is.  Jonah still has a thing or two to learn about sharing.  Usually when Elliott reaches for something, Jonah will say, “No, Elliott!” and then take his toy about two feet away, at which point Elliott will start crying.  We try to let him share, but our method is to say that Elliott can have a turn when he is done.  Like most three-year-olds, Jonah doesn’t usually hold onto a toy for very long.

Speaking of Jonah, he continues to have a great time at school.  He has a new best friend named Layne that he just loves.  Layne is a little older than Jonah (he just turned five) and is really good at reading, so hopefully some of that rubs off.  They really seem to get along well.  Chris and Jonah went to the Museum of Science and Industry over the President’s Day holiday with Layne and his parents and they had a great time.  There is also a little girl at school named Sienna (affectionately nicknamed Sisi) and apparently the three of them as known as the Three Musketeers.  At a recent kids birthday party, they were together quite a bit.  It’s a little odd to think that Jonah is now forming his own relationship with other people, but I guess that’s it’s all a part of getting older.

Jonah’s vocabulary is also expanding.  The other day our nanny mentioned her fiance had to work at night, and Jonah asked, “Is he nocturnal?”  Both the nanny and I were very impressed that a) he knew this more complicated word and b) he used it in the exact right context.  I know that they talked about nocturnal animals on the show Chuggington (his current favorite show), and it’s been in a few books we’ve read.  It’s nice to see that some of the vocab is sticking.  Chris also tries to get Jonah to do simple math problems here and there, like if he has three cookies and you take away one, he’ll ask, “So three minus one equals how many?”  Sometimes he knows the answer, but usually he just wants to eat his dessert and not fool around with math problems.

Last note on Elliott — he seems to be sleeping better.  Not sure if it’s some of the sleep training we’ve been doing (which is basically sending in Chris or letting him cry for a little while), but he’s eating really well, so we know he isn’t hungry at night any more.  If he goes to sleep around 8:30 or so, he’ll usually sleep until past 5, which is really good compared to where he was just a couple of months ago, still waking up a couple of times after putting him down.  Some days he’ll wake up, nurse for a bit and then fall asleep again until after 7, sometimes he’s just awake and that’s it.  But still, that’s way better than waking up at 2 and staying up til 4.

It’s hard to believe Elliott will be 10 months in a couple of weeks!  Right now he’s got a bit of an ear infection, so he’s on antibiotics, so hopefully that clears up soon.  Tomorrow we all go house hunting, and the kids get to spend the afternoon and Grandma and Grandpa Diehl’s house.

We weren’t sure if it was really going to happen or if he was just going to skip it but it’s official - Elliott is crawling.  His first interest seemed to be learning how to pull himself up to standing and he was cruising the furniture before he started crawling so we wondered if he’d go straight to walking but he is crawling now.  He still likes to go into the commando crawl when he’s on the hardwood floor but he’s relying on crawling more now that he’s discovered how to do it. 

He still likes to stand and has discovered how to do it in his crib and pack-n-play.  In the last few days I’ve even seem him stand, unassisted, for a few seconds at a time.  And as he tries to pull himself up on things he’s also practicing his balance by ’standing’ on his knees.  We met a baby a few weeks ago that would walk around on his knees like that.  His mom said his sister did the same thing before she learned how to walk.  It doesn’t seem comfortable to me but who knows?  Whatever will let him keep up with big brother Jonah these days is what Elliott wants to do. 

He’s also eating a ton.  I don’t know if it’s all the new crawling or if he’s going through a growth spurt or what but here’s what Elliott ate for dinner tonight (keep in mind he’s not yet 8 months old):

- avocado

- mango

- cheerios

- beans

- corn

- 2 cubes of squash/mango baby food

- 1/3 jar of vegg/couscous baby food

And that was all after nursing about an hour before dinner and then he polished off a 5 oz bottle of formula about an hour after dinner.

By contrast Jonah ate:

- a couple bites of avocado

- 1 cherry tomato

- 1 slice of mango

- rice

- corn

- 1/2 a quesadilla (with a thin layer of beans and cheese)

- milk

- cookie

Most of the foods were similar since that’s what we all ate for dinner but I’m honestly not sure which kid ate more.  It’s crazy.  By the time they are teenagers I’m not sure how I’ll be able to keep food in the house! 

As Elliott continues to get the hang of walking while holding on to something he’s now starting to try harder tasks.  Now he’ll purposely lower himself down on his butt then pull himself back up.  Or today he was dropping his toy and then bending down to pick it up with one hand, while still holding on with the other.  He’s standing in his bed before he starts to cry out for us to get him these days too.  He doesn’t seem interested in crawling but maybe that will chance. 

Of course I couldn’t get any of those tricks on video but I did get him to wave at me.  He’s getting good at doing that for hello and bye-bye.

When he smiles maybe you can see his new top teeth.  All 4 decided to cut through at once!

Elliott Waving from Crib from Julie Diehl on Vimeo.

Over the holidays we decided to take the boys bowling.  This new alley actually had a “mom & tot” time in the morning so we went, bowled a game then had lunch.  Well actually we played some indoor bocce ball first, or pretended to.  Jonah just liked to roll the balls down the court and run up and down.  He liked that much more than the bowling.

Here’s a short movie of Chris helping Jonah bowl. 

Jonah Bowling from Julie Diehl on Vimeo.

I’m not sure what it is about the holidays for us.  If it’s all the new junk food that’s introduce to our diets, seeing more friends and family than we usually do in such a small space of time, or if it’s the cold weather somehow but it seems to get us every year.  First there was the day after Christmas that we spent in the ER with Jonah when he was about 1.5.  Then I think it was last year sometime when we went back to the ER to find out he had croup.  This year it was Elliott turn to get sick during the holidays.

Elliott helped me welcome in the new year by puking on me and the dinner table just after our dinner on New Year’s Eve.  He’d been pretty sleepy that day and had already had a blow out at the restaurant at lunch so I was already a little worried about him.  It was justified because he ended up having diarrhea for the next 48 hours.  I called the pediatrician’s office (of course closed for the holiday) and got the recommendation to give him pedialyte and no formula. He was nursing too but doing more comfort sucking than actually drinking and I was worried he’d get dehydrated.  The pedialyte was a no go though.  He wouldn’t drink it.  Not the flavored kind, not the unflavored kind, not mixed with formula or juice either.  After a solid day I went out and bought him some lactose-free formula, just so I could make sure he was taking in some liquids.  After the first night he perked up again so I figured he was doing ok.  Then he peed in the bath on the morning of Jan 2nd so I took that as a sign that he wasn’t dehydrated and was on the mend.  If I hadn’t seen that we may have headed to the ER later that day. 

Of course this always happens at times when Chris and I had plans to go out.  We didn’t bother trying to make New Year’s plans but we did book Grandma and Grandpa to babysit on the 2nd so we could go to dinner and a movie.  That didn’t happen though because Chris started feeling sick that morning.  We revised our plans and asked G & G to come and take Jonah, the only one feeling fine, out for a bit so Chris could rest and I could shower.

That’s about all I got do to though because I answered the phone after getting out of the shower to hear, “We’re coming home, Jonah just threw up in the car.” Our car that is, the one with they took because it has the car seat in it. 

So fresh from my only shower in 2 days and feeling crummy myself I strapped Elliott on and helped get Jonah into the house, stripped down and into the bath whild Chris and Grandpa attended to the car.  That night we all took it easy and had only a few handfuls of dry Cheerios for dinner with lots of water to drink.

I expected a rough night from the kids after that.  Figuring I’d be cleaning up more puke or comforting sick children but miraculously everyone slept the whole night.  Everyone but me that is.  I was up and down to the bathroom myself LOTS of times from 9:30pm to 2:30am when I think my fever finally broke.  What is it about a mom’s mind/body that allows us to not get sick until everyone else is taken care of? 

We spent the next day drinking more water and Gatorade and hanging out watching movies.  Trying to get Jonah to relax and rest was a challenge.  Luckily we’re all feeling better now, this must have been more like a 24-48 hour bug.  Not so fun though.  Not a good way to ring in the new year.  What is it about the holidays?  Next year I need to beef up our vitamins or hand washing or something!

Thanks to everyone who sent us a holiday card this year.  They are lovingly displayed on our mantle.  We send our letter via email last year though and I don’t think we can go back to paper now.

In case you haven’t seen it yet or in case your spam filter got a hold of it, I’m posting it here as well.  Happy Holidays and Happy New Year to all!

12/30/2010        

Greetings!

I hope this letter finds you happy, healthy and staying warm after the holidays.  With Hanukkah so close after hosting Thanksgiving this year and then Christmas after that, we’re slow getting this letter out, but hopefully it will find you before 2011.

Our biggest news from this year was the birth of our 2^nd son, Elliott Cameron Diehl.  He was born May 10, 2010 around 3:00am weighing 7 lbs. 7oz.  He was very easily and happily born at home, as planned, in under 5 hours. His big brother Jonah slept through the whole thing.

Jonah is 3.5 years old now and just started preschool down the block from our house.  It’s a new school with a class size of 7 and he loves it.  In fact he was unhappy about having to take a week off for the holidays.  He’s playing a lot, making new friends and learning things in the process.

Elliott is 7 months old now going on 3! He sits on his own and can pull himself up to standing to cruise the furniture but doesn’t crawl yet (he uses a commando crawl on his belly to get around).  He also doesn’t love baby food instead preferring to feed himself with his hands.  Through it all he’s a happy, smiling baby who loves to watch his older brother. 

This past July we went on our annual trip to Michigan with Julie’s parents, sister and brother-in law.  Elliott wasn’t sleeping all that well yet but Jonah had a great time catching minnows off the pier, going on a boat ride, picking raspberries, and just generally getting to run around a lot outside.

Chris’s family didn’t make it up to Michigan with us this year but we visited them over the 4^th of July weekend at their new home in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, instead.  We watched the fireworks from a boat on Lake Geneva and Jonah loved them.  He said they were like “magic” as we watched.  The captain later told us he had a better time listening to Jonah watch the fireworks than watching them himself! 

Next July we are planning to once again have both sides of the family up in Michigan.  By then Elliott might be walking, so we’ll need the extra hands!

Chris and Julie are both doing well as they adjust to life with two small boys.  Chris is still commuting to Schaumburg from the city but loves his job, so we make things work.  Julie has been contracting with Cisco Systems now for about 18 months and continues to enjoy the work and the perks and challenges of working from home 100%. 

Our condo was on the market until shortly before Elliott was born last year but did not sell.  We may try listing it again soon because we’d still like to move to the suburbs to be closer to work for Chris and to have more space (like a back yard) for the boys and Bianca.  Ideally, Jonah will be able to finish out the school year here then start somewhere new next fall, close to our new house in the suburbs.  Keep your fingers crossed for us or send potential buyers our way! J

Wishing everyone a wonderful New Year!

Julie, Chris, Jonah, Elliott & Bianca Diehl

For whatever reason, Jonah decided to nap INSIDE his mesh dirty clothes hamper today.  Doesn’t look very comfortable to me…