The Baylor Family Blog

Little did Eli know that soon after he adjusted back to life at home, his life was about to change. You see, Eli has bonded with his bottle. Combine that bond with his stubbornness and has small size, we’ve had a very difficult time getting Eli to drink out of his sippy cups. We’ve bought all sorts of different kinds of sippy cups to help him learn the strong suck required with a sippy cup. But if Eli didn’t want to drink out of his sippy cup, he’d all together refuse to eat. Unless we offered him a bottle. Now you might say, persevere…eventually he’ll give in. But the thing is, when Eli doesn’t eat well, he doesn’t sleep well. And when Eli doesn’t sleep well, life just isn’t very fun for anyone at home anymore!! And add that thought onto the fact that most of his first year has involved a focused effort on helping him gain weight and watching him not eat seems to go against everything we are working towards.

Well, with the recent positive doctor report that his weight is at a satisfactory level, Matt and I set out on a mission. I packed up all of his bottles and prepared for the worst. To my surprise, day 1 of full-time sippy cup went too smooth to believe. He loved it. He drank and drank and drank. I still wasn’t convinced it would continue to go this smooth long term. Day 2 he woke up and didn’t want anything to do with his sippy cup. He screamed and screamed and screamed. That’s more the reaction I was expecting. Determined not to give in, I decided to skip his morning milk and start his breakfast early. Success. And with his full tummy, he forgot he was on strike from the sippy cup and drank his milk. Sweet. I’ve had s few minor reactions since that point, but nothing that can’t be resolved with goldfish And Eli hasn’t had a bottle in several days! And the dishwasher basket to hold all of his little bottle parts is also packed away! So I think the mission can officially be declared successful!

So I brought Eli in for his 15 month checkup on Monday. I was partially dreading the appointment because I’ve been enjoying Eli a ton and didn’t want to hear all the things he should be doing and isn’t. During his first year, a lot of visits were like that, mainly related to eating and fine motor skills. I’m learning that is pretty typical of a growth-restricted baby. But, I actually left this appointment feeling more encouraged than discouraged! Eli’s weight is up to 20 pounds 9 ounces, placing him back in the 5th percentile for weight. That may not sound like much to some of you, but Eli hasn’t been in the 5th percentile in weight since he was 4 months old! His weight has been a constant concern, affecting our decisions of whether to feed him when he wakes up hungry at night and oftentimes more frequently during the day. So with that said, the doctor said we can stop adding instant breakfast to his milk (to make home-made pediasure) and we can also stop the multivitamin (or only give it when Eli is cooperative and its convenient). Of course, we’ll have to keep an eye on Eli’s weight and make sure he’s still gaining, but in the meantime, it takes some pressure off which is soo nice! Eli also went from the 1st percentile to the 17th percentile in height, measuring 30 inches tall!

Though I hesitated to say it at first, I don’t hesitate anymore to state that Eli’s first year was hard. Harder than I ever dreamed it would be. He couldn’t suck well enough to breastfeed. I pumped for 2 months hoping he’d catch on, as all the health care professionals were predicting, only to learn my son was in the small percentile who wouldn’t. So we switched to formula. Then I learned he was burning more calories while feeding than he was gaining. That led us to speech and occupational therapy for tips on mastering his suck well enough to take a bottle feed in 15 minutes instead of 30-45. During this visit, they discovered Eli had torticollus, damage to a neck muscle, and required two months of physical therapy to correct. Around the same time, Eli started to refuse to eat and we learned he was allergic to milk and soy…and the allergies continued on into solid foods. Through all this, we were battling severe acid reflux, causing Eli to choke and spit up frequently. Sleeping through the night came later than some babies, as Eli was still learning to eat and trust his food wouldn’t make him hurt. His doctor thought he’d outgrow all these things. By this point, I was skeptical. Eli seemed to be the exception to the rule. But by God’s grace, his reflux suddenly disappeared. And Eli tested negative to all food allergies. And he started drinking milk. Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine these things would just go away. And now he can eat table food. It feels like things are finally getting a little easier.

Now we are dealing with personality traits of our little boy, not necessarily medical conditions! Eli is incredibly active and ambitious. He plowed over a little girl (probably six months older than he was) at the playground. He was having so much fun and wasn’t watching where he was going. He always wants to run, and rarely will sit still for two minutes straight. If I want a still photo of Eli, it pretty much has to be while he’s sleeping. But with all is eagerness to try new things and be physically active, he needs predictable surroundings and lots of comfort. When his familiar surroundings are gone, he gets anxious. And when he gets anxious, he often copes by throwing up or banging his head or becoming incredibly fussy. Not fun things in my book. But I’m learning who my little boy is through all this, too. I’m slowly learning what he needs. And I’m looking forward to him learning words to communicate what he needs, and so I can prepare him and teach him to handle change and stress.

Parenting and motherhood are so different than I ever imagined. Much harder, but also much more rewarding. And incredibly life-changing. Every decision in my life now revolves around my little family. I thought everything would come more naturally and more intuitively. I thought the answers and how-to’s would be more obvious. That things would be more black and white. I know the type of child I want to raise…its how to get there, and remain sane in the process that is challenging I cannot imagine life without my husband and little boy. I love them and adore them.

In addition to swimming almost every morning at the resort’s pool, we travelled to a nearby town to visit an indoor pool. We had looked the place up on the internet ahead of time and found they had a very large kiddie pool! We were joined by Matt’s parents (the photographers) and Eli’s cousin, Nathan! The little boys had lots of fun in the kiddie pool and enjoyed floating in the lazy river with Matt and I nearby! Matt and I enjoyed the opportunity to be big kids and took a couple turns going down the waterslide! We were exhausted by the end of the day…but had more fun than we’d had in a long time!

Snow in June? Oh yes! In Vail, Colorado it happened not once, but twice the week we were there! The first morning we woke up, I looked at the window and I told Matt there was snow on the ground and he laughed at me (until he looked outside himself!). Later in the week, on another cool morning, we decided to take a walk over to the village. The weather didn’t look great and it was slightly misty. However, by the time we crossed over the interstate on the pedestrian bridge, the slight mist had turned into giant white snowflakes!! What could we do but laugh? After taking a detour to Starbucks to warm up, we let Eli run around and enjoy the snow! He stretched his arms up in the air and was running around trying to catch snowflakes! We never dreamed our first picture of Eli catching snowflakes would be in June, but we’ll take it! By the time we got back to the condo, it looks like we just came off the ski slopes as we were completely covered in snow!

Three of the four pictures below are of that snowy morning. The second picture below was taken when Eli took a seat by the ski rack to play with a pine cone. My husband, using his photographic eye, took the shot Enjoy…

On another trip into town, we visited the Children’s Fountain and taught Eli that fountains are not only fun to look at, but they are fun to play in! Though his tolerence of water temperature in better than last year, we wasn’t a huge fan on the chilly water and preferred to stay at the water’s edge. But here are some pictures to enjoy…

I have so much to blog about, I didn’t know where to start. Thus, I didn’t try. Thus a lull in this blog! But today all that changes!!

We recently returned from a week of vacation in Vail. Vacations are very different having a kid around. For example, I now pack outlet covers to keep my ambitious child from sticking fun objects in them. And we scout the area for parks and fountains and libraries. We pack way more than we hope we’ll need and then end up using most of what we pack. We rearrange furniture. We pack toys for the car, the stroller, the condo. And on and on and on!! Last year, Eli was only 3 months old on his first trip to Vail. This year, he was 15 months and enjoyed checking the place out! Since we knew Eli loved water, it was fun walking around Vail and showing him lots of cool fountains and streams. Here are some pictures of that (and me trying to remind him not to jump in!)…

We had a wonderful weekend here at home! Matt took Friday off and I didn’t work this weekend, so the three of us finally had a complete weekend with no major plans together! The only unfortunate part is Eli is still fighting off a cold, so he wasn’t quite 100%.

We hit jackpot on garage sales this weekend! I had been wanting some outdoor toys for Eli, and after some bargaining and waiting, we were able to get a little car and an outdoor play-yard for him! He loves his car. He hasn’t quite mastered “driving” it by himself, but of course, loves for his daddy and mommy to push him all over. Though we repeatedly showed him how to use the door on the car, he still prefers the classic Dukes of Hazard approach by sliding himself in through the window That’s not to say he’s good at that method either!! He suffered a couple tumbles face first into the car and ground.

The play-yard is definitely something he’ll have to grow into. He isn’t able to climb up on the platform and go down the slide by himself yet. We were trying to teach him to climb up the side, but he’s too small and not quite coordinated enough to do that safely. So for now, we lift him up on the platform and then he goes down the slide by himself. But there are plenty of things to crawl through and play around without any help at all! Here are some pictures of Eli enjoying his new toys!

First drive with Daddy!

Driving around the backyard while Daddy works on getting rid of the rock.

Getting into the car Dukes of Hazard style!

My new play-yard!

As you may notice in the second picture, we are working on some landscaping. We have quite a bit of rock around our home. Unfortunately, the landscape fabric is shot and weeds are shooting up in force. So we are digging up all the rock (about 4 inches deep…lots of work, but not so fun!), and plan to make most of it grass. I’m looking forward to less rock as Eli loves to sneak rocks into his mouth and I have to watch him like a hawk

In addition to the above, we stumbled onto a refrigerator at another garage sale. Matt has been wanting one for the basement to keep his pop in, so he was delighted to find a nice one for such a good deal! Then we came upon a retired kindergarten teacher who was selling all or her teaching supplies. We purchased a bunch of Dr. Seuss books and some fun nursery-rhyme/children’s song CDs, and some fun magnets for Eli to play with on the fridge! Though these things may not seem huge to you, we feel like we hit jackpot at the garage sales this weekend!

In addition to garage sale-ing, we also went on a bike ride around the park and along Cottonwood Creek on Saturday. Then on Sunday, we headed over to Red Rock Open Space for a great hike. With his shoulder now recovered, Matt carried Eli in the backpack and put me to shame as he effortlessly hiked around the red rocks! I definitely enjoyed this hike more not having to carry Eli this time! Matt and I still can’t believe we have such amazing city parks minutes from our home! We also brought Eli to a local park and let him try out the merry-go-round for the first time…it was a hit! Its so much fun watching him explore new things. Without doubt, he LOVES to be outdoors.