Ash and Nana in NYC

Elliott's oldest cousin Ash and dad's mom came to visit this week.

We read a lot of books. We also found the nautical companion to the Fuzzy Bee and Friends book at the NYC Aquarium (Squishy Turtle and Friends), and it's sure to become a favorite as well.

We also went to Central Park. Elliott is kind of obsessed with looking at trees/leaves and moving water (faucets, waves, etc) right now, so this was heaven.


We went to lots of tourist places too, like lunch at Grand Central. Ash had her first Jamaican Patty and Junior's cheesecake.

And sometimes we just hung out.

Elliott's big milestsones

Elliott has been keeping himself busy for the last couple of weeks. He's recently started rolling over from his back to his stomach and props himself up on his arms. It's been kind of amazing to watch him go from a baby who struggles and hates tummy time to one who willingly rolls onto his stomach whenever he has the chance. It seems like he's really enjoying being able to control what he's looking at from that vantage point. He also loves standing with help, which can get a little tiring on our part but it's ok. When you pull him up, the look on his face, like he cannot believe he is doing this, is kind of priceless. And it's now taking him a while to slump over when you prop him up to sit.

df and I packed away some of his newborn clothes the other day and it almost made me cry. They were so tiny and I remember him having to grow into the little shirts and onesies. I know it's a complete cliche but the last four months have really flown by.

Elliott is not a very persistent blogger

Since the last post, we've taken about 3 million photos of Elliott, and even though we remind him all the time that he needs to put some of them on his blog, he's really busy with other stuff and always complains that he doesn't have time.



For July 4th we went to Aunt Debby's house. While we were there we went for a long walk with Debby and Zoey on the Northampton Railroad Trail. Dad got caught in a downpour jogging on this same trail the night before. Yuck.



A man, a baby, an octopus.



Little E is starting to recognize the camera and turn stoic when it comes out. This is a rare sneak-attack smiling shot.



Hands-up!


Fingers in mouth, a common look these days.


At Abbott's for lobster.



Pizza in New Haven. Elliott likes the mashed potato pizza but the clam pizza was pretty good too.


Tummy time is paying off -- that head is up pretty much all the time now.

Three months!

Elliott is officially three months old today. He spent the day sleeping (from 12 am-7 am!), eating, sleeping, hanging out with dad while mom worked, and hanging out with mom while dad worked. Right now, he's taking a nap.

In the past week or so, Elliott has been losing some of those traits of the floppy newborn baby and developing into a little person with his own personality and desires. He can hold his head up almost all of the time now. He likes to suck on his fingers. He's been talking, cooing, and laughing a lot. He gets excited and kicks when we hold up books or pictures for him to see. He is starting to hold things on his own. He enjoys being held up in the air and seeing the world from a different perspective. He smiles all of the time, especially at us, which makes us feel really good. His face and legs are filling out too--looking back on some of the old pictures, it looks like he had sticks for legs.

We are, of course, still figuring things out--how much to hold him, how much of a schedule to have him on, how much he should be sleeping or eating, whether he's meeting milestones or not. Even though it's such a cliche, the past three months have flown by. But at the same time, it seems like forever ago when we brought Elliott home from the hospital, put him on a blanket on the floor, then looked at each other and said, "now what?"

Catching up on Elliott's world travels

Elliott went to Illinois last month for Dad's graduation. But we're WAY behind posting photos from that trip. Here are a few to get started.

First stop, Columbus, OH:


Elliott's first hotel. He slept like a champ.


Elliott's first trip to Jeni's Ice Cream. None for him this time. Maybe next trip.


Meeting Auntie Bethaney. A multi-tasker like her brother.


Nana!


Aunt Courtney.



And Dad in a funny hat.

Next time, Elliott gets held by more friends!

Elliott enjoys his mobile

If other babies are anything like Elliott, it probably wasn't hard to figure out that they like black and white images. This mobile is supposed to help develop visual tracking by encouraging a baby to move from image to image and give them something enticing to reach, but even if it didn't do anything like that, we'd use it anyway because he loves it so much. Put him under it and he'll start cooing and smiling and kicking. He sounds a lot like cats do when they are on the other side of the window from a squirrel or bird. The mobile captures Elliott's attention to such an extent that we wish we had 3 versions--one for his crib, one for the co-sleeper, and one for the changing table. Last night, we had to hide it from him so he would go to sleep.

this is sideways but you get the idea:

Busy

Elliott has been busy the last few days -- a trip to Connecticut and a night at Aunt Debby's (and his first trip to Abbott's!), Long Island City, Prospect Park, James' 5th birthday party, dim sum, and more, all with photos to come.

We also babysat for Baby Malcolm the other night and Elliott had fun playing with his toys....