Elias leaves the room

Changing Elias has become quite a dance. Usually, if we are changing a pee-pee diaper, he will climb up next the crib and allow me an opportunity to change his diaper as he continues to play with his Whoozit and exercises his new skill of standing up one-handed. For these trivial matters, he prefers to not be interupted from his work:play. The days of lying on the floor during the routine change are long gone. He's got too much to do to slow down enough for that. Lately, he has begun taking note that actually any sort of changing, while standing up or lying down, is just too annoying for him to bear. So, from the position of standing next to the crib, he will sit in protest just as I am trying to put his new diaper on. SMART little hard-headed stinker. In effort not to make a big deal out of his new protest, I allow him to move about his room, unclothed, until he gets bored with it and then I swoop in with something interesting and seize the opportunity to cloth him. It works in theory.

Yesterday, as Elias was tooling around his room naked, in between changings, he crawled off the carpet (kind of a new thing) and toward the door. In the hallway, he spotted Olive sitting on the rug. He used to have a thing for thresholds and rooms, where he was quite reluctant to cross over. Without hestiation however, as if a testimony of his maturation, he headed down the hall after Olive, who baited him by scooting away from the approaching baby monster. Pretty soon, it was just me, sitting on my knees in Elias's room, looking down an empty hallway. I got up and he was in the dining room by the time I caught up with him. I'm glad summer is coming because I fear that all opportunities for changing him are soon to vanish completely. Then, Elias can fulfill his destiny of being little naked boy trucking around the house!

Elias's other top tooth, one off center to the left has started making it's way through the gums, and brings with it a host of unhappy feelings. Really, the pain must just be tremendous. And, as if that weren't enough, teething also brings a lovely snotty cold! I'm sorry to say that the teething has driven both myself and his dad to hit the Full-O-Fat Rocky Road Ice Cream. I must admit, I've been eating it sometimes twice a day just to make it through the day. We'll all be glad when the teething has passed, especially our waistlines!.

Poor guy. On a positive note, however, Elias is really demonstrating some brainiacal tendencies. Like, when he drops an object over the edge of the chair onto the floor, he knows it's fallen and can look over the edge for the toy. He is also awesome at following the direction of a sound. He's pretty amazing.