Wednesday, March 30, 2005

Tooth # 5 is in!

It is so funny to be looking at Elias's once toothless grin and to be faced with a veritable mouth full of teeth! They are pushing their way through his gums like gangbuster! Today, while feeding him, he looked up at me and made a silly, open-mouthed grin, exposing his latest prize: left, middle tooth. My guess is that he will have all four on top before going to Ohio.

Elias and I are really having a good time these days. Sure, his teeth are still an issue, but we have found ways around the agony of the teeth. Cheerios, for example, provide a fabulous distraction from the aching gums. He can chomp away at the "o" like nobody's business. Music and dancing also helps. He loves to rock out to Dan Zanes! He crawls up into my lap and convinces me to get up and boogie down! We have fun reading and playing peekaboo, going for walks, and resting together. Again, I am faced with another moment of being so pleasantly overwhelmed with the ever growing love that I feel for this silly little dear creature. I am so glad that I am able to stay home with him during these days and watch all of his beauty unfolding.

We went to Baby and Me group today. Elias was a social butterfly, as usual. I've been noticing how hard he works to grab the attention of others. As the facilator was talking to the group, Elias was staring at her, smiling, and waiting for her to catch his attention. He is also very much showing distinct signs of object permanence, being very, very curious and committed to searching when things are removed from his sight. It's pretty amazing that only a few months ago, everything he saw, no matter if he had seen it a million times before, had a sense of newness to it. Elias is also still so intrigued by the other children and people and TOYS! He is not shy, he'll crawl right into the laps of other mommies, or dig right into their purses. He'll crawl right up to another baby and pat them on the head or grab their toy. He'll also gladly plop someone else's toy right inside his mouth, too. I always try to wait and see if the other parents say they mind or don't mind. Sometimes I ask, especially when he is so persistant and unwavering in his commmitment to mark with drool someone else's toy. I just don't see any ways of stopping it. Kids eat the toys of others.

Elias was also very entertaining during the group to others by trying to climb onto the underside shelf of a cart next to where we were sitting. If it weren't for me holding on to his leg, he would have definitely face-planted onto it! We had fun. It was quite and active time.

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