Elliott is 16 months old today.
We have so much to celebrate and be happy about as a family. We're so, so lucky.
I gave myself permission not to do Christmas cards this year and decided to try and start a new tradition of Valentine's Day cards instead. I still love receiving traditional mail, and sending it too, so I don't want to give up on the traditional altogether, but Christmas is just too busy of a time to justify turning something so pleasurable for me into a chore.
It's early February and I've had time to decompress from the holidays, set my goals for the year and I feel so much more prepared to send a brief message and photo to our loved ones.
As an added bonus, I GOT MY BRACES OFF!!!! So what better time to get our first official family photo taken? :)
Here's a sneak peek at what may be coming in your mail very soon.
And here's a link to more pictures on Facebook. Things continue to be great with Elliott, although his new penchant appears to be climbing. Everything. Nothing is out of Elliott's reach now that he can climb onto our spare bed, onto the couch and from the couch to the side tables. When he can't reach something, he is figuring out how to move his seemingly harmless child-size rocking chair to give himself a boost.
Things are never boring around here, that is for sure.
Elliott's language and learning continues to explode. His jabber is started to turn into comprehensible words and he is happy to mimic anything we ask him to try saying. He just recently tried GRAM and PAP to the delight of my parents, and will meow and say "kitty" to just about anything that can be construed as a feline. His favorite word appears to be "hot" with a special emphasis on the "T." Lately, we've picked up ball, drink, cookie, please, mommy, daddy and play.
I continue to worry that we're not enriching Elliott's life with learning, but that's why Dave is a great partner for me and a great dad to Elliott, assuring me that we're doing just fine.
Our family dynamics have shifted a bit again as David went back to work at Pearson last week. He's serving as a scoring director on a science project until early May, so we're in the process of creating a new "normal" for us. So far, so good. Elliott is back at Brenda's home-based daycare and he is one of three in her care. The other two are Logan and Eric who are a little younger and a little older than Elliott. So far, they are having a great time playing together.
Elliott has been breaking Dave's heart daily by crying when he drops him off, but also making his heart melt by running to him after work every day. Things aren't that much different for my daily routine other than not being able to get a constant update and being shocked at coming home to the house basically the same as when I left in the morning.
Our lives have also been enriched lately with the addition of new friends. My college classmate Becky was born and raised here in Lansing and has two adorable twin girls, Mia and Kayla. What started as a weekly playdate for Elliott with Becky's girls has turned into invitations to lots of gatherings. Becky has a wonderful group of friends who have really welcomed us and that we really get along well with. Lots of the other couples also have children around Elliott's age, as well, so he's getting used to sleeping in a room with two other pack 'n play's while we socialize at Becky and Mike's house late in the evening.
I guess we didn't know how much we missed socializing with other folks until we kept gushing to each other about how much fun we've had at recent gatherings. We've shared some sighs wishing our college friends lived closer, but it's also been great to have a new circle of friends going through similar times in life.
Elliott is up from a monster nap and ready to "see stuff get stuff" as we say around here.
Happy February. Happy Valentine's Day. Happy Life.
