We Have a Thumbsucker (and other news from the Reed Household)

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas - we're up in Auburn visiting Steve's family and enjoying our vacation.  With time to relax away from work/house projects, and several extra loving arms to hold Elliott, I am busily trying to get caught up on the blog.  This is one that has been a few weeks in the making - don't worry, there will be an update on Elliott's first Christmas and his surprise gift to the grandmas in the near future, as soon as I can collect the best pictures from the 8 cameras we had going at the same time.

 

I think I say this in every post, but it seems like Elliott has been growing and changing dramatically over the last few weeks.  For example, he is now able to get fingers into his mouth at will. Elliott has never been very interested in the pacifier, so I am happy that he has a new technique for self soothing.  And this change literally happened overnight.  We woke up one morning to our very own thumbsucker:

My family is concerned about thumbsuckers since it is a habit that is hard to break, so I gave one last attempt at getting him to take the pacifier by putting it between his thumb and his mouth:

But he promptly spit out the pacifier and went back to the thumb.  Why fight it - my little man knows what he likes:)

Elliott now prefers to go for walks facing forward in the moby wrap.  He is so observant and takes in everything in the neighborhood.  He especially likes trees, and it is fun watching his eyes travel all the way up to the top of the tree, and the resulting look of amazement and wonder.

He also helps daddy with the home project planning/research on the internet:

And has started reading on his own:

Ok, so he's not reading (yet), but he enjoys being read to, and loves looking at the pictures.

Speaking of home projects - the kitchen renovation has started.  We ripped out the wall between our kitchen and dining room during Elliott's naps to minimize the amount of plaster dust he was exposed to.  What a huge difference it made - we already get better light in our dining room, and can see our beautiful new french doors from the kitchen.

Of course no home project can be completed without the obligatory run to Home Depot for that one tool/nail/whatever we don't have lying around.  Here's my two guys surveying the options...

The other big news for the month of December is that I went back to work at 50% time.  I can't tell you how difficult it was to leave my little guy behind.  There were more than a few tears - from me, that is.  There were also a few rocky moments when Elliott would refuse the bottle, but overall he did great.  We are fortunate to have such supportive family and friends that we did not have to put him in daycare for this month. Elliott had a blast with everyone who came to help out.  Steve's mom drove all the way down from Auburn to watch him for a day, my sister Janine came up from Santa Clarita, and my mom came for a few days as well.  Steve was also able to take a few days off to watch him in between the out of town help.  Here they are, about to take Reese for a walk:

And at breakfast with Grandma Starla...

Between figuring out life as a working mom, and trying to make the most of the last few days I had at home with Elliott the holidays snuck up on me too quickly.  We at least got a Christmas tree and decorated the house.  I am a bit sad that we didn't do more to appreciate this special time, but next year we'll make more of an effort to start lasting family Christmas traditions for Elliott.

We also brought Elliott to our work Holiday parties so everyone could meet him.  Here's one of the few moments I got to hold him in between him being passed from person to person at my party:

And at Steve's work party, just before Steve's supervisor stole his treasured Lazy Acres gift card in the gift exchange game. Elliott started crying immediately, I guess he didn't quite understand the rules of the game.  If he's anything like his Daddy he was planning to spend all that money on McConnell's ice cream.

I've been frustrated recently with my inability to adequately capture Elliott's cuteness on film, so I am starting to play around with photography.  Here are my first attempts at using the SLR camera.  If any of you have tips for capturing cute kid moments please let me know.

And of course no blog is complete without a good milk coma.  Here's my little drunken sailor proving that bottles can be just as effective...

I continue to get great feedback for our little blog on the cutest kid in the world (when did I turn into such an unabashed and biased mother?), along with a few blatant hints from people who check it every day that I should update more often.  I really enjoy writing the blog, and one of my new year's resolutions is to update at least once a week, preferably on the same day each week. I would love it if all of you who enjoy reading as much as I enjoy writing would leave comments to help keep my motivation alive.  So here are some topics to help get the conversation started:

- How cute is my kid? (I'm shameless!)
- Does my cute kid remind you of any cute kids in your life?
- Do you have any tips for capturing cute kid moments on film?
- What did you do to prepare for the holidays?

Thanks again for your love and support as we continue in this adventure called parenthood!