The Ellis Family: Catching up with Caleb

This afternoon, being that it was frigidly cold (well, okay, below 30), I let the boys set up what they refer to as their "tent." It's really a series of pop-up rooms and tunnels that they love to play in and would probably get out on a daily basis if I wanted my living room to look like this every day! Anyway, this is the first time since Caleb has been mobile that the tent has been out while he was awake. I loved his reaction to it!

You want me in there??!?

Okay, I'll think about it...

Ha, ha, ha! Yeah, that is so not happening!

Boy, how time flies the first year! Caleb will be 9 months old tomorrow, and he is way into cruising right now. Anything is fair game - around the toy chest, down the couches, even a wall or door works for balance! He has been braver about taking a little step here or there without holding on to something. I've seen him step between the couch and toy chest a couple of times without having something to grab on to.

Caleb isn't really into talking that much (too busy trying to walk and keep up with three older brothers!), but he does say "ah duh" (all done), "dada" (daddy) and "uh oh." We (I) keep trying to get him to say "mama" but nothing yet. He does spontaneously say "Mmmm" when he has a bite of something he likes (such as the cherry popsicle he tried a few days ago!).

Caleb likes to play peek-a-boo. He "covers" his eyes with his hands (covering usually means that one eye is covered and he's peeking with the other eye!). Then he waits for someone to ask "Where's Caleb?" and he throws his hands in the air and giggles. He also is waving more and clapping anytime someone says "yay!" As in "Yay, Caleb, you ate all your food!"

Our tooth count has gone up quite a bit this month...and we're still working on more! Caleb has seemed to spread out getting his teeth much more than his older brothers. Each of the older ones seemed to get 5 or 6 at a time and then we had a break before the next round of teeth. Caleb seems to get one tooth at a (painstakingly slow!) time. He now has all four teeth across the top in various stages of growth, and his two bottom front teeth are in. We are working on the other two bottom teeth in the front to round out the four. So at nine months, our total tooth count is six!

We have a nine-month check-up coming up in a couple of weeks, so I'll have all the pertinent stats then, but the last time we were at the doctor's (for Justin's strep throat), he was 18 lbs. and 10 ozs.!! Pretty unbelievable when I stop to think about all the foods that he can't eat because of his allergies!