Elliot Phone Home

As you can see, our son has figured out how to use the phone. He can turn it on and off and he can press redial. So if you are someone who we call from time to time, Elliot may be making a surprise phone call to you one day.
You can also see a picture of me holding a piece of cheese out towards Elliot. That was his most recent new food. He doesn't seem to like to eat cheese just yet, though he loves to say the word "chsss" and why not as it is one of the finest words in the english language. I myself love saying "cheese" and it is so popular as a word that it is often used to get people to smile for photographs. What we were trying to capture in this photo, however, was his absolutely hilarious facial reaction to seeing, touching and sensing the approach of cheese. His eyes widen, his whole body convulses for a couple of seconds and he waves his arms in the air. Not that we particularily enjoy torturing our son for laughs, but we just had to duplicate this occurence time and time again. He didn't cry, in fact there were times when it seemed like he was enjoying the experiment as much as we were.

There are few other fun pictures which aren't located in this blog that can be seen here if you are interested.

And if you were participating in the webpoll, Ben Affleck and Archie Andrews ended up tied for first place. So 2016 could very definitely be a tight race. If you didn't participate in the poll and you have no idea what I'm talking about than just assume that I didn't get any sleep last night and I just drank a really big slurpee.

All About Elliot

Elliot Ashton is aproximately 27 inches long now, I think. I took a measuring tape to him yesterday but he never actually stood, sat or lay still for me. As a result, the tape was constantly bent and moving during the excersize. I think 27 inches is lower than the actual number, but not too far off. We don't know how much he weighs. Andrea has been meaning to take him to the doctor's office but there hasn't been an opportunity as Elliot and Andrea have had busy days as of late with visitors and strange sleeping schedules.

Yesterday we took Elliot to our favourite restaurant, Luna Locas and he did quite well again, which was swell of him. He ate his dinner and craned his neck to see everything that was going on.

You can view more pictures of Elliot in his Yahoo photo album which is here.

Social Butterfly

While entertaining his friend Kyle in his home this morning, Elliot introduced him to chasing Misty. The two of them had great fun(Kyle running and Elliot crawling - but wishing he could run too). Misty didn't have quite as much fun. She is quickly learning that there are few places left for her to hide. Elliot can pretty much climb through or over anything.
Elliot and his mother were nice enough to pick his father up from work today. They came a bit early and Elliot was able to see quite a few people in the office who think he is a very cute kid. He even smiled a couple times.
Then at home, mom's cousin Michelle came by to see them. They had more fun. As you can imagine, after such a busy day Elliot was glad to go to bed.

Asleep at the meal

Hello every one who happens to read this (a special hello to any one from out of town). Just a brief funny moment to share.
Andrea and Elliot had people over this morning, and then Andrea started feeding Elliot lunch. Elliot was so tired that he fell asleep while sitting in his high chair, eating. This has definitely never happened before. Andrea said that he would start to fall asleep, then wake up and take a bite of food and then fall asleep again. So Andrea put him down.
Strange kid. Nothing like his dad.

Pointing

Yesterday Elliot climbed all the stairs leading up to the first landing. Andrea has been working hard to make the house safe for Elliot but every time we think we have accomplished the task, our son learns something new which allows him to get into more stuff than we anticipate.
Knobs have been removed from drawers, items have been removed from bottom shelves and boxes and chairs have been set up to keep Elliot from getting to places he should not be.

He has started pointing over the last two or three days. He loves to point everywhere. We have been playing along, naming everything he is pointing at and pointing at things ourselves. It has been pretty cool to watch.

Today Elliot is planning to have some friends over to his house. Same group as usual.
Yesterday Elliot ate blueberries for the first time. He liked them. Another food which Elliot likes but his dad does not. Before long we will have nothing in common.

Where to Start...

Yesterday Elliot played with some friends of his from church. He is getting along really well with
Annika and Chloe, Joshua, Kyle and Seth. They meet almost every week and Elliot is learning to be nice to other kids. He certainly doesn't seem to be headed towards the social awkwardness of his father.
Today he played with Annika and Chloe again at the park.
Last weekend he spent time in his pool (with water) and got his mom really wet as he splashed and kicked.
He has greatly enjoyed watering the plants with mom and especially enjoys sticking his hand directly in the water as it sprays from the nozzle.
Today we went for a nice walk after dinner and visited the park they are developing across the street from our house. According to their plans, they will be putting in a playground, a soccer field, a baseball diamond and a path going all the ways around the park, and directly down the middle as well.
After our walk, Elliot and his father played some roller hockey.

He has a seventh tooth coming in, and he isn't enjoying that very much. He woke up a number of times last night(and mom did too) from the discomfort.
Hopefully tonight will be better.

Explanation

I haven't done anything with the blog the last few days because every free moment has been devoured by Harry Potter and the HBP. I'm almost through the book now, so I hope to have new pictures and stories up soon.
Sorry.

Refusing to Slow Down

Our boy is still growing up. He is scaling larger furniture. He is standing up with less help from other objects. He is climbing up more stairs. He is eating more complicated foods.
Yesterday, under the supervision of his Aunty Amanda, he climbed five stairs.
He has recently eaten raspberries, cherries, red lentils, cat food and various pieces of furniture.
One of the coolest things he has been doing is taking a toy, throwing it ahead of himself, and then crawling up to it and throwing it ahead of himself again. Basically he is transporting things along with himself. Misty the cat is still much better than Elliot at this trick but, given time, Elliot will likely pass even Misty's ability.

Elliot Attacks Photographer

Cloverdale: No one was hurt in a recent attack by an unwilling subject upon a haunting photographer early yesterday evening. Nine month old Elliot Ashton had clearly had enough attention and this poor photographer bore the straw that broke the proverbial camel's back. Hospital officials say the photographer suffered no serious injuries. No word on if any charges will be laid. CP

We haven't any pictures to verify the following story, but I thought I should share it anyways.
Yesterday while I was at work, Andrea was trying to convince Elliot to put on some clothes in his room upstairs. While he was playing (as opposed to dressing) he started playing with one of his new favourite toys, a plastic cup from the kitchen. He put the plastic cup in his mouth and held it in his mouth while he crawled about the room. He began to crawl towards his crib. What he hadn't quite figured out was that with the plastic cup in his mouth, the cup covered his eyes and he couldn't see where he was going. He kept crawling towards his crib. Then he finished crawling towards his crib by running directly into his crib. He took a moment to consider the situation, then proceeded along the exact same path towards his crib with the exact same result.

Other cool things Elliot did yesterday:

- crawled through a kitchen chair (like an obstacle course, over and under certain bars, through gaps and through to the other side).
- climbed headfirst down some stairs (hopefully his last time doing that).
- climbed outside throught the exterior double doors onto the patio of Andrea's parent's house.

He is much better at falling down from standing up now. Which has encouraged him to try more dangerous stunts.

Strange Habits

In this picture, Elliot is staring at his image in the fireplace. We disabled our fireplace about a year ago by turning the gas off. Elliot enjoys tapping on the glass and the metal plate on the bottom of the unit. We have been discouraging him from doing this.
Something else he likes to do is to gurgle while crying. This makes it hard to feel sorry for him or to take his predicament seriously.
Other strange habits include chewing on the remote control (one of his favourite toys), wearing only one sock (the other is usually in his mouth) and attacking people who are holding him.
His attacks are mostly saved for his Aunty Michelle (Andrea's cousin) and they are getting more serious as he grows more teeth. But we are convinced that they are meant to be attacks of love.
One last strange habit of our son is when he drinks milk from his sippy cup. He sometimes will take sip after sip and with each sip, he'll pull the cup from his mouth and spit all the milk out.

Not included in the list of strange habits, but certainly a bit of an annoying habit is Elliot's growth. He is running out of clothes. Soon we will be dressing him in shopping bags. Just kidding.

New Pictures

Some of these pictures you have seen already on previous visits. But I have finally added them in and their kin to our yahoo photo album.

Sleep

Elliot often sleeps three times a day. Two naps, and one long sleep at night.
He is a creature of habit. He likes to have a blanket over him, and he loves his bunny from Uncle Clayton which he chews on and kisses (and the bunny kisses him back and he laughs). He also definitely needs to have his friends (the animals hanging from his mobile) dance for him while a lullaby sings to him from the same mobile.
He moves around quite a bit in his sleep. Last night Andrea saw him sit right up, move forward onto his face and roll over while still very much asleep. He is asleep right now.

Comments

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Climbing Stairs

Much to our chagrin our first and only son is now climbing stairs. In fact he seems quite obsessed with climbing stairs. He has, I believe, only climbed three stairs at once so far. However, seeing as he has no fears at this point in life and no understanding of consequence, he tends to think that he will float back down when he is done climbing. So out of parental concern we have decided to try our darndest to keep him from climbing stairs for the time being.

I would like to mention, also, that today he began to wear his Saskatoon Blades shirt which he received at Christmas from his Uncle Andrew and Aunt Cara.

As you can see in this picture, he climbs anything now. In fact, he can walk the perimeter of his crib, or his playpen. In fact, he can stand up, holding on to the wall of his playpen with one hand, and drink from his cup with the other. He is getting so good at balancing that we fear he will be walking before too long. Which is certainly cool, but also a little difficult seeing as we can hardly keep up with him as it is.

As to his relationship with Misty (our cat), he loves to chase her around the house and she loves to run away from him. Sometimes he'll see her and just start laughing out loud. Misty comes in to Elliot's room every morning to say "hello". She is warming up to him but would rather if he didn't grab her tail and pull hard.

Unrelated but Fun

If you want to watch grocery products acting out the Star Wars saga, click here.

A Trip to the Mall

We took Elliot to the mall today and ate in the food court. He attracted quite a bit of attention. People were coming from all corners of the mall just to meet him. Elliot really enjoyed the activity all around him, the lights, the sounds, the smells.
Then we went to ToysRUs where he sat patiently while his parents played with every toy along the way.

I found a cool program on the internet which takes baby pictures and through some sort of aging and picture melding it comes up with what the baby would look like if it looked like a celebrity. The picture below is what Elliot would look like if he grew up to look like Charles Grodin.

Elliot is Nine Months Today

Today, for the first time ever, Elliot turned nine months old. Strangely, today for the first time ever, he also wore a sleeper designed for eighteen month old babies. It fit perfectly. That made mommy sad.

We will try to stretch his twelve month old clothes so as to be able to pretend, if only for a few months longer, that he is not actually aging.

He ate cherries at lunch and at dinner today. He seems to like cherries even though I have been trying to convince him that cherries really aren't very good at all.

Also, I should mention I have been training him in the Jedi arts. He certainly shows great promise, though once he has a real light saber I am hoping he won't try to eat it.

Mid-Day Update

Talking to Andrea earlier and discovered that Elliot slept for nearly twelve hours last night. Twelve hours straight. Which means Andrea was able to have a fairly nice sleep (which has been rare).

Welcome

This blog is meant to be a newsreel for all who are interested in following the life of the illustrious boy named Elliot Murray Ashton.
Also, from time to time, I may throw in a wild accusation towards a random human being.

Today Elliot did well. He and his mother went to visit friends of theirs in Abbotsford. Elliot, understanding his importance in light of the universe around him, helped himself quite freely to toys belonging to other children... while said toys were still in the hands of their owners. Mother, being a fair and just individual (a true champion of equal rights and singular standards) took these toys back from her son Elliot and returned them to their rightful owners.

For lunch today, Elliot had green beans followed by watermelon. He really likes watermelon.
For dinner he had cherries (for the first time) and apricots. He watched the first few minutes of "The Bridge on the River Kwai" with his parents and Uncle Mark Vandenberg but soon decided it was time to turn in.

He has learned to wave, and today he spent time waving at inanimate objects (plants and tables for example) as well as his own dad (sometimes also inanimate).

He is asleep now and so should I be.