Monday, September 19, 2011

Bragging Rights

I had to immediately brag blog.  Elijah started pulling to a stand today!!!!! It's been a banner week.  It all started with my realization last Monday that Elijah would sit (without immediately crawling out of it) as long as he was sitting on wet grass.  So, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, we had at least 30 minutes of straight sitting each day (on wet grass).  By Thursday, he was sitting anywhere (No grass necessary)-content not to crawl right out of it.  But today was a biggee.  Today, he started pulling himself up to a stand right in front of my eyes (And our Child Development Specialist's eyes- It was nice to have a witness!!) As long as he had something to give himself a little leverage and with the tiniest of help positioning his feet, he was pulling up!! This afternoon, I was steadying him so he didn't collapse back down, but by TONIGHT, he was standing pretty strongly.  Strongly enough, in fact, that I was able to get these pictures:

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I can't believe it!  I'm honestly surprised by how quickly he started moving into this milestone.  I knew that even though he wasn't achieving any big milestones for awhile there, that he was gaining strength.  That strength is coming through today and with some good motivation (Mommy cheering squad & brother in the bath) he was bound and determined to do his thing.

After Elijah's bath, I got him into PJ's and read him his stories (Tonight, BTW, he pointed to the Puppies and used his little pointer finger to push the buttons that make sounds in one of the books-another little milestone), then put him into bed while I turned my attention to Christian.  Christian and I finished up his bedtime routine and came walking into their room to discover that Elijah had pulled himself up onto his knees and was hanging out on the railing of the crib!!!

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All. by. himself!!!!!  I have been trying to show him how to do this for a little while now.  He was always so excited when I would get him into the position where he could see around the room, but tonight he managed it himself!  I had trouble getting a good picture of this- in part because of the low lighting, but also because Elijah was bouncing on his knees with excitement.  Perhaps a video is better suited for this moment (Don't forget to scroll to the bottom of the page and pause the music player.):



The week was amazing--not only because of the many milestones that Elijah is tackling right now, but also because of the many things happening for Christian now too!  First of all, Christian is loving school this year.  It is so nice to hear how much he loves it.  He even asked on a day off if he could go to school.  One day last week when I came to pick him up, he wasn't quite ready to leave and sat down where they do circle time in his class.  He sat back on his hands a bit, took a deep sigh and said, "It was a really great day, Mom."  My heart melted just a little bit.  It was so great to hear that, especially when last year's start was a little rough. 

On Friday, I took my first Elementary school tour in preparation for Kindergarten for Christian next year.  Our local public school is an under achieving school that is in really sad shape (I'm not referring to it's physical condition, though that is sad too.) So, I'll be having to apply by lottery to local Public Charter schools and by Open Enrollment for other nearby public schools.  It's going to be a push to get him in somewhere that I think he might be able to get a decent education.  So, I took my first tour.  Beside the crocodile tears that were welling up behind my eyes, it went pretty well.  There is a lot to think about, and even though it would be easy to shut down over the amount of information I have to get, I feel strongly that I need to stay on track in getting applications in once that process begins.  I'm sure there is going to be a lot of nail biting in my future...

Friday afternoon, I took Christian for his first Hip Hop class of the year (He tried it last year, and due to...lack of focus, we had to say nevermind.) This year I had high hopes that a year's worth of maturity would go a long way.  Well...we will see.  There was still quite a bit of not paying attention, but there was some following of directions...

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The teacher gave me a wink after class and said that Christian got a sticker and promised he would listen more next week.  Gulp.  Here's hoping...

The funny thing is, as soon as class was over, I asked Christian to show me some moves and he was happy to accommodate!


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Pretty awesome if you ask me. My boy may not be the most focused in class, but when he applies himself, he's got some Moooves!!

4 comments:

JC said...

Its so exciting to hear what Elijah is doing now!!! Sounds like he is moving right along!! Such cute pictures too :)

Team JHB - Jeffrey, Heather, Benjamin said...

=) Our family is smiling big smiles for yours! Sooooo happy for all of Elijah's milestones! I love the video. I do think I see a resemblance to his big bro. Both are handsome lil' guys! I love that Christian is enjoying school. We'll be thinking of you as you navigate the public school system this upcoming school year.

Brenda B. said...

Woot Woot! Isn't it amazing how it seems like forever before they do something new, and then they come out and do everything all at once!! I love it! xoxo

P said...

Love those leaps; developmentally, physically and emotionally (for us moms! ;) ). What exciting times to be hanging out here reading through--I want to hug these little brave souls.

I think that sounds like the perfect dance teacher, positively reinforcing him and Mom. Is it at your studio/did she know the previous track record? He certainly benefitted lots but as an instructor you know first hand the distraction of wandering students.

Completely developmentally appropriate to have a wandering attention span and good for him for bring a free spirit! I'm sure it's tough to digest in light of your own dancing but its sweet how you are taking it in stride with patience! Hence the need for less structured creative ballet and fairy princess dance classes for some girls.

Some kids thrive best with more free choice - you might need to instead or in ADDITION periodically host a free movement hip hop dance club in your house instead if not. Now THAT sounds like a playdate! We have three tiny mounted disco lights from our Wii Just Dance sleep over.

Where do you stand on Wii just dance, Benji loves it!!!?!

Love the ice skating, very brave of him!!

Good luck with the schools, yikes that's scary! One of the families of a child with DS in elementary school in our local. group goes through this process too. I'll connect you two if your interested.

Choosing the school will be tough but a good process in the end IF you manage to get your top choice. Ask a lot of people at the park about reputations but be attune to your intuition as always. Improvement precedes an improved rep so the best school might be performing way above it's reputation among the community and you don't want to miss out. Consider it all practice for IEPs etc, like preschool was practice for ME building teacher/admin/parent relationships in elementary school. I'm still learning very slowly in that area myself...

Yahoo for an amazing week and lovely finding time to blog it all! I'm reading backwards in time and don't understand how you can manage to do it all knowing about your business explosion impeding. But it's all great cause we ALL need excellent celebrations and also your insights. Praying for wonderful partners in your life and strength & peace to you to figure it out with the help of excellent staff!

You CAN do it, and share ideas with the rest of us to learn bits and pieces of just HOW you do so we can do better and more too. Busy, happy days to you!