Growing and Learning

I made Cornmeal Blueberry Pancakes for breakfast this morning.  Yummy!

How to keep a kiddo entertained while you make breakfast: let her play with rice and her toy pots.  Eliana loved it!  And really, it wasn't too bad to clean up.  I scooped up all the rice I could with the spoon, and then just vacuumed the rest.  All was going well until she tried to eat the rice.  I was afraid if she ate the uncooked rice, her stomach could explode like birds at weddings. 

Big toothy smiles at breakfast make my day!

Delicious!

We have been having a lot of fun today since David had the weekend off and could be home to enjoy it with us!  I realized that I never posted Eliana's stats from her first birthday.  So way back at the beginning of the month when Eliana turned one, we saw the pediatrician for a checkup.  Eliana is still her beautiful healthy self.  She weighed in at 21lbs 4oz (60th percentile) and was 29.75in tall (75th percentile).  She has dropped some in the percentiles.  Dr. Ferguson said that she is doing some "catching-down" growth.  Eliana did a lot of her growing at first and now has slowed down some to let the other kids catch up.  I think that is pretty typical for breastfed babies.  Maybe one of these days I will finally post some pics from her first birthday.  Soon, but not today...
Eliana is so close to walking.  She cruises all over the place along the furniture.  She can stand independently and often grabs a toy, stands up, and hands it to me.  I think she could walk if she just had the confidence.  Right now she just knows that she can get places faster by crawling.  She has also been climbing the stairs!  The stairs in our house are so steep and narrow (it's an old home) so I wasn't sure if she would be able to master them.  I guess that was silly to think.  She loves it!! She practically runs up them.  Very scary for mommy.  I went upstairs for a second, and Eliana was down in the living room with David.  The next thing I know, she is already on the third step trying to come see me.  How did she move that fast?  So now we have a baby gate at the bottom of the stairs to prevent any adventurous mountain climbers from making an unplanned trip to the top. 
One of the most amazing things that Eliana has been doing lately is putting her hands together to pray before meals.  David and I always pray together before we eat, and I have been very intentional about holding my hands together and bowing my head to show Eliana that this is a special time of prayer.  She started imitating me a while ago, and now when I put her in her high chair, before I start feeding her, she puts her hands together and sits quitely.  She does that all on her own, before I even sit down to pray with her.  She sometimes reminds me to pray before meals!  What an amazing little girl that God has blessed our family with.  Truly incredible.
Quickly, about the rest of us - David is doing outpatient clinic right now.  It is his "career advancement" rotation, so he has some extra free time to be working on whatever project he would like to help his career.  David chose to work on a research project related to lung cancer.  I of course am loving the extra time David is spending at home.  It is very hard for me to leave him alone to study when he is here.  As for me, I have been taking as many naps as possible.  Eliana has started getting up at 5 and 6 in the morning so I have become a very early riser against my will.  That's our lives in a nutshell!