Updates on Elijah James Cole

How has it been over a month since my last update? So much for my pre New Year’s Resolution to keep everyone informed about his progress.

Before Christmas, Eli started walking. Not a lot of steps, but significant progress, just the same. At the time, he was crawling as much as he was walking (more or less) but it was really good to see his progress. For some reason, he tended to walk more for me than anyone else, but baby steps are still steps.

Every week since then, we’ve seen great progress in his walking and his confidence. Around Christmas, he was taking a few steps at a time. The first week of the New Year, he was walking a little more, but starting to slide to the left and right at an angle to move ahead. It was almost as if he was avoiding direct forward motion to maintain his balance. The second week in January, he started taking more steps, and his crawling to walking ratio moved to more walking and less crawling. (Though, if there was something to climb, he was on top of it.) Third week in January, he gained a huge boost of confidence (mostly at home) and would navigate walking around his toys. Then, last week, he actually started walking through the house stepping over small items in his way.

Elijah is eating well. Peach favored yogurt is the one thing he seems to not care for. His gag reflex still kicks in when he has a texture he hasn’t yet experienced and can’t quite chew. Some solid foods, he has no real interest in, so we’ve got to work on that. Solid fruits like pears and peaches he’ll just play with. Bananas are no problem though.

He likes “dad’s cereal.” I enjoy the Malt-O-Meal Lucky Charms clone, so when I have a bowl, I’ll give him the dry cereal minus the freeze dried marshmallows. It’s to the point that he won’t eat his own puffs if my cereal is around. For a while, he’d eat one at a time and bite them into small pieces. Now he’ll put a whole one into his mouth and chew it without issue.

Another favorite food seems to be the goldfish cracker. (The cheddar cheese flavored ones.) At first, Martha broke them up for him, but not any more. Martha was a little freaked out the first time he started to put multiple crackers in his mouth, but he did fine.

He drinks milk out of the bottle, but sippy cups, not so much. We’ve tried several varieties, but had little success. He’ll drink a little, especially if someone holds it for him, but on his own one or two sips and he’s usually done.

At 33 inches, he’s over half of Martha’s height. and he’s still growing fast. I’ve looked at some of his baby pictures from the past 18 months and have marveled at how much he’s grown. It seems like yesterday that he was in the NICU and so very tiny. (Not that he was that small in the NICU compared to others that were around him.) Time really flies and I never feel like I have enough time with him.

Comprehension has also been fascinating to watch. We continue to use sign language and he babbles at us. However, if was ask him to do things, he responds with an appropriate action. For so long asking him to do something has been an exercise in talking to oneself, now he’ll start to do what you say. Now he’ll drink, or follow you, help you if you ask him. It is amazing.

That’s the buzz for now. Martha’s taking him for a follow up visit to a feeding/speech therapist. I doubt there will be much to report, but we’ll see what they say.

Happy Belated New Year!