Raising Eli & Zachary + a little Princess

Zach is crawling. It took him 9 months to figure out but he is now mobile. Where most parents dread this stage of child development, I adore it. Nothing is more spectacular in my mind then watching a babies face when they figure out how to get across the room on their own.

Of course this leads to issues, such as making sure the house is baby proofed and is clean all of the time. You can’t drop anything and not pick it up, even by accident. Everything is accessible, and everything ends up in the mouth.

Having gone through this before I was thinking about how parents struggle with the time frame it takes for a child to crawl. If you are one of them, don’t worry. I know you have heard this before, but seriously, your child will crawl when he/she is ready, but there are things you can do.

Encourage them to be mobile by putting them on the floor more. A child that is held all of the time has no opportunity to crawl. Matter of fact, a child that is held all of the time has no opportunity to do anything but be spoiled into thinking that being held is the norm. Eventually, the baby will cry all of the time just trying to get in your arms. It is like making sure everything is ultra quiet when the baby goes to sleep, no way folks, noise is a good thing and the baby should get used to going to sleep in a normal noise situation.

Another easy thing is to put items of interest just outside their reach. If they want that item, they will figure out a way to get to it.

Most importantly, show them how to crawl, nothing wrong with putting them into the position and demonstrating how crawling works. Think that is crazy? Have you ever stuck out your tongue and have your child mimic the action? That is how kids learn.

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This guy is one smart cookie. If you are a General in the US military that is facing a no win situation in Afghanistan what would be your exit strategy? Go down in history as the guy who couldn’t command superior American forces to victory in a backwards country, or make a few comments against your commander and chief and resign with full military honors and a teaching job at West Point?

I think this was a tactical, planned, well thought out battle plan by a guy who is smart enough to know right and wrong and understands he is in a no win situation.

Leave with a slap against your record for an interview which you expressed concern about Obama as the commander and chief or the mark of a major loss of life as the commander in a war that there is no clear capability to win.

Congrats McChrystal…job well done. Sad part, you leave behind soldiers who deserved more from their Commander. It might be easy for you to walk away from the war, but the ground pounding hero soldiers don’t get that choice. They will fight on, no matter how hard or impossible the outlook.

(2 votes, average: 2.00 out of 5)

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A flood of emotions hit me hard while watching Eli graduate Pre-K this week. Two years ago when Eli was diagnosed with PDD NOS I felt like it was a death sentence. I can’t begin to say how I felt that he would grow up disadvantaged and face a lifetime of hardship. Now, with the efforts of his team, especially Ralph he has blossomed into a kid who can get up on stage, sing songs and do the proper hand gestures and most importantly, have a fun time and be social with his peers.

It is sometimes hard to watch your child grow up and mature. There are times when I look at him and see him as a baby, and other times when I view him as my little man. I am so proud of what has achieved. Ralph said something to me as I was hugging him and crying thank you during the ceremony. He said Eli had it within him all of the time. He was right, but it took a special person to bring it out of him. I can’t say enough about what Ralph has provided Eli. He changed his future, he opened it up.

If you are ever in need of professional services for your autistic child, whether the diagnosis is PDD NOS or Autism and you need the best Special Education Intervention Teacher, give me a call. I know who to recommend. Thanks Ralph, thanks for everything you have done and continue to do. You should feel proud of what you helped Eli conquer.

(2 votes, average: 3.00 out of 5)

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Anyone ever use a resume writing service? I have been searching for help trying to get my resume perfect, int his economy and the lack of job security I am facing at work it would be beneficial for me to have my resume in perfect order. Many of these jobs you only have one chance to make a good impression. So if you have experience with a resume writing company please let me know.

Important note, I have been doing research on the web about this and I have found something very troubling. It seems that many of the review sites for resume companies are bogus, one I went to rated the top seven sites, turns out all seven were the same company and all of them offered the same services, different looking websites and different prices for the same services. Makes you feel that they are untrustworthy.

I can see having 100 domain names but have them all point back to the same website!

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I swear to GOD something better change with Eli soon or I am going to ship him off to military school. He is impossible to deal with and has more bad moments than good. I feel like I don’t even know him lately, and it is getting harder to want to be around him.

Lately it is all about lack of listening and throwing angry tantrums when he does not get his way. For example, if we are playing and I don’t conform to his direct wishes he crosses his arms, strikes out verbally and physically and yells that you are not being nice. This escalates to a nasty level and ends up with Eli sitting against the wall, in his room or being yelled at. None of these three “solutions” are acceptable so you sit him down and try to talk to him about it and he won’t listen, he simply tries to verbally turn it around to where we as the adults are misbehaving and making him react that way.

There are so many times he will start doing when he complains we are doing so we turn it around on him and explain that he is doing the exact same thing and his response is simple, “I can do anything I wan’t, you can’t”

I know I have to nip this in the bud, talking is not working, yelling does not solve anything, and grounding a five year old is not an option. Or is it? Maybe stopping him from watching TV or using the playroom is n order next…not sure I should do..yet. But I tell you this, I will win this war with him

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When Eli reached the stage of crawling we were shocked to see him butt scoot across the room and rarely ever crawl. As Zachary approaches this stage we wait in anticipation, will he crawl or butt scoot…we wait and try, and each day Zach simply rolls on his back, looks around, and then rolls around the room until he gets where he wants to go. Now, this is frustrating the hell out of me because I really like the crawling stage and look forward to all the crawling type of games I have imagined and created in my bald head.

So when Zach and I were sitting on the sofa this morning, he wormed his way off my lap and tried to get on the floor which put him in a standing position. I let go, he lightly rested his hand on my leg and stood there, just happy as pigs in shit standing up, on his own. Of course I screamed for Jodi to come in and see it and then suddenly, without any flash or pop in my head I realized something. Zach will probably just walk without crawling at all. Epic disappointment. On the flip side, he is getting bigger and developing at a normal pace knock on wood.

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I was reading a story on CNN about Sarah Palin (won’t she ever go away?) and it speaks of her having to build a 14ft fence because some yahoo is writing another bad book about her. I guess this guy moved in next door to her which resulted in this fence going up.

Is this what we can expect from a possible future president? She can’t even manage to maintain relationships with her neighbor, albeit this guy is crazy for moving into the house next to her in the first place. Either way, can you see it? President Sarah Palin today erected a sea wall between Florida and Cuba over a disagreement stemming from which ice cream flavor is the best at Carvel. Citing that previous presidents have erected fences over other silly things such as illegal immigration Sarah Palin had this to say, ” No way tubs of HIS favorite ice cream are going to float over to Florida! Not on my watch”

As the world shrugs, a small grass root population of American hicks rally to her side offering their support and yelling, “The next wall you build is one around that Muslim Terrorist Obama, you know, Saddam Hussein’s brother who is occupying the White House!”

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I wonder how many people have stopped blogging because of sites like facebook and twitter. I found that I was doing so many updates on facebook that I just let RaisingEli.com collect dust. But after having my privacy violated by facebook in the most unacceptable way (as if any privacy violation is ok) I have canceled my account.

Now people are asking where the updates are and I feel horrible that I have not posted anything in such a long time. I am not really doing this for me, I am doing this for Eli and now Zach to have a record of what Dad was feeling as they grew up. So I will start posting again (I know I have said this before but I really will follow through this time).

As for what is new? Eli turned 5 this weekend. Seems like yesterday that he was born. I wish I didn’t lose (to a hacker the first few years of posts on the blog, it would have been cool to have all of the posts on the site. Zach is 8 months old and he is quite the character. More coming soon!

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