Big Week for the Little Man

We are mobile. Eli can get to where he wants to go by himself, and our world has officially changed. Unfortunately, "where he wants to go" is usually the Candyland game. Specifically, the blue gingerbread man piece of the Candyland game, which just happens to be the one Myka is using at the time. We have tried playing it everywhere, even behind the couch, but he still finds us and dives onto the board for the blue guy. We are learning, though. I now hold all of the cards in my hand throughout the game, and Myka has finally agreed to allow the other gingerbread men to stand in as placeholders while the blue one is being mauled by her brother.
Finally figuring out the crawling thing has led us to another big step this week - sitting back up by himself. This one is a relief, as he has been getting more and more frustrated lately when he is tired of laying down but couldn't move very far if he wanted something. Now he just pops back up on his bottom and hangs out again. Now, if only he would stay there...
And our final, and proudest, moment of the week came on Tuesday. Eli ate a puff! It doesn't sound like a big deal, except for the fact that we have the kid who won't eat ANYTHING but an occasional dose of rice cereal. You could put any food in one hand and a block in the other, and he will immediately bring the block to his mouth and suck away and drop the food on the floor. And we know this because we've done it pretty much every day for the last 5 months. We've tried every kind of food acceptable for this age (and a few that are not) and he won't touch them. Since I bought a can of Gerber Puffs a few months ago and realized they were only going to be eaten by Tetley and Myka (who both seem to love them, by the way), we give him a few to play with while he sits in his high chair with us at meals. One by one they end up on the floor. But the other night I glanced over and noticed he was making some pretty interesting faces, and it dawned on us he had eaten one. He didn't look like he was particularly enjoying it, but he did try one more after that. We were elated! Of course, he has not eaten one since, but we've seen twice as many go in and stay there than we had before, so at least we're headed in the right direction!