mr. elijah decided recently that he’s no longer a baby. he declared that he’s an independent adult. he doesn’t like me to feed him anymore, he wants to feed himself. he said to me, ‘mama, please don’t try to feed me, or i’ll feed you!’. he picks up his food and feeds me and paul, then himself.

i’ve been giving him diced cooked vegetables like carrots, sweet potato, and acorn squash as well as some cut fruits and cheerios. i’ve been wanting to add some protein. i mixed some vegetable and meat in rice and try to feed him that, but he didn’t eat much.

one of my mama-tomo (mama-friend) and i were talking about baby food (our babies are nearly the same age) and she suggested that i should mix meat into some mashed potato and fry up a pancake. good idea! that evening, i cooked up some potato pancake with lots of veggies and meat in a non-stick pan. wow! he ate everything and wanted more.

since then, i’ve made different pancakes with sweet potato and pumpkin. they worked well too. but now he’s off to use a spoon on his own. i never be able to keep up with elijah’s growth. that makes me happy.

he’s a very hungry boy now because he’s walking! it was amazing to see the process of how he learned to walk. he took his first step when he turned 10 months. it looked like an accident. he stood up and took three quick steps toward the dishwasher. since then, he took a few steps at a time and would fall. he spends standing up for longer and longer each day. one day, when paul said to him, “oide” (”come here”). he was standing by the fridge. then he walked toward paul! eeeeeeeeeeee!

we kept telling him to “oide” with arms wide open. he would walk toward us, further and further each time. everyday, he was able to walk more. one week later, he can control speed, change direction and walk from room to room. he doesn’t crawl much any more.

i can’t help but feel emotional.

elijah is now on video! we bought a camcorder last week to record him. we could see elijah was almost ready to walk.sunday, elijah grabs his pushcart and off he goes! his first steps on his own. we were so surprised.

eeeeee~~~~!!!

paul made it into a video and uploaded it to vimeo. music: willis jackson - nuther’n like thuther’n