Ready to Go

Ellis has changed a lot since the last time he flew on an airplane, which was when he was 9 1/2 months old. He was still nursing and eating baby food, both of which are now long gone. He was just beginning to sit up without support and definitely could not crawl yet; now he's a cruiser. He hadn't yet bonded with a cuddle toy; now Lion is his tag-along best buddy. Today, he added another new word to his vocabulary: "Hi!" Also, he has discovered Elmo.

Ellis watches a lot more television now than Blanden did at this age -- a lot being relative, since Blanden didn't watch any. Ellis adores Elmo. Ellis begins dancing whenever one of us sings "Elmo's World." Or, as we like to refer to it, "Ellis's World."  

Thanks to Daddy, Mommy has lots of Elmo videos stored on my travel computer, which Blanden thinks are a real treat to watch on the plane. We realized that another little one would probably enjoy that form of in-flight entertainment now too, so we ordered Ellis some headphones of his own.  

We thought he might be a bit too young for them yet, but surely they would come in handy in the future. He was afraid of them at first, but as soon as he saw Blanden wearing his, Ellis needed no further convincing. He was content to simply wear them -- with nothing coming out -- after seeing big brother do the same. But after Ellis realized he could hear Elmo through them, he refused to take them off! So on that note, the headphones are packed and we're ready to go.