Babies in Vegas

That’s right, at just 10 months old, Eli attended his first Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas — although, to be perfectly accurate, he didn’t attend the show, since they don’t let anyone under 16 into the convention center. But he did go to Vegas, and he did, at least, get to visit the parking lot. Both Justin and I had to be at CES, so we brought Eli with us, and we also brought our good friends Adam and Becky and their baby Merle, who’s about 3 weeks older, to be his daytime companions. In some ways, Eli had a better Vegas trip than Justin or I. We worked the whole time, while he met Pete Rose (who told him he looked like he’d been partying all night), cruised the Strip, and got to go to the Mandalay Bay Aquarium and commune with the fish:

Eli meets a big fish

And he and Merle played the days away:


Eli and Merle

Though I can’t say he made things easy for Adam and Becky — a strange location, some wicked separation anxiety (he’s even started crying when we leave him at daycare now), and the arrival of two new teeth had him melting down on more than a few occasions. Poor little guy … Becky and Adam were patient parenting champs, though, and they say Merle even tried to comfort him by patting his little head when he was upset! We all made it through, and needless to say, Eli was much relieved to get home and see his toys after six days on the road. And Becky and Adam were happy to get home and only have one baby to deal with. Thanks, guys! I bet you’ll never do that again!

In other news, Merle was a good influence in the food department. Eli is now all about the finger food, and it’s pretty adorable (and messy) to watch him shove pieces of banana into his mouth, delicately flick Cheerios off his plate and onto the floor, and snarf down the mac and cheese.

Click here for all the Month 10 photos so far, which include Eli’s first New Year’s party — he wore his jammies and his bowtie and treated us to his best “I’m wasted” pose:

Eli at New Year's

There’s also a funny hat, a trip to a kiddie wonderland known as Tumble and Tea (which infected both Merle and Eli with the cough and cold they took with them to Vegas), the discovery that his stroller is actually a UFO (or rather, festooned with awesome reflective tape), and Eli’s favorite new toy, his music table.

Also, I’ve been gradually uploading our videos. I’ll link to them below, but check out this one, where Eli tries out his eating skills on an avocado. Did I mention he’s kind of picky?

Here are the others:

Eli and his music table

Eli gets a good push

Eli learns to splash

Eli climbs the stairs

Eli goes for a wagon ride