21 months old!

My little buddy is now 21 months old. I'm starting to tell people he's "almost two" instead of 1.5 . I feel like over the past few weeks, he's really evolved into a different guy - he's really becoming a little boy and his personality and demands (the good and the bad!) are so much stronger now. He continues to learn at an insane rate and his vocabulary continues to explode.

He's moved past blueberries and onto grapes "DAPES!," his most favorite food in the world. He still likes blueberries but not every day, and not as much as his dapes. He loooooves taking out his stroller "toadee!" and putting his teddy bear in it to push/run around and crash into things. He also still loves putting his Teddy bear ("Tette Tear") at the table with him when he's eating and now likes putting him on his motee to drive around when he's sitting on it. He likes to show me all the time that he loves hugging and kissing teddy bear, and I always tell him what a good big brother he is. :)

His favorite books right now are Curious George ("Dodeeeee") (which we have to read at least 4 or 5 times a day), Moo Baa La la la (He loves saying the animal sounds and especially loves the page that says "No no, you say, that isn't right!") , and Hop on Pop (he's hysteeeeeerical when I say "all fall off the wall" and "fish in a tree? how can that be?"). He hasn't done it in a few days, but went through a stretch there where he reallllly loved flipping through my bible and pointing out different letters. I think he likes the crinkly pages.

He is allllllllll about football these days and his most favorite thing to do with mommy is a game called "Boo" where he throws me the football, I run as fast as I can to the kitchen, throw HIM the football, tell him I'm going to get him, and then chase him back to the bedroom. He moves FAST and while I used to be able to beat him to the kitchen and have a few seconds to get something done, now he's right on top of me. This is a super exhausting game for mommy, but I know he needs to run run run since we don't get to run outside these days.

His other favorite game, also called "Boo," is to climb up on the couch, have mommy cover him with the couch pillows, hide for a second, and then bust out and fling the pillows wildly while mommy screams "BOO!" This game is fun for mommy for the first 30 seconds, but then it gets reaaaaaaallllllllly old. lol.

He loooooves his buddy Riley and continues to try to play with her every day. Last week, he tried to share his banana with her, and he often runs around throwing things on the floor near her so she'll play with him. She's amazing and just sits there and takes it most of the time. Fat Cliffy, on the other hand, sprints away whenever he gets within five feet of him. Eli now has to find Riley and say bye to her before we leave the apartment, and he runs to say hi to her as soon as we get home. :)

He's discovered the word "pruny" and loves to look at his pruny fingers after he takes a bath.

Mike is really teaching him a lot of basketball moves and it's soooo cute to see Eli try to copy daddy by dribbling the ball, doing jump shots, etc. They were working on layups last night. It's too cute.

Eli looooooooooooooooooooves sitting down on the couch with mommy to watch YouTube videos of animals and mommy loooooves the quiet time. He usually cuddles up next to me and puts his head on my shoulder. SUPER cute. He especially loves watching the cows Moo and the lions roar.

Ok - my little guy is up, calling "MOMMY! MOOOMMMMMMY!," so that's my cue!