15 month checkup!

We just got back from Eli's 15 month checkup! I was a little worried when we got there, because he was in FULL crankster mood since he hadn't taken a nap in the morning. (We went to a minor league baseball game last night with our work friends and didn't get home til 11pm! Poor little guy slept til 8:50 this morning!!! At the game, he had great fun running up and down and up and down and up and down the steps.... trying to run into the ladies room....trying to get into the service elevator and dancing for everyone). But he ended up only throwing a fit for the assistant (the one who makes him take off his diaper and...gasp...lie down on the scale..the horror!) and turned into a little dancing maniac for Dr. Grant. He's now 31 1/4 inches tall, placing him in the 52nd percentile for height, and 21 lbs, keeping him in the 8th percentile. The doc said she was really worried last time about his weight cause he plummeted from the 50th percentile to the 8th... but now that he stayed at the 8th again, she's fine with it. I told her again that both Mike and I were skinny little kids, so again, she's not worried. Becky has renamed Eli "Slim Jim." :) I don't think he looks particularly skinny except for the fact that 9 month old shorts are still falling off him. He's wearing 12-18 month shirts, but 6-9 month pants. :) It's going to be tough for us in the winter, I think, because the size pants that fit him are going to be too short. We'll cross that bridge when we come to it, though. :)

The doc also said he's very social and friendly for 15 months. (That was after Eli brought her his book and tried to crawl up in his lap!). :) I could have told her that... this is still the kid that wants everyone to look at him and has no fear of strangers. He wants to make friends wherever he goes. :)

Yesterday, he started HUGGING me when I asked him for a hug. I know this one is going to be short lived, but boy is it fun while it lasts!!!

Yesterday he also ate with a fork for the first time. I couldn't get him to eat his tofu at all (I coat it in bread crumbs .... which he loooves), but then I made a great show out of stabbing it with his fork and he was allll about it then. I was so excited.... but then he started taking his tofu off the fork and throwing it. Lovely. I also got hit in the head with more peas than I cared to count. But he ate at least five of them, so I considered it a victory. Anyone have any veggie tips? We seem to be on a veggie strike these days. I used to hide them in his yogurt, but now he's only eating 1/2 of his yogurt. On our meat strike days, it seems to work if I wrap it up in rice (lol... is he telling me he wants sushi?).

We're heading to Ocean City from Sunday to Sunday and I'm suuuuper excited. We'll get to do everything we didn't have time for last time, I hope. :)

15 months old!!!

Today, my little guy is 15 months old. 15 months! I was just looking back at pictures of when Eli was just learning to crawl and it boggles my mind to think that there was a time when he couldn't get around like he does now. This kid is EVERYWHERE. Two days ago, he learned how to climb the pole for his basketball hoop. That's right. Climb it. He can now get up and down from the sofa with ease and using chairs as barriers doesn't work anymore. Because he's gotten taller, he can now reach a lot of things we put on counters and the kitchen table.... and when he can't get to something he really wants, he's learned that he can bring a book or box over and climb up on it to make him taller. He learned yesterday how to take all of the clothes out of his hamper, take the hamper apart, and then drag it out of the room. His great joy today involved trying to get things to land in the kitty litter boxes. So as you can see, we're pretty busy around here.

He's really starting to get his point across and make his needs known. When he wants me to read a book, he'll bring it over to me and push me away from whatever I'm doing until I sit down and read it to him. When he wants something opened, he brings it to me. When I say "time for a diaper change," he knows instantly that that is when he's supposed to throw the biggest fit of all time. He wakes up in the morning saying "baba" cause he wants his bottle. Throughout the day, he's constantly saying (er...screaming...) "otter" to let me know he wants his water. When he puts something he's not supposed to have in his mouth, he comes over to me with the biggest grin you've ever seen. Today, when he was getting restless inside, he started yelling "outside! outside!!!! (sounds like aught-sigh). He can say Hi and Bye on cue and knows that he's super cute when he adds a wave.

he's really taken a liking to his stuffed animals. When I was at my mom's house, I found my old tickle me elmo (that my friends had given me for my 16th or 17th birthday!) and he LOVES it. He didn't really know much about the sesame street gang until then... now he LOVES elmo ("ana"). He has one elmo book and will sit with it for a good 5 minutes... constantly saying "ana" on each page. Tonight, when he was getting ready for bed, I told him in an Elmo voice "Hi Eli!" (wide eyes). "Can I have a kiss?" and he GAVE HIM A KISS! Same thing with the hug. The cutest thing. Ever.

In an effort to remember his cute little words, I'm going to try and remember all of the words he can now say.... (P.S. I am NOT writing this to freak out those of you who have kids who aren't saying much. They're NOT supposed to yet... this kid is just freakin verbal.... it's going to be rough when he's 2!).

Clearly: Hi, Bye, Up, down, duck, moo, baa, mama, dada, daddy, neigh, lolo, lola, tita, apple, no

Words that I can understand: Ana (elmo), otter (water), atsite (outside), baba (bottle), owain (airplane), bapde (tractor, truck), bapdu (bathtub), ite (light), da da dee (teddy bear), nana (grandma), appaju (applesauce), sa (sock), shhh (shoe), shar (shark), naaa (more), iye (riley), deder (dexter), ba (box)...and much to my dismay.... mama (banana).

Yesterday was our 3rd wedding anniversary and since mike had the day off, we took eli to the bronx zoo. I've lived here for 8 years and FINALLY made it to the zoo! Eli was SUPER excited to see the animals this time. His vision is really good - he was able to spot them all - even the snow leopard who was hiding. It was so much more fun bringing him knowing that he could actually see what we were there to see. What I thought was hysterical was when we got to the sections with the deer, he kept yelling NEIGH... NEIGH. lol... yup, I guess deer pretty much look like horses to him. I tried to correct him for a while but then gave up - I'm sure the people around me thought I was a nut, saying - yes, yes - neigh! lol.

His favorite books this week are the don't let the monkeys jump on the bed book (which I read about 15 times today), Elmo's 12 days of christmas, moo baa la la la and his star wars books. When you read him the star wars book with the spacecrafts, he makes all kinds of arm motions when you're making the sound effects.

OH. One big (frustrating) thing is that he now very clearly can tell us when he does NOT want something. He says "nonononoono" and waves his right hand back and forth. As in... "Eli, do you want green beans?" "nononononono." I have to trick him into eating certain things.... he won't even TRY them if he doesn't like the look of them. sigh. And so it begins. Food battles with toddlers.

He has his 15 month checkup next week... more updates to follow!

Last day of July!

It's the last day of July???? Seriously???? I really feel like it's July 1st...maaaybe July 2nd. But July 31st? No...way.

I'm worried that the summer is going to keep going by so quickly and am NOT ready for the cold. I've really had an amazing summer and am going to make the most of every day we have left!

Last week, we got to go to Ocean City for 5 days. We spent the first day with my Grandma and Eli had fun spending time with his Great Grandma! She had uncovered the old Fisher Price Barn that I used to play with when I was little (remember? the barn door that mooed when you opened it? those fences?) and Eli would not put the horse and cow down the whole time. For some reason, he thought it was hysterical to "baaa" with the horse. I'd say no - that's not a baa, that's a neigh! Then he'd laugh and laugh and say baaa again. Friday, we were joined by Dexter, Rachna and Nick. We had so much fun with them! I think we did a pretty darn good job of getting both boys basically on the same schedule. We hit up parks, pools, the beach....restaurants..... we got around! The boys looooved the boardwalk (of course.... they get to run around and get attention from all of the passerbys) and they loved "playing" badminton in front of the house (which looked strangely similar to them running around banging the rackets into the ground....).

Eli loved tasting Orange Sherbert (I refuse to call it Sherbet) and keeping in his new policy of not eating anything that is green, stayed away from the lime sherbert. He was also VERY excited that Daddy shared his Rita's icee with him.

At the beach, Eli did pretty good in the sand. He was cautious walking around (why is the ground moving????) and preferred to stay in one place. He didn't mind sitting in the sand or having sand on him.... and also unfortunately liked throwing sand all over mommy. Making sandcastles was GREAT fun and smashing them was even better. He was very cautious about the water...not quite sure what to make of it.... partly because it was so cold.

Eli's become quite the dancer these past few weeks! Whenever he hears a song he likes, he stops what he's doing and breaks out into his dance. I have videos of it and think there's nothing cuter than babies dancing!

He still LOVES his ball and will drop everything he's doing if he sees a ball. He particularly enjoys throwing the ball at mommy when he is standing one inch away. He'd also be AMAZING at hot potato, cause he MUST throw the ball the second he gets it in his hands. We're working on getting him to understand the difference between throwing his ball and throwing his toys. Not fun to get hit in the eye with a plastic sheep.

His 3 favorite books right now are his 2 star wars books (I think he just likes hearing mommy do Chewbaca and Yoda sounds) and Moo, Baa, La la la. When we get to the La La La page, I do it all singsongy and it makes him laugh every time. He handed me the "La la la" book the other day and then crawled into my lap to have me read it.... 16 times.

We're heading to Maryland next week to visit my friend Chrissy who's in town with baby Rhys from Thailand... and to meet Grandma's new kittens! Should be a great trip!

A typical morning

Thought I'd document a typical morning on my days at home with Eli. Here's how this morning went....

6:15.... woke up because Mike was getting ready for work and I heard the cats meowing for food. Got out of bed as quieeeeeeetly as possible so as to not wake my sleeping baby. Made it out successfully.

6:20... said goodbye to hubby and went to the couch to keep sleeping (God forbid I open the door to go back into the bedroom.... that would have surely woken the little prince up).

7:08...Hear Eli talking to himself. Go back to sleep.

7:15... Hear Eli getting louder, singing now. Get up... warm up a bottle...brush my teeth... come back and hear silence. Thinking Eli went back to sleep.

7:25... tackle the huge pile of "things to do" that has been building up on my counter for about 2 weeks now. Sort through the mail, clean up a mess, find address book, put stamps on thank you cards that I wrote a month ago...

7:45... hear Eli again. Louder this time. Decide to go in. Happy baby this morning! Watch him dance around his crib while singing.

7:55... diaper change. Able to distract him from screaming bloody murder by finding a few toys for him to play with. Becomes a diaper change/game of catch.

8:00.. bottle...cuddle with Eli.

8:05...Let Eli loose and quickly run around hiding things he's not supposed to touch...remote controls, pens, etc. Move things away from the edges of tables, counters, etc.

8:10...Watch him play with his tractor and dump truck...trying to teach him things so am constantly yelling out "what does a goat say? where's your hippo? oops - your tractor fell down..." Etc. It's a running commentary.

8:20... Play basketball with Eli.

8:25.... pick up the farm animals, toys, etc that he keeps tripping on.

8:30.... try to distract him from continuously going over to his stroller, trying to knock it down.

8:35.... breakfast time! Try to cut up fruit for Eli in the kitchen while he's playing with his farm magnets... but...

8:37...he notices me cutting up blueberries and attaches himself to my legs, crying for blueberries.

8:38...manage to wash/dry/cut blueberries with a crying baby attached to me.

8:40.... put Eli in his high chair. Get him strapped in, only to realize... poopy diaper. Take Eli out of high chair.

8:42... screaming poopy diaper change.

8:45... back in the high chair... start to dole out the food. Papaya and blueberries.

8:46... start to prepare MY breakfast. Eli starts screaming for more. Feed eli more. come back to my breakfast. Just about get everything prepared...then he is screaming for more. cut up more fruit for eli.

8:55... sit down to eat my breakfast. Eli now throwing his papaya cause he's done with it. Take away all of his papaya. Realize he doesn't have water. Search for eli's cup. Find it - not washed.

9:00.... wash Eli's cup... fill it with water. Give it to him.. he wants help holding it.... then throws cup. wants more food. go get him a banana. try to take a bite of my food, but he sees it and wants it. Give him part of my bread.

9:02.. manage to take a few bites of my breakfast. Then peel the banana and give it to him... he wants to hold it.... so constant monitoring to make sure he doesn't shove the whole thing into his mouth. Gets to the end and shoves way too big of a piece in his mouth... his lips are even puckered out cause there's so much banana in there. Watch intently, praying he doesn't choke. He swallows... all is well.

9:05 .. take the rest of the banana, cut it up into small pieces... dole it out a few pieces at a time.

9:07... try to wipe eli's hands down cause he has smooshed banana everywhere. eli screams as if I'm slicing his hands with a knife.

9:09... finish part of my breakfast. eli is done. decide to wipe down eli and the high chair and abandon the rest of my breakfast.

9:11... take eli out of his high chair and attempt to find all of the food he threw.

9:12... realize eli is not in the room with me...realize it's too quiet... never a good sign. Abandon clean-up and run to bedroom... find eli opening and closing his drawers.

9:13... watch as Eli opens his drawer and one by one takes out and throws all of the shorts I so neatly folded up a few days ago.

9:15... watch as Eli discovers a basket of my things and decide it's not harmful to let him take things out one by one and carry them to different spots in my room.

9:16... watch as he takes his shorts and places them all over the room.

9:17... realize he's standing still and making the pooping face. Seriously? We just had a poopy diaper.

9:20... clean up MASSIVE poopy diaper while distracting Eli with his ball..monkeys...dog.

9:25... take eli out to the living room and put him down... SCREAMING....realize he is now tired and wants to be held. Leave him there so i can get rid of the diaper, wash my hands, finish cleaning up papaya.

9:27.... come back to crying baby.. pick him up and take him over to read stories. Read 3 books...throw three books from the shelf....read 1... fling one...read one....watch as he takes five more down.... watch as he decides standing on top of his books are a fun idea.

9:40.... decide we'll try coloring a picture for a few people. Find the crayons and the paper... spend the next 10 minutes saying "no, not in the mouth" "over here...the paper, not the floor" "don't eat the paper" "i said don't eat the paper" "not in the mouth" "not on the floor" and then decide coloring time is over. Pack up the crayons and put them away.

9:55... realize eli is chewing something. Tackle him and do the finger sweep despite the sharp dagger teeth, get bit a few times, then rescue the piece of soggy paper he was chewing on.

10:00... carry the tired baby (who is now flailing to get out of my arms) to his crib for nap time. 10:05... listen as he is singing/talking to himself, wondering if he's going to go to sleep.

10:15. Ahhh. silence. Look around the room at the 22 books on the ground, the unpacked bags from yesterday, the dishes, the farm animals, the balls, the tractors... and decide to finish my breakfast.

10:20... finish breakfast. Decide to forgo shower and get online instead.

And that, my friends, was a typical morning in the Flores house :)

Crazy Boy

Anyone have any tips for getting a 14 month old to sit quietly in church? ...pause.... I didn't think so. Tonight was an adventure!!! (We try to go to church on Saturday nights so we can go as a family - because I work on Sundays). He actually sat still in his stroller with only minimal yelling since I gave him a new book about every 30 seconds... but then the natives were getting restless and I decided to take him out of his stroller. BIG mistake. He was EVERYWHERE. Luckily, he took time every now and again to flirt with the ladies in the back row and dance for his old man friend in the back. It's getting REALLY hard to contain him now that he knows how to un-contain himself. :)

Today he learned how to kick the ball. Yes, it appears at this stage that he is merely trying to stand ON the ball, but in attempting to do so, he actually kicked it a few times. Fun. He also learned that he can throw his fire truck across the room. The poor neighbors down below.

He was super excited about reading his train book and his plane book tonight. He's turning into such a boy!

Yesterday we went up to visit Tita Rachna, Tito Nick and Dexter and all of us took a trip to the pool. Eli wasn't too sure about the baby pool except for when his new 2 year old friend came over to play... and he DEFINITELY was terrified of the waterslide... but he really had fun in the big pool bouncing and floating with mommy. I didn't get a chance to put him in his blow up raft/boat thing - can't wait to try that next time. When we went back to Dexter's house, the boys had great fun trying to steal toys from each other, push each other on the big cars and run after each other. Dexter kept trying to hug (we'll call it hugging) eli, and eli was not too keen with that idea. Haha.

Let the adventures continue!

The adventures continue!

Wow - this child is seriously like a sponge right now. It's like I can't teach him things fast enough. He's trying to copy all of the words we're saying...and sometimes gets them! He can now tell us what a cow, sheep and tiger say. When he sees his cow or sheep, he'll run over saying "mooo" or "baaaaa." When he wakes up in the morning or gets ready for bed, he now ASKS for his bottle. As soon as I take him out of his crib in the morning, he says "Baba" (bottle). We tried a sippy cup this morning in place of the baba, but that didn't go over so hot. He only drank an ounce. Ah well... we'll keep trying. Grandma taught him how to say Hippo ("Opo!") and when he sees his hippo stuffed animal, he runs over to it saying "opo! opo!"

He can also now say (though by no means perfectly) orange, truck, riley (haha... it doesn't come out sounding exactly like riley, but it's close). He says "bapde" for bathtub and for tractor. We were at a friend's house the other night and they had a ride-on mower in their garage. he RAN over to it squealing "bapde! bapde!!" When I put him on the seat, he was SOOOOO excited. He's turned into a real truck boy and loves pushing around all of his trucks.

Last night he surprised me by saying "ball" when he saw his meatball (yeah - good luck for me in trying to get him to eat those and not throw them now) and also by saying it when he saw a picture of a ball in a book. I'm glad he's able to recognize the 2D images!

He likes to chase riley around EVERYWHERE now. He starts squealing with delight whenever he sees her and chases her around until she hides. I'm surprised she lets him get so close to her. He's definitely into trying to grab her tail right now.

His new favorite thing to do in the tub is take his watering can, put it up on the ledge (mommy gets wet a lot of the time cause it falls on her) and then put the lid on. He's pretty good at lining up lids! Whenever he gets it on, he screams and claps. Then we knock it over and do it again...and again...and again. Last night he surprised me by grabbing one of his letters and saying "letter!" He's repeated the word before, but this was unprovoked.

This morning was super cute... he ran over to his books and grabbed his new favorite truck book... handed it to me and stood there waiting for me to read it. I asked him "Do you want to get in my lap?" and he came over and sat in my lap. Did he really understand me? I don't know, but it's pretty fascinating to see!

This morning while I was getting dressed, he passed the time by opening and closing three of his drawers and emptying them out. He pointed at his shorts drawer and said "shorts." Freaky.

We had a super fun weekend! Sunday, we headed over to Tita Rachna's house for best buddy Dexter's first birthday! Yaaaay! Eli had great fun running around with the balloons, hanging out in the pool, eating fruit from everyone's plates, playing trucks with Dex and refusing to take his nap. :) After the party, we went to Tito Jerome's place in Jersey to have dinner (yum!) and watch the fireworks. Eli was all decked out in his red, white and blue and passed the hour long wait for the fireworks by walking around making new friends. He loves talking to anyone and everyone and still screams if he doesn't get the attention he wants. He also lets out a girly scream whenever he sees a kid or stroller. He runs up to them and wants to play. He also had GREAT fun walking around wearing Tito Kris's hat... he loves putting on big people hats and taking them off...putting them on.... He likes walking around with them obstructing his vision.

The fireworks were great fun! Eli sat on Daddy's shoulders (and for a few minutes on Mommy's) and was mesmerized the whole time. We were a few miles away from the actual fireworks, so they weren't too loud and were by no means scary. It made for a super late night but it was fun!

It's July!

I can't believe it's July 1st. I'm loving spending the summer with Eli and am afraid it's going to go by way to quickly! Noooooo.

Today was a super fun day. Because of the generosity of my dear friend Wendy, season ticket holder for the Yankees, I got to take Eli to a game today! It was my first time in the new stadium (LOVE IT) and my first time taking Eli to a game! We went with my friend Bridget and her 2 year old daughter, Tara. We got there a little late (I find it nearly impossible to get to places on time these days) and I was truthfully only expecting Eli to last 2 innings or so. I'm happy to report we sat in our seats until the 7th inning!!! He had great fun playing with Tara (who wanted to hold him and endlessly touch his cheeks and give him kisses...super cute!), standing up on his chair to scream at the top of his lungs at the people behind us, eating his first soft (er...slightly hard) pretzel, clapping (randomly...rarely at the right time) and pointing at the jumbo-tron.

In the 7th inning, we went to walk around, which lasted for a while until we found the stairs.... All he wants to do these days is go up and down stairs (he could be there for an hour if I'd let him). So we hightailed it out of there and headed for the Yankee Museum. To get there, we had to take a super long ramp, which is usually super boring... but it was definitely Eli's favorite part of the day. He LOVES running up and down ramps these days, so for him, this was like.... the ultimate ramp heaven. lol. I'd try to hold his hand cause he was running really fast and I didn't want him to hit the concrete, but every time I did, he would stop, pry my fingers off, then turn around and take off again. It wasn't super crowded, so I let him go. He did great! No falls! When we got to the museum, he had GREAT fun running around and trying to look behind the displays and climb underneath the ball display. We posed for some pictures in front of the trophies and then headed back into the stadium. We were having a mini-meltdown and were about to leave when we heard da-na-na-na-na... Mariano's music!!! The whole stadium jumped to it's feet... and we turned around and came right back. We watched the inning...and the Yankees won! WOOHOO!

I carried him the whole way there and back...so my biceps were BURNING. Good workout!

Other favorite things of note these days....

-pulling all of the dishtowels down from where they are supposed to be hanging and twirling them around

-reaching for things on the table that were previously unreachable... he's taller and can reach the edges of the dining room table and anything that's up on the shelf in the living room. This is how he got the remote control one day and tried to order movies on demand.

-trying to squeeze his head into small spaces

-trying to help mommy cook by standing behind her and holding onto both legs so she can't walk anywhere

-opening any drawer that has clothes in it and removing all of the clothes. Silly drawers! Why are the clothes INside...he wonders.

One day last week after a nap, he all of a sudden got quiet. I assumed (HA) he had fallen back asleep. A few minutes later, I heard talking and went in... to find that he had reached his box of diapers, had pulled them all into the crib with him and was opening them and flinging them around. Yup - changed the furniture around after THAT one.

He's starting to copy us more and more and it's really cute when you can see the wheels turning as he's trying to say what we say. His vocabulary now consists of "mama" "Dada" "baba" (for which he is referring to his bottle), "up down" (He says them together), moo, water, ball, shoe, sock and truck.

He still LOVES LOVES LOVES his fire truck (carries it everywhere) and his tractor with his farm animals (both presents from his aunts!). He carries his little farm animals around all day and even fell asleep holding his little plastic cow tonight. He also LOVES playing with his basketball and playground ball. He has a pretty forceful little throw, too - it shocks me sometimes.

Mom is driving up from Maryland tomorrow to babysit for the day - we're super excited to see her!