October

October is here and fall is starting to settle in. Sort of. This fall's temperatures have been very strange and it seems like the only coldish days are the rainy ones. Nonetheless, it's fun to have a whole new set of clothes to dress Eli in, especially the shirts with the hoodies. This kid is OBSESSED with hats. Any time he sees anyone anywhere with a hat, he screams out "AT! AT! AT!" until someone acknowledges him and says "Yes! Hat!" If it's a family member or friend, he is not content until you give him your hat. He loves putting them on (especially when they cover his eyes?) and walking around. It's made for some very cute pictures lately.

Pants continue to be a problem for him... he's still too small-waisted for most of the pants we have, and only occasionally fits into the 12 month ones. The ones he does fit into are too short! Sigh. We're on a mission today to find some of those cincher (no idea how to spell that) type waists... I know they're out there!

I got Eli a little kitchen and he's having a great time with it. He likes to carry around the utensils, answer his pretend phone ("hewwo!"), put all of the bodees (strawberries) in the oven, use the oven door as a way to try to climb onto the counter, pretend eat his bananas, and open and close the doors. Very cute. I'm starting this kid off young - his wife will thank me!

He LOOOOVES matchbox cars. I know, I know, there are small parts not intended for children under 3, but he doesn't try to eat them. We watch him carefully when he has them. He looooves driving them around, especially the "odie" (ambulance) and police car. He loooooves his motorcycle ("motee!!!!") and though he can't quite figure out how to make it drive as well as the cars (those two wheels can be tricky!), he carries it around everywhere.

Last week we finally had to switch his car seat to front facing, because it was getting to be too hard putting him in backwards (in our two door car!) and his legs are getting a lot longer. He loooves sitting forward and now gives us a running commentary on the drive ("DAR! RUCK! MOTEE!!"). It also means the driver is more susceptible to being hit by any of the objects he an get his hands on in the back seat, since he's still all about throwing everything he can get his hands on.

He still loves reading, thankfully, and his favorite books right now are any books involving cars/trucks/boats/airplanes/motorcycles. He's just getting to the point where I can give him paper pages without fearing that he's going to rip them, so I brought down the big Richard Scarry books I've been waiting to share with him. I loooove those books.

He loves playing with his cousin Jaymin and was super excited to get to see him this week. I think he noticed his baby cousin Linamarie for about 5 seconds this week, which is an improvement over previous times. At least he doesn't get jealous when I'm holding her!

We went to Vermont last week and got to stay in a cute little cabin on a farm. Eli looooved seeing the pigs, chickens, sheep and goats. It was raining almost the whole time we were there, so sadly we didn't get to do as much running around outside as we wanted to, but we still got to go for some nice drives.

He's starting to like looking at pictures... every night before we go to bed, he screams "Nana!" and reaches for one of the pictures of my mom I have. I showed him a picture of Rachna and Dexter the other day and he pointed and said "DEDER!" Soooo cute.

He still looooooooves balls and I spend about 75% of my play time with him catching his ball and rolling it back to him. One of my mom's friends gave us the great idea of using a balloon to work on his catching and it's really fun - he's pretty good at throwing it up and catching it! He also learned how to shoot the basketball up into the basket, and daddy even raised it all the way to the top! (about 4 feet up). My little basketball star. You say to him "Shoot! Shoot!" and he gets all excited, runs over, and throws the ball up to the basket. He still misses about 90% of the time, but he's got the right idea!

Today is a beautiful fall day, so we're going to head down to Bryant Park to have lunch with my friend Susan. I can't wait!

Things I forgot to say

Of course the moment I posted my last post, I thought of a bunch of things I forgot to mention. That's always the way, it seems. I jotted down a few things so I wouldn't forget...and here they are!

Most days, I give Eli 1/2 of a peanut butter sandwich and he usually eats about 1/2 of it. Today I put jelly on it for the first time and he was so excited! I saw him reaching into the sandwich with his finger to get the jelly. I think I also have the only child in the world who eats off his crust first.

He continues to say "Uh oh!" whenever he drops something, but now he's starting to also say it BEFORE he intentionally drops whatever he's holding. Sometimes that gives me a chance to catch it mid-air, but most of the time it doesn't. He also says "uh oh!" whenever one of his cars rolls under a table or chair and he can't get to it. He gets REALLY upset and just stands there saying UH OH UH OH UHOH over and over until I come and pull out his missing toy. The funny/frustrating thing is.... what's the first thing he does when he gets his car back? Run it right back under the couch/chair/table where it was stuck, so he can see it disappear and have me go get it again. Sigh.

He LOVES matchbox cars. I went out and bought him 3 more today and he was SO excited. I also picked up a motorcycle (his faaaaavorite) and he was excited beyond words. He just kept standing there saying "motajie...motajie..." I can't wait til we go back to Maryland and bring back my brother's case of matchbox cars for Eli.

Strawberry is one of his new favorite words and he always pronounces it "bojee." If anyone opens up the fridge, he runs over and tries to climb inside, most of the time yelling "BOJEE!!!" He also LOOOOOVES his applesauce and successfully carried off the jar of mandarin oranges to his play area not once but TWO times today.

My child is obsessed with hats. If anyone outside is ever wearing a hat, he screams "AT! AT! AT!" If he's ever reading a book or looking at pictures with someone wearing a hat, that trumps all things. It could be his favorite tiger riding his favorite motorcycle...and the first thing he'd notice would be the hat he was wearing. He likes it when hats are too big and cover his eyes, like when he borrowed his Tito Ben's baseball cap on Monday. He has his little summer hat in his play area and I always catch him putting it on and walking around with it. Most of the time, he likes it covering his eyes and walks around until he bumps into something....laughs...gets up and does it again. Today, he ate two of his meals wearing his hat.

We went to the park today and he surprised me with something I didn't know he knew. At one point, he ran over to the slide, put his hand on it, then quickly pulled it back saying "HOT!" I went over and felt it, and sure enough, it was hot! I didn't know he knew that word, let alone the meaning of it. Yay for knowing a "safety" word!

I read something the other day that said by the time he gets to be 18 months, he'll learn a new word every 90 minutes. totally believable.

My poor little buddy has a bad cold that gave him a super runny nose all day. I was hoping for good naps, but I got baaad ones, which led to a total Eli meltdown this afternoon. Occasionally he will wake up from a nap too early/too cranky and then just SCREAMS and cries for an hour. He wants to be held but doesn't want to be held... wants to read a book but doesn't... There's basically nothing I can do for that hour until something snaps and he goes back to normal Eli. Today this breakdown happened when I was in the middle of cooking dinner... and anytime I'd put him down, he LOOOST it. It was challenging to say the least. Hope he feels better tomorrow!

:)

A day in the life of a 16 month old boy

I wish I had more than 3 days a week to spend with my little guy, but I'm trying to just be grateful for the time we do get to spend together and have been really trying to enjoy every second of it.

So here's what a typical day is like at this age. (Yes, this changes day to day as he learns how to do more things, but this is generally how the day goes).

7:15ish - WAAAKEUP Mommy! Eli always wakes up the same way - he sits (then stands), yelling DADDY DADDY DADDY. He's not calling for Mike, so I don't know what he thinks he's saying. Sometimes he'll wake up saying Lolo (his Grandfather). About half of the time, I can give him his teddy bear and/or Elmo and he will lay down and talk to it for another 15 minutes or so. YAY for Mommy getting a chance to snooze!

7:30ish - HUGE battle to get dressed, so most of the time we just stay in our jammies.

Then Eli runs around to make sure all of his toys are still there. He gets SO excited to see his farm animal wheelie toys (thanks Grandma! he still loves them!) and plays with them for anywhere from 5-10 min before he realizes how starving he is. Then he goes over to his high chair and stands there saying "annnna" (hungry).

Breakfast has been super fun lately since he is getting better at feeding himself! Anything that goes into his Elmo bowl is exciting for him, so cereals he previously wouldn't even touch, he can now finish in about 60 seconds. :)

After breakfast (and the massive Eli cleanup since he doesn't let me help him eat his cereal or yogurt), Eli runs around constantly doing one of the following things.... emptying his bookshelf, running his firetruck off the table over and over, throwing the ball to me, playing with his farm friends, vrrooooming his cars all over the place, asking me to play piggies on his toes, throwing me the ball, climbing things, throwing me the ball, throwing me the ball and throwing me the ball. After all of this, he alllllways climbs into his stroller and screams "outside! outside! outside!" I am never dressed or ready and most of the time he is not dressed or ready either. We therefore hurry hurry hurry so that we can get back in the stroller to go outside.

Once outside, we head to the park or we head to run errands. When we're in the grocery store, Eli loooves flirting with the checkout women and loooves saying Hello and bye to every single person he passes.

For the last few days, he's been taking just one nap, so I've been trying to get stuff done when he sleeps. I'm never successful at that, however, and end up spending most of my "break" online or relaxing/recharging on the couch. It's also my one chance a day to get a shower or eat any kind of meal that involves me sitting down for more than 15 seconds.

When he wakes up from his nap, he eats lunch and then we've been reading, throwing the ball, playing with the new kitchen I got him (!!!), throwing the ball, running around, throwing the ball, trying to climb the couch and jump, throwing the ball..... lol. We try to get outside again... cause running around outside is a good thing :)

He loooooooves playing with matchbox cars and looooves driving them all over the place.... vrooooom, vroooooom, vrooooom.

Tomorrow we have absolutely NO plans and I'm sooo looking forward to it!

Amazing

Some things that this kid does just amaze me. Simple, little things, that I love and am just amazed by. Things like.... today, I got the vacuum out and then went over to clean up all of eli's books so that I could vacuum over there.... I looked over and saw that Eli had picked up the cord and was looking at it. Then he walked it over to the outlet and tried to plug it in! Soooo makes me think of the Sondheim song... "Careful the things you say....children will listen!"

Fall is here. I love fall, really I do. It's my favorite season. But I am just NOT ready to let summer go yet! NOT ready. But still, I went through all of Eli's summer clothes today and packed them up. It's such a different feeling than packing MY clothes up.... because he will never fit into these again. My favorite little outfits.... never to be worn again. If we have another boy, I'll get to see them, otherwise....

We've discovered that Eli loves hoodies. He'll keep the hood on all day and looks so cute with it on.

The adventures continue....

16 months today!

I just wanted to comment that I think it's ADORABLE that Mike dressed Eli in his little Batman hoodie this morning and he kept his hood on ALL DAY. Mike said he even woke up from his second nap wearing it. (I was at work).

Other random comments:

And for bath time this whole week, our new favorite thing to do is line up alllll of the ducks and knock them into the water one by one.

When we're out in public, one of Eli's favorite things to do is point out every person wearing a Hat. "at! at!" Pointing at airplanes is his other favorite thing to do. He can hear them before I do!

:)

Almost 16 months

So much has changed in the last weeks. This age is just fascinating.

My favorite thing about Eli right now is how social he is. Every person we pass in the street or in a store gets a "Hewwo!" and when we walk past, "buh bye!" It's so so so cute and I just love it. It's amazing how many stern-faced people melt into a big ole smile when they get a "Hewwo!!!"

Climbing. He's ALLLL about climbing these days. He still has a hard time getting down from things, but that doesn't stop him from getting up on something in the first place. Today, I broke out his old Learn N Groove Music table and looked over to see him standing on top of it. At the playground today, we literally spent 30 minutes going up and down and up and down and up and down the steps. (P.S.... it's been super fun to be able to go on slides again... I'm glad I'm still able to crawl up those small steps to get up there).

We made an important discovery yesterday. While he's been feeding himself for a few months now, I've still been spoon feeding him the wet stuff.... well, he's been totally refusing to eat anything out of a jar and has even been refusing his yogurt sometimes. Yesterday, I thought...what the heck...and gave him the spoon. The squash that he previously wouldn't touch suddenly became the most delicious thing in the world to him. MESSY as anything, but he gobbled it all up. I think I'm going to start taking his shirt off before he eats. :)

Eli had a GREAT time at the beach! Each day, he got more and more comfortable with both the ocean and the sand... by the last day, he was running to the water (not far in... and he'd still get scared when waves came...but it was fun to see!) and laying down in the sand. It amazed me that he naturally knew how to dig... so cute to see him digging a little hole. Also fun to see him smashing my sandcastles :) (And super fun to be able to build sandcastles again!). We only made it to the pool twice this time... hope to get there a lot more next year! We also took Eli on a few rides at the Boardwalk.... so fun! He went on the airplanes and little train with Mike and the flying doggies with me... the whole time his face was just totally deadpan... but then he really cried when we tried to take him off. So I guess that means he liked it!

On our last night, we went to the go kart place and Eli LOOOVED watching Mike drive around in the car. He kept screaming ... CAR! CAR! So fun.

He's still SUCH a boy. LOVEs trucks, will stop whatever he's doing when he hears a plane or sees a ball....and naturally makes little car sounds when he drives his toys around. He still loves crashing his trucks and cars off of any higher surface onto the ground (sorry neighbors below!).

I don't know if I mentioned this last time, but one of my most favorite things he does..... "Eli...what does Chewbaca say?" "Mwaaaaaaaah." I will never, ever get tired of hearing him say that. We always throw it in when we're running through the animal list with him. He gets SO excited when we ask him to do his animal sounds. :)

He's doing great with body parts, too! We're trying to teach him a new one every day. Today was belly button! :) He's also apparently able to identify letters.... cause he came up to my mom and said H when he was holding an H.... dont know if it was coincidence, but we're trying to start teaching letters now, too. So far he can identify G, H and E. We'll see if we can get any further. It's insane how much they're able to learn at this age.

His new favorite thing to say constantly is "I know, I know, I know." So now I like throwing in... wow, you know a lot of things! Lol - we joke around that he's prepping us for his teenage years. :)

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. :)