Almost December!

Wow.... today is the last day of November. I honestly still feel like it's September. This holiday season just started and is already going by sooo fast. Guess I'm not going to have Eli's stocking needlepointed for yet another year. lol.

So since the last post, we survived our first 911 call/ambulance ride/trip to the ER. Eli got a super high fever and had a seizure... scariest thing I've ever seen. Luckily as soon as we got him the hospital and they gave him Motrin, he started feeling better. I knew he was going to be ok when I asked him what Chewbaca says and in a tiny little wounded voice he said "mwaaaa." :) There are absolutely no connections to febrile seizures and any kind of neurological problem and he got better right away. Scary to think that it could happen again the next time he gets a fever, but at least we'll know what to do next time (PLEASE don't let there be a next time!).

Eli had his 18 month checkup and all is well! He's now in the 75% percentile for height (which I think is a little off cause I don't think his head was quuuuite touching when they measured him) which makes sense cause I've noticed that he's gotten as tall as or taller than a lot of his little buddies. My skinny little guy is only 21 lbs though, which puts him in the 5th percentile for weight. I'm not concerned, though, nor is the doc, cause he eats an insane amount of food and he pretty much doesn't stop running around during his waking hours.

He LOVES playing his "flute" (recorder) and rocking out to any flute music he hears. Lol. He has this new cute little dance where he nods his head up and down and then steps back and forth. He also likes to sway from side to side in a super exaggerated way.... I love watching babies dance!!!

He's picking up so many things every day and it amazes me when he copies/repeats things we say. My favorite things to hear him say right now are "maaaaaddddddiiiieee" (in a deep monster voice) when he sees cookie monster..... and when he whispers "daaaaaa da deeeee" when he sees Darth Vader. Much to mike's delight, he can now consistently name Luke, Yoda, Darth Vader and Princess Leia. :)

He still loves football/basketball and is happiest when he is throwing a ball or driving his cars around. He still looooves motorcycles, so we bought him a ride-on mini motorcycle for Christmas - can't wait to give it to him! He saw the box today and started yelling "MOTEE!!! MOTEE!!!" :)

Heading to Maryland tomorrow through Friday to see my friend Kerry's new baby Ethan, have a birthday lunch with my Grandma and to see my mom! Super excited! Eli's coming down with a cold, though, so I hope he's not too much of a crankster. :)

Halloween Part Two... and beyond!

Guess I wasn't so timely in getting back to the Halloween stories!

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The saturday before Halloween, we drove out to meet up with my friends Jessica and Stacey (from PT school) and their boys. Three of us + 6 young boys = crazy fun! We met up at a playground and had tons of fun catching up while running after everyone. No one was hurt, and we even managed to take a big group picture!

Halloween morning, we went over to my Grandma's to meet up with the family... so fun to see everyone!

I thought we were going to have a Halloween breakdown because after he woke up from his nap, he was a toooootal crank monster. I dressed him in a cute little fall outfit and took him in the backyard so we could play in the leaf pile I had raked...and he threw a FIT. He just stood there, screaming. I thought he'd enjoy raking and he refused to even LOOK at the rake. It took about an hour (and a few snacks) to calm him down, and by Halloween time, he was in a great mood. When it got dark, I put him into his cow outfit and he was ready to go! I was SO proud of my little trick-or-treater!!! He held Mike's hand (he NEVER holds hands) as we walked up the street and held his little pumpkin bucket with his other hand. He'd climb up the steps, knock on the door with his little baby fist, wait patiently for it to open... then take ONE piece of candy (I thought for sure he'd try to take a whole handful), put it in his bucket, say "Bye!", then leave, ready for the next house. He made it to about 20 houses... I couldn't believe it! It was the best time, ever, and I'm so glad we decided to go to my mom's for the holiday.

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Now for the latest updates...

Eli's new obsession is with Sesame Street. I found a bunch of Sesame Street books and he LOVES reading them. His favorite used to be Elmo, but now he LOVES Ernie. The kid wakes up in the morning saying "Eenie! Eenie!" because he wants to read his Bert/Ernie/Linda sign language book. He now calls Grover "Dodee," Cookie Monster "Madeee," and seems to think that both Bert and Ernie are the same guy. Does anyone remember the magician's name? Anywho, it's really cute and I'm really thrilled he loves sesame street. It'll be fun when he gets to watch it!

The love of sports continues, and he is constantly transforming things into a bat. His play food...especially his carrot and his corn....are his favorite bats to use. He'll scream "BAT! BAT" and start swinging, then go and get me a ball to throw at him. Of course he has no idea that he's supposed to actually swing the "bat" at the ball, but he loves to stand there in his little baseball stance.

I call him Buddy a lot, so now he says it all the time. Whenever I ask him if he's my buddy, he'll yell "budddddddy!" I love that. :)

One of his favorite things to do is put one of his many hats on (he prefers to wear it so that it partially covers his eyes) and then push his stroller around. Today, I caught him putting his Elmo doll in the stroller to push around. Super cute.

At night, before Eli goes to bed, we've taught him to help us clean up his cars by telling him "It's time to park all of your cars!" We go around saying "Park your cars! Park your cars!" and he scrambles to put them all away in the little car carrying case. LOVE it. :)

Let the adventures continue!

Halloween!!!

What a fun-filled week in Maryland we had! Thursday morning, we took Eli to his first play.... one called "Egg and Spoon" that was intended for Toddlers. There were about 10 or so kids Eli's age and a bit older there with their parents. We sat in a circle on the stage and the two performers did a really great job at engaging the little ones. They'd go around with "butterflies," "fish," and a whole litany of things the kids could touch and be tickled with. The kids were also invited to come up on stage to touch things (after the actor made the mommies promise to go get the little ones if they wouldn't return to their seats). Our favorite part of the show was "night night time" when the actors passed out pillows and blankets and had the kids pretend to go to sleep for the night. All of the little kids snuggled up in their blankets and laid in their mom's lap.... except for mine, who upon hearing "sleep" started SCREAMING "NOOOO! NOOOOOOO!" hahaha. One of the actors had to come over and comfort him, telling him it was just pretend and it was fine if he didn't want to go to sleep. Hahaha. Another favorite part of ours was at the end when the bird finally "hatched" from the egg. It popped out, sang a little song, and then went to say bye bye. All of the little kids were waving and saying bye! Then I heard a panicky/sad "bye??" from Eli and I knew he was about to turn on the waterworks. Eli in general has a hard time saying goodbye to people (he gets really sad!) and it became clear that would be the issue with this little birdie, too. The bird went back into it's egg and eli started wailing - Noooooo! BYE?? nooooooo! Thank goodness for the actor who is no doubt very used to dealing with this age group, and he had the birdie pop up again to say one last goodbye to eli. The other actor swept in with her violin and played it right in front of Eli to distract him while the bird was put away. It was a great show, a great introduction to theater, and the perfect amount of time to spend (45 min) at an event. Kudos to the Imagination Stage in Bethesda.

Thursday, we also went out to eat at one of my favorite restaurants....the Mongolian Grill. A quick shout-out to all of the restaurants that let kids eat for free. This place let us get him an adult size stir fry and a trip to the salad bar for this kid... meaning I got to give eli the full smorgasbord of "ok, so you won't eat chicken today? well I've got it covered with 50 other options so HA."

We also went to Cabin John Park (where I used to go as a kid) in hopes of riding the super fun choo-choo train around the park. Sad that it was closed for the day, but happy that we got to play on the fun playgrounds. Eli had a great time banging sticks on the play drums with Daddy. There was a cute moment in the park where a father was playfully carrying off his 7 or 8 year old son to the parking lot. he was hanging the kid upside down, and he was screaming (all in fun). Eli picked up a stick and ran over to the man....tooooootally trying to save the kid from his "evil" clutches. It was SO CUTE. The parents of the kid were laughing and let the kid down so Eli could see he was ok.

Eli has LOVED playing with his matchbox cars for about a month or so now, so I knew that when we got to Maryland, he'd be in for a super treat. In one of the closets, I found two cases of my brother's old matchbox cars and let eli play with them. He was SO excited when I opened up the box and he saw all of the cars. He spent the next 5 days vrooming them all over the place and endlessly crashing them each off my mom's couch onto the floor (making sure we were watching each time, of course). I brought back one of the cases with us.... I can't wait to show him that it's here. :)

Friday morning, we woke up and went to Butler's Orchard, a local favorite and a place that I used to go as a kid. They do it up for Halloween (as all orchards should!) and was 10,000 times bigger than I remember it being. We're talking halloween themed slides, a corn maze, little tractor races, farm animals, hayrides, a barn.... the whole deal. We had GREAT fun riding little john deere tractors around, and my mom even got into it, racing around on a little tricycle. The only downside to the day was that it was FREEZING and we were completely unprepared for the cold in our little jackets. Poor Eli was really cold. At one point, we went into the barn to warm up and I thought Eli would have a great time running around jumping in the hay. HA. My child refused to move and just stood there, screaming. So much for the cute fall barn hay picture. He felt the same way about the hayride, unfortunately, but he did have great fun looking at the tractor that was pulling us. He LOVED seeing the goats ("Dote!!!") and seeing all of the pumpkins ("ANNA!").

Ok.... to be continued cause my little buddy just woke up for the day! He's in there saying "mama?" Off I go!

My little sponge

So this morning, when Eli woke up, he pointed at the painting Mike made and said "MOON! STAR! CLOUD!" I hadn't taught him these things, so I was shocked. I called Mike at work... apparently he taught Eli last night when they were driving home from Lolo and Lola's house (it was dark, and eli kept pointing at the moon). My little sponge!

Today, when we were coloring (translation: taking the top off of the marker and putting it back on over and over again), I gave Eli a Sesame Street coloring book. I didn't know he knew who Bert and Ernie were, but he pointed at them and said "eenie!!!" Yes, he thinks both bert and ernie are called eenie...we're working on it.

He also learned the word "buddy" today... I called him my buddy when we were over visiting Jamie and baby George today and he kept saying "buddy, buddy, buddy, buddy" over and over again. It was really cute. When we were over visiting, he let me know he was hungry by saying "EAT!" and then climbing up and sitting on one of her chairs.

His favorite snacks right now are mini stone wheat crackers (also my favorite!) and cheddar bunnies ("MONEY! MONEY!"). He ate about 20 crackers this morning... hungry little guy!

He's really becoming mommy's little athlete, and is especially good at football. He has a mini football and he gets into a cute little stance and launches it. He can throw it about 10 feet and is usually pretty accurate in where he throws it. It's VERY fun playing catch with him right now, because if he does miss, he'll run after the ball and go get it for me... I never have to move!

He's getting much better at identifying pictures of things.... if I ask him "where's the ...." he will look around for it and then point to it. He's really good at farm things and animals. We still need to work on our fruits and veggies. Trying to work on our colors, but he's not quite getting those yet (nor would I expect him to!).

I had an extremely rare day to myself yesterday (thanks to lolo and lola for watching eli!) and it was STRANGE. Yes, it was nice to be able to do things at my own pace, but I REALLY missed my little buddy all day. REALLY. So the biggest lesson I learned yesterday is that I don't need as many days "away" as I sometimes think I do. :)

First trip to Philly!

It was a big baby-meeting week! Yesterday, we drove up to the Bronx and met my friend Jamie's 2 week old, George! Eli is usually not interested in babies, but he looked at him a few times and even went over and gently touched his head a few times. Progress! George is SUPER SUPER cute and super super tiny. Jamie's only about a 15 min car ride away, so we're looking forward to more play dates!

Today, Eli and I drove down to Philly (not bad...only about a 2.5 hour drive) to visit Aditee and finally meet Arjun! He is such a great, snuggly, cute baby and it was SOOO great to finally see the little guy! He's VERY strong and can already roll over! Eli surprised me by being very cute with the baby. He said baby many times (but always says it under his breath...so funny) and gave him about 10 hugs! When Arjun was down on his mat, Eli sat next to him and played with the Oo-aa (elephant). He also enjoyed playing with Aditee's stereo and tried to find the button that turned the music on so he could dance. He did great on the drive back and continued to point out all of the trucks, airplanes, and busses we passed.

NOT wanting to go to work tomorrow. Have had a great 4 days in a row with my little guy!

17 months!

So, as always, I'm supposed to be using nap time to do a million things, but I decided to update the blog since time seems to be moving so quickly these days! 17 months! Almost a year and a half. Crazy. Really crazy.

So what's the little man up to these days? Over the last two weeks, he's REALLY learned to pitch a fit if I try to put him in his high chair/stroller/crib.... or any place where he can't run around playing with his cars and motorcycle. When he decides he doesn't want to get in his stroller, it is REALLY hard to put him there. One day it took me almost 15 minutes. Sigh. The frustrating thing is that he LOVES going outside. He just doesn't want to stop playing, I suppose.

His latest favorite thing to do is to take his car, his tractor and his new motee (motorcycle) and run them along the couch. He doesn't mind if you're sitting on the couch... he'll happily make the car jump over you. We've taken a short hiatus from crashing things to the ground, but I think that's only because he has now learned to use his little recorder (yes, I got him one because my nephew has one and Eli was able to blow and make music!) as a sword and hit everything in sight with it.

He loves to say "Hungry" and run to his high chair...but then when I ask "Are you hungry?" ...he screams bloody murder and says NONONONO and runs away. He'll go away for about 10 seconds and then realize that yes, he is hungry and does want me to help him, and he'll come back.

He's surprisingly good about putting on his shoes and socks and still likes to bring me his shoes when they aren't on his feet. Let's pray this lasts a little bit longer! he's also very good about putting on jackets! Never fights me on that... go figure.

He's been an eating champ lately and is getting slightly better at feeding himself applesauce and yogurt. Well, I take that back, because he's now learned to dump them over and we've narrowly missed a dump out on the head a few times. He enjoys putting spinach and waffles on his head. My favorite is handing him chicken nuggets... he calls them "Bawk bawks" because of the sound a chicken makes. :)

Much to Mike's happiness, Eli has now learned how to shoot his basketball in the hoop at the highest level. He doesn't always make it, but he's getting pretty good. If you hand him a ball and say "shoot! shoot!" he will go over and shoot it. He's such the little athlete. If you hand him his recorder or his letter T, he'll go get his ball, hand it to you, and then get in a perfect baseball stance. He doesn't get the concept of swinging at the ball yet, but his little stance is so cute! Lolo also taught him how to play golf on Monday. It went ok until he decided it was more fun to pick up the golf ball and throw it.

When we take walks outside, this is the constant running commentary: "MOTEE!!" (motorcycle), "AUDI!!!" (ambulance), "RUCK!" (truck), "DAR!" (car), "ANNA!!!" (airplane), "BUT!!" (bus). That's one thing NYC is definitely good for.... there's never a shortage of fun Eli vehicles!

It's more challenging to take videos of him on the flip cam now because he knows that there are videos of him on there. I showed him one time, and now whenever he sees it, he yells "E-I" (what he calls himself) and runs over to see.

It's amazing to me how quickly he's learning these days. The other day on the subway, he saw a picture of baseball players (just players... no bats or anything) and yelled "BALL!" Another day, he saw a picture of guys with bike helmets on and yelled "BIKE!" He saw a motorcycle all covered up today and still yelled "MOTEE!"

Last night, there was a CRAZY huge fire in one of the stores (abandoned) right behind our building. There were crazy flames and smoke and it took them nearly 3 hours to put it out. I don't think anyone was hurt, but man - pretty scary stuff! Luckily, Eli slept through the whole thing. Though had he been awake, it would have been his greatest joy to see all of those fire trucks.

Mike took the day off yesterday and we went pumpkin and apple picking!! Eli hadn't had a nap and was a little cranky, but loved running through the orchard, picking up apples and throwing them, and taking bites of mommy and daddy's apples. He also enjoyed trying to pick up the really heavy pumpkins and trying to stand on top of them. We tried to pose him for a really cute pumpkin picture by sitting him on top of a big one, but he took a huge face plant in the dirt instead. Lovely.

We're off to meet Baby George today and Baby Arjun tomorrow! Babies, babies, everywhere!!!! My friend Kerry is due in 4 weeks... so we'll get to meet Baby Ethan soon, too!

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!