Growing by leaps and bounds!

So we had a doc appointment on Wednesday just to check Eli's weight, just to make sure he's still remaining steady in that 5th percentile.... and he is! He's even a little heavier than she thought he would be, clocking in at 23 lbs, 8 oz. She said she's now officially DONE being even the slightest bit concerned with his weight and is completely happy with how he's turning out. Yay! I, for one, am SOOOOOO happy he's a light little guy, cause it makes it much easier for pregnant mommy to carry him around.

Speaking of carrying him around.... his favorite new thing to do is go "outtide" with his huge blue batman bucket Grandma bought him. The thing is more than half the size of him, but he insists on carrying it and prefers to go up and down the stairs instead of taking the elevator. Lol. I realized we take him out mostly in the stroller and have been trying to "walk" him as much as possible to prepare him and ME for when the new baby is here and he'll need to be more of a big boy. He's really good about waiting for mommy to lock the door before he runs to the elevator or staircase. When we're in the elevator, he likes dancing and saying down down down. I'm THRILLED the emergency button is right at his level (NOT) and usually stand there so he can't get to it. Once we get to the first floor, he says "HAND!" cause he knows he needs to hold my hand for the stairs.... and then we do the two mini-flights of stairs. As SOON as we get to the bottom, he turns around to go back up, and when I tell him that we're going for a walk, he'll usually last for 1/2 block before demanding "UP! UP! UP!" He clings to me and will NOT let me put him down. I ask him every minute or so if he wants to walk, and he always tells me "NO!" Lol. Great. He IS a light little guy, but carrying him for more than a block is tough for me! Yesterday, we tried something new... I brought his stroller along. Every time he told me "UP" I told him that he'd have to either walk or go in the stroller. We walked FOUR blocks (slooooooooowly) and he didn't let go of his bucket once! Yay!

Today he's really started using two words at a time to describe things. This morning he said "Kitty food" and "play patadee (basketball)." When he was running around with his potty on his head, he told me "head potty!" When we were coloring, he wanted to show me that I was sitting in the "red chair" and he was sitting in the "Blue chair." This morning, he was so excited and told me - MOMMY! MOMMY! He was pointing up at the fridge at a picture of me and Bob and said - MOMMY! BOB! :) I didn't know he remembered Bob - yay!

He's super cute these days about bringing me his bowl for refills when he's done eating whatever's inside. He's only spilled it once, yesterday, and was like - OH NO! MOMMY! OH NO! I asked him what was wrong and he said - Mommy - see! Mommy - see! Meaning, he wanted me to come see. Super cute.

He still LOVES sesame street and I let him watch small clips on YouTube of sesame street videos. His favorite is where the Jets make an appearance with Elmo... they play a little football and then do the alphabet together. Today, we watched it about 7 times in a row. He also likes seeing Grover and has gone from calling him "Dodee" to "super dodee." I looooooove hearing him say that and kept showing him pictures of grover today just so i could hear it. :)

His basketball game continues to improve. Daddy has now taped a free throw line down on the floor, and when he says "Line," Eli runs over and lines up at the line to make a jump shot. He makes it about half of the time. It's really cool to see.

He also now likes golf (he uses his bat to hit around the soccer ball) and baseball (I set up my foam roller and we put a ball on top and he comes over and hits it off with his bat).

Thank goodness he still loves reading. On the days I'm home with him, we'll sit down several times and read about 20-30 books at a time. His FAAAAAAAAAAAVORITE book in the world right now is Curious George (the original one) and we read that at least 15 times a day, 2-3 times before we take our nap and go to sleep at night. He also loves reading ME "Moo, Baa, La la la" and can pretty much read the whole book by himself. When we're out and about, he feeds me lines from Hop on Pop and still bursts out into hysterics with "All Fall...fall off the wall" and "fish in a tree...how can that be?" He also loves There's a Wocket in my Pocket and Oh the thinks you can think. There's one page near the end with a tiny looking person and he ALWAYS points to it and calls it Grandma. Hahaha.

He now knows his entire alphabet except for x, which he always calls K (hey - it's pretty close!)... but has yet to say it all together. (He can read them and point them out, but can't yet say the alphabet). He can count to 10, though usually needs a little prompting, and doesn't always get it right. He knows all of his colors (the basics) and loves to point them out to me when he's picking his markers. He loooooooooooooves to color and we sit down at the table ("Mommy - chair!"... he makes me sit with him...not an easy task sometimes!) at least 5 times a day to color in his coloring books. He knows that he's not supposed to draw on the table and always looks up at me with a devilish little grin when he does. His favorite coloring books are Thomas the train, Mickey, Sesame Street and Star Wars. I'm trying to get him interested in Yogi, Snoopy and Winnie the Pooh but he always screams NO NO NO!

After his doc appointment on Wednesday, I took him to the museum of natural history...something I've been wanting to do for a looooong time. We met Marissa and Sawyer there and the kids were so excited to see each other. Sawyer was super well behaved, walking alongside Marissa when we first got there..... So I thought I'd let him out of his stroller, too. HA. He raaaaaaaan around like a crazy boy. Sawyer started copying him, so into the stroller he went. He had a fun time looking at the elephants and dinosaurs and called everything that had horns/antlers a Goat. Haha. The best part of the day, though, was when the kids learned to copy each other laughing. Eli would yell "SODEE" and she'd look... he's start laughing hysterically and then she would copy him. This went on and on and on and was the cutest thing to watch. :)

Ok... nap time is going to be over soon, so off I go!

Some pictures

It just occurred to me that I haven't posted any pictures in a long time. Here are a few of my favorites!

more new stuff

Look at me - three posts in a row! It's just that sooooo much new stuff is happening these days and I want to try to remember it all :)

Eli's ability to communicate.... make his needs known... is tooootally improving. Today, he's learned how to say "Yeah" in response to questions, whereas before, he was saying no to things even when he meant yes. He's gotten pretty good at nodding yes over the past few weeks, but today he learned how to say Yeah appropriately.

Some conversations we had today:

"Eli, do you want to wear your socks?"

"yeah."

*Then he sat down and held up his foot for me to put the sock on*

We were playing football and he kept running over into the hallway by the bathroom. After a few minutes, he pointed at the light switch and said "light!" I asked if he wanted me to turn the light on and he said "yeah." Lol... I'd always turned the light on before but didn't think he noticed.

"Eli, if you want to go outside, we have to put on your shoes. Can you find your shoes for mommy?"

*runs to get shoes*

"Can you bring them to Mommy?"

*runs to put them in front of me, then runs off*

"Can you come sit in my lap so we can put your shoes on?"

*runs to sit in my lap.

(I looooooove days where he listens!)

When we went out to the store this morning, I thought we'd go sans stroller so I could let him walk/run there. Well, he wanted to be carried for most of the way. When I ask him if he wants to walk, he'll either divebomb himself out of my arms or say NONONO and cling himself to me like a monkey. Today it was a mixture of both and when he decided to walk, it was usually only for a few seconds at a time. Then one time he told me "NO WALK" and then cracked up. That's the first time he's put together a "sentence" and it was fun to hear. He's also started grouping other words together like "Yellow car" and "blue truck."

He told me he was "cold" when I put down the windows in the car, that he wanted to listen to "mootic," that he wanted his "go-cha" (goldfish), that he wanted to play with his "Bocks," that he wanted his "madets" (markers), his "cowns" (crayons), that he wanted to touch Riley's "tay," that he wanted to "deed dode" (read georgie), that he wanted to eat "paya" (papaya).... it goes on and on and is super fascinating to see/hear.

Another cute thing he's been doing lately - when we're in the car and a song comes on he likes, he screams "MOMMY!" or "DADDY!" cause he wants us to see that he's dancing (head bobbing) in his car seat. So so so cute.

We've been doing tooooons of coloring with markers these days.... he likes to color a page for about 3 seconds and then ask for another one. We're getting to be better about understanding we only need one marker open at a time, and when he's done coloring, he always tells me he wants the box so he can put them away. He still likes to suck the tops of them, something mommy doesn't allow but always notices, obviously, if he sneaks a suck in. Yesterday, his lips were bright blue for a good little while. He's generally disturbed when something is on his hands or when his hands are dirty, so he's pretty compliant with me cleaning his hands afterwards. Gota looooove washable markers!

Today, I introduced him to play-doh and he only tried to eat it four times. We had fun making snakes (though we had to stop cause for some reason, he insisted that all snakes should be dropped onto the floor), little balls, snowmen, circles, etc. I can't wait til he's old enough to get the spaghetti maker. :)

After he wakes up from his nap, we're going up to visit Rachna and Dexter! The boys haven't played together in a few months, so we're really excited!

Sesame Street Live!

Eli's fast asleep after his huge adventure today! Last night, before he went to sleep, Mike and I told him that he and Sawyer were going to get to see Elmo, Bert, Ernie, etc. Well this morning when he woke up, the first thing I asked him was "Who are you going to see today?" Without missing a beat, he told me "SODEE!" (Sawyer), "TITA!" (Sawyer's nanny, Marissa) and "BERT!" lol.

We had a really great morning, reading books, stacking towers, watching cows on YouTube, etc... and then when it was time to get ready, he was SUCH a good boy. Usually I have to battle him (literally) to get his coat on (Oh how I can't wait til the summer when we don't even NEED a coat!), but he went right over to his stroller, let me put the coat on, and climbed in himself! (Unheeeeeeard of). He was GREAT on the choo-choo and was laughing and pointing out funny things.

We got to Madison Square Garden and it was insaaaaaaaaaaaaaane. TONS of kids under the age of 3.... CHAOS EVERYWHERE. We got inside riiiiiight as the lights were going out and I've never seen anything like it... usually when you go to a show, everyone is seated and ready. Here, at least 50% of the audience was NOT seated, and everyone was screaming, singing, etc. Lol. We fit right in. I was super excited that we were in the last row (how often can you say that?) cause it meant Eli and Sawyer could get up and dance. :) When we first sat down, Eli was MESMERIZED. He was just staring in complete awe and was screaming "MADEEEEEE!" "OSCAR!!!!" "ELMO!!!!!!!" etc. It was really super cute. That lasted about 10 minutes, and then he did NOT want to sit still anymore. He stood in my lap for a while, but then wanted to get down and dance with sawyer. Fine - no problem - they were both standing there dancing and it was the cutest thing ever. But then he decided he wanted to go down the steps. Sigh. Not fun for mommy. After a few minutes of battling him, I decided we'd go for a walk (since mommy's bladder is pea-sized) to the bathroom. HA - that was my first mommy experience in the bathroom - meaning - I walked into a bathroom FILLED with little kids, kids standing their in their underwear, mommies desperately trying to control them, doors half open with mommies kneeling... etc etc. Lol.

We made it back juuuuuust in time for intermission. Literally, we sat down and intermission started. Lol. Now, I realize that intermission is a necessary thing, especially for kids who need to go to the bathroom, but dude - intermission is the DEATH of parents with young kids. A) There's no way he's going to sit there during intermission B) there's no way he's going to want to come back after discovering he can run around the lobby/steps and C) there's no way he's going to sit STILL for more of a show. Sigh. I think he had the most fun running around the lobby, going up and down the steps and the ramp...chasing other kids, nearly knocking people over, etc etc. I bought him a little sesame street soccer ball (cause you know how much this kid loves a ball!), and he made me really proud - I thought for SURE he was going to throw it and send me on a crazy wild goosechase, but he held onto that thing like you wouldn't believe. It's like he KNEW that if he dropped it, it would be gone. He's getting much better at going up and down the steps... we don't have any in our apartment, obviously, so he hasn't gotten much practice.

He did ok for the second half... I had to stand and hold him for a while so he'd be still (it worked). He danced with Sawyer for a while, and then they discovered the GREAT fun of flipping their seats up and down. That, I think, was more fun to them than anything they saw on stage. :)

We had a great time and I'm so glad we went. I realized, as I was chasing him around the lobby, that there is absolutely ZERO chance I'd be able to handle an Eli and a baby at something like this... so I have to do as much of it while I can now!

Enjoying nap time by watching oprah, hanging out on the couch, and being online instead of doing the million other things I need to do....cause I realize my time to myself is coming to an end veeeeeeery soon!

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!

Teddy Bear

So over the last few days, Eli has been super cute with his Teddy Bear (Thanks, Great-Grandma!). He's been going to sleep with it every night, hugging it, and then waking up with him in the morning. Yesterday, he discovered the joy of pushing Teddy around in his little Eli stroller. Well today was the CUTEST ever. He positioned him super carefully in the stroller and pushed him around. At one point, he fell out, and Eli said "Oh no!" and picked him up and gave him the sweetest little hug. Then he put him back in the stroller and gave him another hug. For breakfast, he took him out of the stroller and sat him down at his little Eli table with him. Awww. Tonight, for dinner, he did the same thing.... took Teddy over and put him in the chair and then pushed him in!!! Eli was having raisins, so I poured a bowl for Teddy, too.... And when I handed them out, Eli went over and took Teddy's paw and put it into the raisin bowl. SOOOO cute. :)

And in other super cute news, three days ago he started calling me Mommy!!! He's been calling me Mama this whole time and still does half the time, but now he says Mommy! It's so cute to hear :)

AND tonight, I sneezed and he came over to me and said "Ok?" and put his hand, super gently, on my cheek. :) SOOO sweet.

(Most of my days are filled with running and jumping and head butting and kicking, so I have to cherish these few gentle, sweet moments).

The alphabet!

I know I sound like a broken record, but it is truly mind boggling how quickly kids learn at this age. I love reading my friend Becky's blog about her son Evan (Fred), because he's one month older than Eli and I get a taste of what he'll be into in the next couple of weeks. Apparently, I have undressing to start looking forward to... great! lol.

Eli's now 20 months old and he is getting so much better with his words every day. He's copying us a lot more and is expanding his vocabulary soooo much every day. I try to be super descriptive whenever I can (which can be exhausting!!!) by pointing out colors, words, letters, numbers, etc. Eli's also starting to describe things to US. The other day when he woke up from his nap, he told me that my shirt was orange, that the light was on, that his teddy bear had eyes and a head, and that mommy has hair. He sometimes likes to sit there and just go through every word he knows... lol. It's SO fun to hear his train of thought. He groups things together (usually Sesame Street characters, star wars characters...and now colors!) really well.

Riley (the cat) is his buddy right now and he tries to play with her all day long. God bless her for putting up with him.. I can't believe she does it. All day long he tries to throw his football/basketball at her, play cars with her, chase her around and sit next to her. The other day I caught him bringing her his flute... he wanted her to play! lol. And on Friday, he tried to share half of his banana with her. Super, super cute. (Cliffy, the other cat, is generally terrified of him and it doesn't help that the few times Cliffy has allowed E to get close to him, Eli has screamed squeals of delight).

He remains obsessed with hats and is usually wearing either his cowboy hat or one of his many baseball hats throughout the day. The other day, I dug out my brother's old copy of Caps for Sale and Eli loved it. He started walking around with two hats on top of each other that day. :)

He is also OBSESSED with things that he thinks are helmets (any bucket, his potty, etc) and we've found that we can get him to gladly wear the hood of his coat if we call it his helmet. Haha - a lady in the grocery store started laughing at me when I told him it was time to put on his helmet, but hey - whatever works, right?

At this stage in talking, Eli gets VERY frustrated if I can't understand what word he's trying to tell me. Sometimes I can get him to stop repeating it by just repeating him, but if I'm not saying the right "Word," he usually just keeps repeating himself until I distract him some other way. Most of the time, I understand Eli-language, but sometimes I just don't. It's frustrating that he just doesn't understand "Eli, I don't know what you're trying to tell Mommy." My favorites word in the Eli language is bulgogock (cereal with milk....usually cheerios).

He's getting MUCH better with his colors and can usually point to a color if you ask him to identify it. On Monday for the FIRST time, he said green (mommy's favorite color.... he was refusing to acknowledge it in any way!)... well "neen," but I'll take it! He loves to point out the stoplight colors. Today when he was reading a book, he pointed to a page and said "paple" (purple!)... woooooo!

What amazes me the MOST, however, about this age, is that he knows most of his alphabet!!!!!! It's sooo fun to see the wonder when he realizes that the books we've been reading all this time have letters in them. He's big into pointing out letters to me whenever he sees them, usually when we're reading. My FAVORITE letter-pointing-out was when we were in Church this weekend.... We were hanging out in the way back (behind the doors even) and he saw a sign that said "Funeral Parking." he went through and named all of the letters and then went back to F. Now I realize that he has nooooooooo idea (hopefully!!!) what he was saying, but the order of things was just hysterical for me. He said - FFFFFF....... faaat..... mama!!! hahahaha. He can correctly identify and say the following letters now: A, B, C, D, E, F, H, I, K, M, N, O, P, R, T, U and Y! Not bad! He's sooo proud of himself when he gets them right, too. It's super fun to see.

His most favorite thing to do these days is walk around in mommy or daddy's shoes. He LOVEs trying to put them on and jump. :)

Every day, Mike and Eli play basketball together. Mike, being the huge basketball lover that he is, really has fun with this and tries to take the ball all over the apartment to make difficult shots. His favorite place to go is in the little hallway by the bathroom and try to make a 15 foot shot..... before he does it, he dribbles the ball a few times and then shoots. Well now that Eli is into copying EVERYTHING, he has been grabbing the ball, running over to daddy's spot, pretending to dribble (he just drops it, lets it bounce and picks it back up) and then tries to shoot. It's SO cute to see him copy. :)

My belly is getting HUGE and he's now taken to pointing at my stomach and saying "Ball!" :)

I showed him some Youtube videos of cows, sheep, horses, etc.. .and he LOOOOOVEd it. He asks me all the time now if we can watch the "moo? moo?"

Old MacDonald remains a crazy staple in this house. Eli demands that I sing it ALL day long and won't relent until I do. He not only supplies me with the animals he wants to see, but all kiiiiiiinds of things end up on poor macdonald's farm. Today, Han Solo was hanging out in his ambulance. The other day when he was getting ready to go to bed, he made me sing the song using "pillow" and "bed" and "Teddy bear." :)

Oh how I cherish these days. :)