New-tensils

There are definitely new developments in Eli-land. The one that might be having the most impact on us right now is teething. He is having a little tooth explosion right now including some molars. I'm hoping that and a recent ear infection are the main things at play behind some of his tantrums lately. Right now, all he wants to do is go outside. He strolls up to the door and, like our dog, looks back and forth between it and us. Then he will start saying "UP!" Every once in a while he'll say "Out thigh," his word for outside. When it becomes clear to him that it is not going to happen Rebecca and I brace ourselves for the full-on meltdown.

In other, more positive news Eli is starting to get the hang of utensils. He likes to spear beans with the fork and most of the time he will bring the fork to his mouth to eat the bean. It starts out that way at first and then he realizes that he can eat faster if he spears the bean, takes it off the fork with his other hand, and shoves it into his mouth. He is good at thinking outside the box. The spoon is quite a bit messier so we are going to roll with the fork for now.

Eli: The Musical

Our son loves the guitar. Every time I take it off the wall to play it he comes running over to reach for it. As you can tell from the photo he has figured out the strumming motion that produced the sound from the strings. The kid is a natural. At some point his focus inevitably turns toward the capo and then the tuning pegs which is a no-no. I wrote some music to accompany a couple of his books and songs that we sing to him all the time. He also has a little Elmo guitar of his own that he gets to rock out on in the car.

A couple of days ago he actually said the word 'guitar' while pointing at it. Very cool! It had two syllables and everything! He is starting to get the hang of making some more sounds when he talks. When he first started saying 'please' is came out as 'pee.' Now it sounds like 'peesth.' He's getting there.

Right now Eli sort of looks like Rocky after his first round with Ivan Drago. He has matching mini-shiners from repeated faceplants around the house. One of them is right above his eye from falling forward into the bookshelf. Poor little guy. We are bound to see a lot more of these with the insane amount of climbing this boy tries to do. You can't turn your head for one second. Seriously. He's a thrill seeker. At this rate he'll be skydiving at age 8.

Hugs and Kisses!

Eli, Eli, Eli. Babies are smart and most of the time smarter than you give them credit for. Just the other day we were giving Eli some yogurt and he pointed to the yogurt container and said, "Baby!" We turned it around and sure enough there was a picture of a toddler on the side. Very cool. Unfortunately, these little smart moments sometimes manifest themselves in less than ideal ways, like stacking things to use as a step to get to other dangerous places. Eli is all about doing what he wants to do right now, everything and everyone else be damned. What that means is that when his wants clash with ours we are starting to see the makings of some really entertaining temper tantrums. At least you always know where you stand with him. I'm just hoping we can hurry past this stage where disobeying us is "funny" to him. All of this behavior happens to coincide with him starting to give lots of hugs and kisses. What a little manipulator! Seriously, though, there's not much sweeter than your little kid giving you a big hug and kiss before you leave in the morning.

Now there, he knows a lot of words!

Eli has really blossomed verbally over the last couple of months. He has learned a lot of random words like 'ball,' 'pot,' or 'book.' His newest thing is saying animal noises. We will ask him what the cow says and he will say 'moo.' He's got the dog, cat, cow, horse, owl, sheep and rooster in his repertoire at the moment. When asked what the rooster says, he will reply 'doo da doo da doo.' Awesome. What has been really cool is the addition of some functional words that help him communicate with us. We taught him hand signs for 'more' and 'all done.' Now he usually says them and signs them at the same time. Hearing him say 'all done' is just about the cutest thing ever. "Allllllllll do!"

He is also in love with the ABC's at the moment. No matter where you are if you start singing the song he will start dancing. He dances a lot like Axl Rose from the 'Welcome to the Jungle' video. He tries to sing the ABC song and though he doesn't get very far it provides great entertainment for him. His version is basically 'A, B, D, D, D, D, D,' but he sort of has the tune right which kind of makes it funnier. The other day he picked up an envelope and Rebecca asked him if he had picked up a letter. He responded by trying to sing the ABC's. Gotta love that kid.

Christmas!

Christmas. A whirlwind of flying paper, sugar cookies, breakfast casserole and 24 hours of A Christmas Story. Always fun but always draining. This Christmas was quite a bit different than last year's. Last year Eli was barely over a month old, incapable of moving or doing much of anything. He slept through most of it. This year he was running around and getting into everything. You can see from one of the photos that he helped open his own gifts this year but tearing the paper seemed to be a little more important than what was actually under it. His love of all things cleaning equipment has been well-documented and he was given a small broom by each side of the family. This, of course, made Eli wildly happy.

We spent the first two days at Rebecca's family's house and the next two days at my parents' place. Over the course of that time Eli accumulated a lot of plastic things with Elmo on them, including this totally sweet guitar that plays a Hendrix-esque version of the Sesame Street theme song. There's also a button to press so that Elmo talks to you. It alternates between difference phrases but for some reason Eli finds it hilarious every time Elmo says, "You're rocking now!"

The top picture deserves an explanation. I'm kicking myself because I think I left the video camera at my parents' house. This is Eli is Risky Business mode. All we are missing is the sunglasses. He was running around with this broom dancing and carrying on and I've got it on video. My plan is to actually overdub some Bob Seger on it and post it at some point soon. Classic stuff.

Eli's 1st parade (of vomiting)

Eli attended his first Christmas parade in Hillsborough. All the necessary components were there including flag waving, candy throwing, honking trucks and of course Santa at the end. It was pretty cold outside but Eli seemed to be enjoying himself and he stayed through the end. The parade seemed to go on forever and we began to joke that they were just circling around the block over and over. We began to think we were recognizing people from earlier in the parade wearing different costumes. People kept handing Eli candy and I kept pissing him off by taking it from him. Contrary to popular belief, taking candy from a baby is NOT easy.

On the less fun side of things, Eli contracted a nasty virus that tore through our daycare and struck down almost everyone, even the daycare provider. The parents of each sick child got the virus as well so Rebecca and I feel like we are just waiting on the inevitable. Toddlers don't understand to puke in a container so it's especially messy when they are just walking around the room throwing up on everything. It's super pitiful. For three days we hardly left the house so there was a nice dose of cabin fever thrown in there as well. As of yesterday we think Eli is on his way back to form; he was able to hold food and liquids down even though he was very picky about what he would eat. Since the daycare is pretty rough right now he is hanging with an aunt and grandmom for a couple days. It's the first time Rebecca and I have really been away from him for an extended period of time (they live in a different city) so our morning routine was a little strange and sort of sad in a way. Hopefully he's feeling like his old self today and having a good time with the fam.

Step up, step down.

Eli had a very busy Thanksgiving. He probably met more people in an 8 hour span on that one day than he had in the previous few months. We went to a family reunion for lunch, headed to see more family right after and made it back to the other side of the family that night. That was one tired little dude when we finally settled down. One of the things Eli discovered during these travels was a small step. We don't have stairs in our house for him to climb up and down so this was a pretty novel deal for him. Obviously he was not very adept at navigating it at first but that did not blunt his fascination with it one bit. All he wanted to do was walk back and forth through the doorway. Unfortunately, this has translated to him trying to step on lots of things like toys or our little boom box. In order to combat this we have take to getting the wii fit out and putting it in the middle of the floor so he can walk over it. He loves it. Back and forth, back and forth. Simple joys from simple things.