On the train at the zoo
Riding down the big slide at the carnival with Pappy
Eli and Daddy watching the parade
From here down are from his birthday party
e
Well, every time I post, I say I'm going to update this thing more regularly, and every time, I go several months before the next update. Eli is now 2 years old. He turned two on the 11th and we had his birthday party on the 20th. It was a fire truck party as he is obsessed with firetrucks! We were even able to get the local volunteer fire department to drive a fire truck down to his party!
He hasn't been to his 2-year-old well-baby checkup yet, so I'm not sure of his weight and height, but it seems like he's been getting a little taller and looking more like a little boy and less like a chubby baby these days. He's quite the picky eater, but some of the things he likes right now are pizza, hot dogs, FRIES, GRAPES, cereal, toast, and ice cream. But who wouldn't like those things? Other than fire trucks, he likes any kind of vehicle--helicopters, trains, boats, school buses, motorcycles.... He loves books too. I'll often go to check on him to find him sitting in our recliner with a huge pile of books on his lap. He enjoys looking at them himself, but prefers to be read to. He will let you read to him for hours.
Some of the other things he loves: His cousin "Baby Toey" (Chloe), dogs, his Aunts, Uncle, and grandparents, Oscar the cat. The moon-he is always looking for the moon at night. He'll ask me, "Mommy, the moon at?" And I'll say, "I don't know Eli, where is it?" He'll usually either say "up in sky" or "hidin' tees," which means "hiding behind the trees." He's been doing very well at communicating and puts together simple sentences on his own. The other day I was surprised by the way he answered me when I asked who made a mess: Daddy did. Not just "Daddy," but "Daddy did." He also said something in the past tense not long ago: I saw it. The little guy's clever!
He's been starting to sing a little bit. He won't sing if asked, but I'll often hear him when he thinks no one is listening sing "bitsy bitsy spider" or "twinkle twinkle hittle star." Sometimes when I'm singing him to sleep at night, he'll sing the next line to me if I pause.
The terrible twos are here, but for the most part, Eli is a very well-behaved kid. The only time he really misbehaves is when he is tired. And then he really likes to throw around the words "no" and "mine." Boy, do I hate "mine!" Speaking of tired, the sleeping schedule is just as crazy as it's always been. Most days, I can't get him to go down for a nap, so he falls asleep around 7 or 8 and then gets up at 9 or 10 and won't go back to bed until after midnight. Then of course he sleeps in the next day. It's something we've been trying to work on for a long time, but any time we seem to make progress, things somehow manage to go back to this schedule. I was hoping to have him on a more normal schedule by the time his baby sister gets here, but it's not looking like it's going to happen; she is due in less than 7 weeks. If this were my pregnancy with Eli, he would be a month old already. It's really hard to believe!
