Ketchup Time: Our little Mountain Goat

Eli is EVERYWHERE these days. Running from room to room, opening cabinets, pulling things off the shelves, tackling the dogs . . . he's EVERYWHERE. There was a brief period of time when he was old enough to walk around on his own and find things to entertain himself, but he was too slow to get far from us and too short to get himself into any real trouble. Those days are long gone and, oh, how I miss them. Nowadays he's a few inches taller and a few steps quicker, and that, my friend, has danger written all over it. Well . . . at least Kelvey and I see the danger. Eli is having a ball exploring the word beyond a foot and half off the ground. One second he's playing with puzzles on the living room floor and the next second he's climbing on the dining room table chairs and working his way onto the table top just so he can finger paint with all the salt he poured out.

The little bugger is quicker than a jackalope and nimbler than a mountain goat! Luckily we have been quick enough to catch him in the act and he has yet to feel the bitter sting of his face meeting the cold linoleum. So far the worst predicament he has gotten himself into is getting stuck in his toy truck:

Catch Up Time: Word Up!

It's been a while since the last blog post but even though I've been slacking on my communication, Eli has been beefing up his. He is now saying Mama, Daddy, Doggie, Uh Oh, Tree, Bubbles, and Eye (even though he can point to his hair, eyes, ears, nose, mouth, tongue, teeth, arms, legs, feet, toes, belly, and belly button when you ask him to).

While we are very impressed with his ever increasing vocabulary, the thing we love to hear him say the most is "Hi". Imagine a bunch of ladies huddled up at the office sharing gossip about the hussy in accounting, but suddenly the hussy happens to walk by and the lead gossip girl turns around and says, "Oh Hiiiii Susie!" in a high-pitched and obviously fake exchange of pleasantries. That's what Eli sounds like when he says "Hi", but similar only in tone. He says his with such enthusiasm and sincerity that it makes us feel like we are really something special in his life and he is not just parroting a sound. As soon as he sees us enter his room in the morning he greets us with a smile and spouts off a barrage of "Hi! Hi! Hiiiiiii!". We get the same greeting when we pick him up from school, when I come home from work, and when Kelvey comes home from a week of travel.

His primary form of communication, though, is sign language because the signs make it easier for him to get across more complex thoughts like "I'm hungry", "I want that", and "More please". He's had a mastery of Food, More, Milk, and All Done for a while, but now he is starting to do Water, Doggie, Duck/Bird and Please. Eli's teachers at his montessori school deserve most of the credit for helping him learn the signs so we thank them for making our lives easier. Eli still has his fits of frustration when he wants something and we helplessly respond, "What do you want? Your water? The phone? Is it the phone? Do you want your stamper? How about a phone? Ooh, look a phone! Just take the phone."