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."