A Two-Year-Old's Shenanigans

It has been MONTHS since I've done a post on Eli! There's so much catching up to do!  (Be ready for a very LONG post!)

Eli's really doing terrific.  He's talking up a storm now, repeating everything we say, and saying 3-5 word sentences/phrases.  I LOVE it!!  His squeaky little voice is the cutest thing I've ever heard, and I love hearing what comes out of his mouth, and am surprised daily by how much his vocabulary is expanding.  He only has two more Speech sessions left!  He's loved his therapist and we're really going to miss working with her.

Eli's also being such a better eater!  We've struggled for a long, long time over his pickiness.  Now he's so much more willing to at least try things once.  And my little non-fruit eater now enjoys eating apples AND grapes!!  Woohoo!  His tastebud interests are growing all the time, and I worry and stress about what he eats WAY less now.

A few things about Eli lately...he loves playing the game of closing doors on you.  As soon as you're about to leave or enter a room, he runs ahead of you to close the door on your face.  Then he proceeds to keep his hand on the handle so you have to push hard to get out.  Yes, he wants to play this game all day, every day.  Yes, it gets very old very fast.  But I find that if I keep from getting annoyed and play along by knocking on the door, he happily opens it up for me.  But yes, I hope this "fun" game ends soon.

Another thing about Eli is that he is a little OCD when it comes to some things, like food.  He will not eat certain things that are "broken."  Cereal is a big part of this.  Most mornings I pour him a bowl of dry cereal.  He will always leave or take out any piece that is not whole.  Another thing Eli is extremely particular about is that I put him to bed.  He will throw a horrendous, terribly sad crying fit/fest when David tries, even though David does the exact same things that I do.  As soon as we finish family scriptures and prayers Eli says, "Bye, Daddy," to make it clear that Mommy will now take over.  I really hope we can get that one straightened out before the baby comes, because I just figure there will be more nights when I'm just unable to put him to bed myself.

Lately Eli also loves to close his eyes, put his head back and ask, "Are you, Mommy?" (meaning, "Where are you?")  He likes me to reply with, "Where am I?" and then he opens his eyes and shrieks at me.  A new version of peek-a-boo.  : )  Another thing he likes right now is finding matches.  He loves finding two things that look the same or similar and saying "Match!"

Eli is one super-sweet and adorable boy.  Most of the time he's very agreeable and replies with a cute "Okayyyy!" when I tell him we're/I'm going to do something.  But of course no two-year-old can be sweet and adorable all the time.  He's definitely showing some "terrible-two" behavior!  Sometimes when he gets mad or doesn't get his way he'll run to his room and slam the door.  He has a bad habit of yelling "NO!" when we tell him not to do something, or just hitting.  He'll occasionally fight me when it's time to get dressed for the day.  He wants to be independent and get in his carseat by himself, but likes to stall and take as long as possible to do so.  He also thinks it's fun to spit.  Luckily most days he's really great all day, and I don't often see the ugly behavior come out.  Things are especially going well now that David's tax season is over!  Having him home again on Saturdays, and home earlier on weekdays really makes a huge difference.  Eli needs that Daddy-bonding time, and I need a break to keep my sanity!  : )

One random warmer day back in January (looks more like Spring then than it does now!), David took Eli on a walk around the neighborhood and got some great pictures!

Playing with a dandelion...

This video is back from December.  For Christmas David set us up with a Roku device so we could watch Netflix on our TV.  The Roku also had a few other channels, one of which has aerobics.  Sometimes David does some of them and Eli enjoys joining in to exercise, too!

Doing some painting on Valentine's Day.  We've done quite a lot of painting this winter and Eli loves it!  We trade off with watercolor painting and washable paints.

Eli loves our weekly trips to the library, and claps when we get there (as he also does when we get to church.  That boy LOVES going to church, especially Nursery!).  He's doing so well during storytime, and enjoys participating in singing the songs.  A funny thing is that when I try to sing fun songs to him at home he quickly says, "No, library!" (meaning, we don't sing songs at home, only at the library!)

One afternoon Eli decided he wanted to give his Spot dog some ice cream.  But then he thought it'd be more fitting if Spot ate in the highchair.  Of course, the bib had to go on him, too!  : )

Eli still loves, loves, loves to read with me!  We took a trip to Goodwill over the weekend and I picked out about 10 or so books (in great condition!) to add to our collection, because we read all of his books so much (and he has well over a hundred).  He enjoys sitting through rather long books, such as Tikki Tikki Tembo, Pumpkin Soup, and The Three Little Wolves and the Big Bad Pig.  Now instead of reading just before nap and bedtime, we'll sit together for another time in the day and read.  Love it!
Looking so much older!

Eli's always had a very tight relationship with his paci.  I had planned on cutting it out when he turned two, but then I was super sick, David was in busy season, and there was no way I was gonna mess with taking it away when it was our lifesaver and his #1 lovey.  So he's had it a lot this winter.  But lately I've been trying harder to strictly make it allowed at only nap and bedtime.  He's always hated giving it up and fussed and thrown a fit.  But somehow I came up with a trick to make it easier to let it go and it's working so far!  When Eli gets up I tell him to say bye to paci and give it a kiss.  He kisses it and then hands it to me, where I put it out of reach and out of sight.  He does ask for it sometimes, but I tell him we can have it when we go to bed.  It makes me a little sad to think of him no longer having a paci (a sign he's really growing up, I guess, plus such a huge help when he needs comfort).  But I know it's time to cut that cord and let go of that "baby" part of him.

Here's a very cute and funny video of Eli right after he received a dish set with a "real" spoon and fork.  He went to town "eating" the blanket on our bed.  : )

I took Eli to the Nature Center nearby at Cool Creek Park.  Here he was coloring on a big sheet of paper.  We looked at turtles, lizards, snakes, etc.  He also loves playing in the tree trunk!

We spent forever looking out this big window watching a couple squirrels chase each other.  He loved the binoculars!

Over the last two or three months Eli has become quite fond of the movie The Fox and the Hound.  I played it from Netflix one day and he instantly took a liking to it and kept asking for "doggy show."  Thankfully it's one I can have on over and over and not get sick of.  Eli still also loves his Kipper (he has every episode memorized, and it's adorable hearing him practically speak the whole show).  A couple of recent ones he likes are The Adventures of Chuck and Friends (a truck show) and Pingu: On Thin Ice (a funny penguin show).  Something funny about Eli is that if he sees an item on one of his shows that he has, too, he runs to get that item and does what the characters are doing.  This mostly happens on Kipper.  Some examples are: golf clubs while they play Crazy Golf, his toy shovel when they shovel snow, his piggy bank when they bury it to search for treasure, etc.  In one episode they fly on a magic carpet, so he goes and sits on our rug so he can fly, too.  While watching "doggy show" he pulls out two of his tractors because to him they're the same as the old cars that the people drive.  With the truck show, he has a matching Chuck Truck that he drives.  I love that Eli makes these connections and enjoys playing and interacting with the characters he watches.

Eli is always excited for when Daddy comes home.  As soon as he hears the garage door open, he runs to the garage to welcome him in.  He always finds fun things to do with Daddy.  One night David built a simple fort by tossing a blanket over Eli's toy kitchen set.  Eli LOVED it.  Here's a cute video of them playing in their fort.

In early March we had another snow.  (I thought it was the last "hurrah" of winter, but this first-of-Spring winter storm sure has it beat!)  Eli loves helping Daddy shovel.

Eli has pretty much stopped sleeping at naptime (only sleeps maybe one or two days of the week), but thankfully he will happily stay in his crib and chatter for about two hours!  I figure this wonderfulness will discontinue once he's moved to a toddler bed, but I'll savor it as long as I can!  We're both so much happier after our break of alone time.  : )

More painting!  Eli decided using your hands is much more fun than a paintbrush, and thinks the table looks better with his handprints all over it.

Sometimes when Eli toots I say, "Woah, that was a big rumble!" or tell him he had a rumble in his diaper.  One day on the way home from church he tooted and then said "Rumble!"  : )  Most of the time, though, when he toots he says "I poopied."  I try to always distinguish it by telling him, "You tooted.  Can you say excuse me?"  Then he cutely replies, "Scuse me!"  This morning was a major accomplishment because Eli went #1 and #2 in the toiliet!!  We haven't been working on potty training at all, but David was home on a snow delay this morning, and when he was changing Eli's diaper Eli mentioned poo.  So David took him to the toilet, and after about 5 minutes he had gone both!  I was so, so proud of him, which of course made him proud of himself, too!  So now we know he has no qualms about going on the toilet, we just need him to actually say when he needs to go!  : )

Most of you have probably seen these Easter hats at the $1 section at Target.  Eli loves wearing the Easter bonnet.  : )

Wasn't sure about the bunny ears, though . . .

Eli has really enjoyed his kitchen set that he got for his birthday.  He pulled his stool from his desk set over to the kitchen and always sits while he cooks.  He's also decorated his kitchen with a few stickers, so it's more like our fridge, which is decorated with his artwork and sticker pages.  : )  A fun video of him cooking.

Eli sits like this all the time, with his hands clasped together.  Must be comfortable to him.  I thought he was especially cute here, and handsome in his church clothes.

Eli is all about the CARS.  He plays cars for hours every day.  It's definitely his favorite toy/interest.  While he does spend quite a lot of time driving them, lately he's also taken an interest in lining them up.  We'll have piles of "parked" cars all around the living room.  He's continually changing their location.  Eli's always very exact about how he wants you to play with him.  He'll bring you over and hand you the car you're supposed to drive (the same kind of vehicle as his, it seems like there's at least two of all of them).  I love when he's so immersed in his cars and is lying down flat on the floor or the couch, driving them and watching them closely.

Here's a video of Eli naming a bunch of his cars.  Originally I was trying to get a cute video of him swinging the baseball with his bat, but he was only interested in his cars.  : )

Out on another walk with Dad!  Loves driving/pushing his car while on walks.  Looks so focused here.  : )

One activity that Eli thinks is fun is playing "ghosts."  Apparently it's something he and David started months back while they were lying in our bed one evening.  They'd both get under the blanket and David would make the ghost sounds until eventually Eli did as well.  They haven't played "ghosts" in awhile, but Eli really loves it when Daddy gets him out of his bed on the weekend mornings and brings him into our room, and he "sleeps" with me for a little bit.  He always enjoys snuggling under the big, soft blanket.  One evening I was cleaning up the kitchen I heard Eli giggling.  I looked over to see him and David playing under a blanket.  I quickly grabbed the camera to catch that cute giggle.

This past Saturday (before all the snow hit), we ate a picnic dinner at the park.  We haven't been to the park since November and Eli was more than a little excited.  He hardly ate as he was just itching to go play!  

For a few nights after his bath, Eli would say he wanted to go "night-night" in the tub, and lay down.  All of the water was drained and he was probably shivering like crazy, but he'd stay going "night-night" for a good 5-10 minutes.  Such a funny boy.

Such a long post, but there's so much I want to remember about this fun, cute age!  Love this boy so much!