My son the bulimic

Eli discovered a new trick today. If he sticks his fingers down his throat, he throws up.

Wonderful.

Rapidly reaching the end of my rope

I am not sure if it is teething, his cold, general toddlerhood, or a combination of the three (my vote is for the last one), but Eli has been MUCH more disagreeable than usual lately. I seriously can not do anything to please this child. The answer to anything is "no", or more specifically a violent head shake. So I try to ask all of the "right" questions, meaning one of two things: 1) Not asking a question at all (as in "we are going to go change your diaper now"), which generally results in a tantrum, or 2) giving him a choice where "no" is not an option (as in "would you like to change your diaper on the changing table or the floor"). In this case I normally get an answer, he changes his mind several times, and then whatever we finally do causes, you guessed it, a tantrum. Even if I ask an open ended question (as in "what do you want for lunch") he still throws a fit when I give him EXACTLY WHAT HE WANTED.

Oh and he is sooo picky. I have no idea where he gets this trait. Today he had a waffle for breakfast, because that is the ONLY food there is for breakfast. Anything else might cause his head to explode. I used to tear it up, but now he wants it whole. So today I gave him his whole waffle, which was apparently still too hot because he put his head in both his hands like he does when something is too hot. I went over a tore off a piece to test it for temperature. BIG mistake. HUGE! Who would have thought that something so small could cause a meltdown in the kitchen.

Hopefully this is just a phase that will disappear in a few weeks and not return until Eli is a teenager.

Why are you laughing?

Hello, Molar

Eli's first molar FINALLY popped through the gums. This tooth has been coming in for about 3 months, and honestly has not given him too much trouble. Hopefully more will soon follow, at which point we will have to teach Eli to chew his food instead of his current shovel-and-swallow approach.

Eli likes...

... lima beans?! I made some to go with the spaghetti that we had for dinner tonight. He ignored the spaghetti, which was not unexpected. I had given him some plain meat from the sauce figuring that he would not eat the pasta. But never would I have expected him to skip to meat and go for the lima beans, much less eat every single one of them. This completely goes against Eli's aversion to eating anything green. He will eat green grapes (not surprising since I have yet to find a fruit that Eli does not like) and cucumber (which is more of a translucent yellow without the peel). That's it. No green beans, definitely no broccoli, and sometimes no green M&Ms. Maybe next I should try brussels sprouts... at someone else's house, of course.

Sucker

Today Eli figured out how to drink from a straw. We bought him a special straw cup a few weeks ago. The straw is a little more firm than your traditional disposable straw so that it does not easily collapse, especially if he chews on it. It has been sitting unused in the cupboard, and I would give it to him every once in a while just to let him try it out. Usually he would get frustrated after a few seconds and whine for his sippy cup. I tried again today, solely because it was the only clean toddler cup in the house and I was too lazy to wash any of the other ones. Luckily, this time he figured it out right away!

Honestly, I am excited about this because it makes it soooo much easier if we go out and I forget to bring along a sippy cup. Not that I do it very often. OK, I will admit it. I forget Eli's cup about once a week. He does not mind too much... just as long as I don't forget the graham crackers

You're turning violet, Violet!

There is nothing in this world that Eli loves more than Baby Einstein and waffles.

Except blueberries! He just can't get enough of them. Last week he had an entire pint of blueberries IN ONE DAY. Most parents would cringe at the thought of giving their child such a potentially messy food when they are not strapped into their highchair. Not I. I know that Eli will never let one go to waste. Eating blueberries is serious business, and blueberries are NOT a toy.

It's too bad Eli does not feel the same way about vegetables.

Eli's new trick

Coloring with his toes!

New pictures are up on Yahoo! for those that wish to print them.

Things that make your heart stop

Moments ago I walked into the living room just in time to see Eli stand up on the loveseat (which is about 2 ft. away from the coffee table), yell "Fly!", and take a running jump off of the couch. With images of broken legs and head injuries going through my mind, I raced over and caught him in mid-air. The cushions are now on the floor, the coffee table is on the other side of the room, and Eli is happily doing pratt falls on each of the cushions.

Must be a boy thing.

Eli at 18 months

We are nearly a week overdue for this, but I wanted to wait until we had his check-up before I gave Eli's 18-month update. So here we go...

Note: anytime I use the words "knows" or "recognizes", I mean that he can point to and tell me the name of any of the following objects.

* Eli is 31.5 inches tall (though I think this is wrong because Eli would not lay down to be measured) and weighs 21.8 pounds... still in the 5th percentile for weight, but at least he is consistent.
* He has lots of words. Our Parents As Teachers home educator told me that by 24-months children should have 50 words. I laughed at her.
* He knows all of the shapes that I think are reasonable for a small child. These are circle, square, triangle, rectangle, heart, arch, star, and oval.
* He knows all of the colors that, again, I think are reasonable for his age. These are red, blue, yellow, green, orange, purple, black, and brown. He can sometimes recognize lighter and darker shades of these colors, meaning light blue is still blue. If he is unsure, the fall-back is always yellow.
* He recognizes the numbers 0-9 and can count to ten. Sometimes he will throw in 11, just for fun. He kind of gets the concept of one-to-one correspondence (counting objects), but will often count the same object many times (does not eliminate once it is counted).
* He recognizes all of his capital letters and about half of the lower case ones. This is cheating, somewhat, since many lowercase letters look nearly identical to their uppercase counterparts (Ss, Xx, Kk).
* He recognizes a couple of words by sight, including his name.
* He is trying to jump on two feet, though usually just ends up galloping across the room.
* He can eat with a fork and spoon relatively neatly, and can drink from a cup without a lid. It does seem to be more fun to pour the contents of the cup on his head, though, so he still uses a sippy cup.
* He will drink milk with breakfast, mostly because he is so thirsty by this point that I could put anything in his cup and he will drink it. Whatever works.
* Temper tantrums -- after some doosies, they are now relatively mild. Usually just a few seconds to get out some frustration and that is it. Now behavior correction, that is another story.

Our busy day

We had so much fun today that I just had to write about it.

We started off going to The Little Gym with Eli's friend Bella and her mom. Maybe started off is the wrong phrase, since this was at 10:15, a mere four hours after we got up this morning. Anyway, today was bring-a-friend day at The Little Gym, so we went and tried it out. Eli was shy at first and did his tree frog impression (the one where I can let go of him completely and he will stay attached to my hip, clinging on for dear life) for ten minutes duing the group activity. Group activity involved songs, marching, and a parachute, which Eli normally enjoys but he was a little skeptical since it was a new place. He probably was afraid that I was going to leave him there. He definitely came out of his shell after these activities were over, and had a great time with the equipment, the balls, and the bubbles. He did a somersault on the mats and walked the balance beam like a pro! He even tried to run on the beam, but slipped after 4 or 5 steps. Not quite ready for that yet, I suppose.

After Little Gym we went to the ARC for Little Swimmers. Basically it is toddler time in the indoor pool, the main part of which is only about 18 inches deep and has an attached deeper pool and a lazy river. We met Eli's friend Solomon and his mom and played for about 40 minutes. Eli loves running around in the water, and was trying to imitate some of the bigger kids that were going under the water. He would squat down until the bottom of his nose was under, realize that he could not breathe, and then pop back up.

Finally, after coming home for lunch and a nap, we went to the local library. It has a really nice children's area where Eli likes to play, and we almost always meet someone new there. Today we made a new friend, Louis (and his mom), who is from Great Britain and in Columbia for 2 years while his daddy (who is a doctor, too) is doing a cardiovascular research assistantship, or something like that. We played for a little while, checked out a PAL (Play As Learning) bag full of musical instruments, and came home for dinner, some more playing and bedtime.

I'm tired just thinking about it!

Looks like Eli found a way to use the boot cup from Dixie Stampede that Granny and Grandpa Wolf brought this past weekend.

Baby Einstein strikes again

Afraid that I can not take credit for this one. We have run out of videos that teach "school skills", by which I mean numbers, colors, shapes, etc., that Eli does not already know. So we have moved on to Baby Galileo (stars, planets, clouds, and more) and Meet the Orchestra (instruments). These are fun beacuse Eli tries to repeat each of the objects as they are introduced, often with amusing results.

Then Eli surprised me by naming the instruments by sound. It started with the tuba. Now he can pick out a guitar and piano, just by listening. It adds a fun new dimension to our car travels because we will listen to music and name the instruments that are playing, and this time I am learning (or more accurately, relearning), too.

I wanna be Hulk Hogan

Sometimes I look at Eli and wonder "what is wrong with my child?" We all know that he is a climber and a tad rambunctious. His new favorite activity involves running back and forth across the room (or the house, depending on the day) and throwing his whole body into the largest object he can find. I feel like I am watching a one-man version of WWF wrestling. He will run across the living room and throw himself into the couch. Then he turns around and runs full force into the wall... on purpose! Then he runs back into the couch, then into the wall, over and over again. Is he losing brain cells with every hit and that makes him forget the beating his body just took? Is this his idea of fun? Can I just move him into a padded cell for the next 17 years of his life? Hey, that's not a bad idea!

To add to the insanity, today I caught him head-butting the TV screen. Maybe we really SHOULD invest in a straight-jacket.

Firecrackers

We were at some friends' house last night for a Fourth of July BBQ. Nearby, a neighbor was shooting off firecrackers. Since this was Eli's first experience with firecrackers, and he could not actually see them being set off, he searched his mind trying to find something to which he could attribute the new noises. The answer? It was a kitty. Meow!

Boys will be boys

Some things just don't need to be taught. I am constantly amazed at all of the sterotypically "little boy" things that Eli seems to pick up on his own. He loves to get dirty, and at the playground will boycott climbing, sliding, and even swinging to dig and dump sand, dirt, or mulch. I think his favorite part of the day is when Daddy comes home and he gets to wrestle (Mommy tries wrestle but I just don't do it right). Lately he has started making a fort under the kitchen table. He will pull out a chair, drag under a rug and a couple of toys, crawl under the table, and then pull the askew chair back in. I certainly did not teach him this... he did it all on his own.