Playgrounds

Elijah is now old enough to enjoy the play equipment at playgrounds; he especially likes slides.

Naptime Woes

Sadly, the time has come to drop nap #2. I miss it. The adjustment was rough. The combination of dropping his nap and coming back from a trip where for three days he was held, carried, or driven to sleep turned going down for a nap from something simple and easy to do into a fight. Twice he fell asleep from exhaustion in high chair after refusing to sleep in his crib.

Since he was fighting me on naps regardless of location, we said good-bye to the beloved swing. Thankfully, he's back to napping nicely, although my work schedule is still adjusting to the new normal.

One food-related story and one sleep-related story:

The aggressive one: the other night, he woke up, so I brought him to bed to snuggle. Rather than laying down quietly, he decided that he wanted me to stand up with him--which he expressed by pulling my hair and pushing my head to get me into an upright position.

The sweet one: he was gnawing on an apple and wanted to share a bite with me. However, he is unable to pull a bit of the apple off with his hands, so he bit into the apple, pulled the apple bits back out of his mouth, and very happily offered them to me.

Words, words, words!

At fourteen months today, Elijah is a talker. It is fun to watch him use language to explore his world and to communicate. His highest frequency words are: dada (he loves his Dad!), off (used for off, on, in, out), bye (used when we or others are leaving, or when he wishes we or others were leaving), and more (meaning "I want something").

Word list:
--dada
--mama
--baby
--dog ("daw")
--bath
--off
--no
--up
--down
--peas
--belly button
--blanket ("blee")
--bye
--hi
--more
--peek
--boo
In the last three weeks he has added: please, spoon, bowl, vacuum, bird, cat, keys, book, all done, bringing his word total to 26.

Signs:
--more
--all done

Books!

Elijah continues to enjoy reading. He now will bring a book to me and physically move my hands to take it (and if he prefers to read a different book, he'll "force" it into my hand). He also likes to read the same book many times in a row, sweetly signing "more" between reads. Some current favorites are: "Freight Train," "Peek-a-boo" (he loves looking at babies!), "Blue Hat, Green Hat," and "Time for Bed." He has also discovered that we have many books on the bookcases behind our couch; his favorite volume, determined by weight and size, is a book of poems by Hopkins.

My Helper

A couple of weeks ago, it was time to plant the spring garden. Elijah thought it was great fun to help.

He wanted to maintain possession of the spade, which makes planting a bit more difficult. If I was using the shovel, then he wanted to be right there with me, which usually meant he was narrowly missing sitting on a plant.

He also loves water, making it difficult to water the plants without watering the toddler. For the record, I really am trying to get the water on the plants and not aiming for the child--he just likes to come between the plants and the water.

Elijah likes to be right there with me as I go about household tasks. He now sits on the counter while I make dinner and bake.

The Olive Grove

On Good Friday, we got to enjoy more time with our Seattle friends, spending the morning visiting campus.

Elijah liked trying to keep up with their two year old.

Gooblek

The other day for science, we made gooblek (2 parts cornstarch to 1 part water). It was a hit with all ages as it acts like a solid when squeezed and like a liquid when released.

An Afternoon of Friends

On Palm Sunday, we got to enjoy the company of dear friends from college.

Favorite toy

Elijah loves playing with the phone, pushing buttons and chattering away.

Happy Easter!