Cousins

Good-bye hugs

Playing with magnets

Briefly sharing the air mattress

Playing the piano

Kitchen cabinet play

We had a nice week with Heather, Joel, and Teddy. We hadn't seen them since they moved away last August, so it was great to see them. Elijah alternated between saying friendly words like "More baby" and "Teddy" and inhospitable words like "No" and "Off." Teddy liked to hand things to Elijah and touch/push him. Elijah liked having his own space and sitting possessively on the whole box of blocks. Sharing is hard when you are 1!

Outside Play with Cousin

Beach Babies

Wednesday afternoon, Heather and I ventured out to the beach with toddlers. Despite listening to screams the whole way there (Elijah did not want Teddy to touch his car seat), we had a nice time there. Teddy loved the water and wanted to stay in there the whole time, while Elijah loved the sand and thought the water was too cold.

The Council of Babies

Elijah and his cousin Teddy, whose five weeks older:

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