Only Child Syndrome

Elliot definitely has some only child syndrome stuff going on. He climbed right in front of  baby Eli and started doing all the things he knows Aaron thinks are cute to get his attention, like talking and giving him hugs and kisses. He will often try to shove other babies off my lap if I'm holding them instead of him. It's a problem.

"Thou shalt have no other babies before me"

 He is different with older kids. He likes to copy everything they do. Except for walking. That would be too convenient.

"So, we are playing with these iPad things now, huh?"

"Ok... touch the screen over and over... I can do that..."

"Am I doing this right?"

I came back later and they were lying like this. Too cute.

Happy Days are Here Again

After the week of sadness caused by Buster Bubb's fever and general misery, I'm glad to say that happy days are here again. 

Picked our first (pathetically small but very juicy and delicious) peach!
We're hoping they will be bigger next year- the tree is young and we had some watering issues. 

Flying

Cheezin' for the camera

Selfies with my little fella by our grapevine wall

The closest to mowing the lawn he will get in this hosue

 Life isn't all fun and games though. Sometimes little boys make very poor decisions. 

"I completely and whole-heartedly regret climbing onto this shelf"

Of course, rescuing him from this weird angle involves bumping his already-heavily-bumped head several more times.
You would think he only did this once, but I think he is up to three times now. 

First Fever

We made it almost a year and half with no illnesses. I must say that this was the least fun milestone we have had to date. 

Elliot alternated between this:

Completely dazed

 And this:

Screaming and thrashing around in reaction to days of accumulated frustration

Fortunately, he power slept through most of the miserable 4 days. He was only awake for like 5 hours a day for the duration of the ordeal. 14 hours of sleep at night + a 5 hour nap? Pretty impressive.

I did end up taking him to the doctor because he wasn't eating and his fever got decently high. He was in his dazed mode at the doctor, and didn't even protest too much over the strep test. It came back negative. It was probably a teething fever. 

Glad to say that he is now back to normal!

Elliot's Favorite Things

Here's a summary of things that Elliot is passionate about.

Shoes. His shoes, mom's shoes, all shoes are good shoes. He will go to the shoe box when you tell him to get his shoes- it's one of the first words he understood. 

Demonstrating his shoe love

Very baffled when he saw his shoes on display at walmart.

Legos! His Lego train is definitely his favorite toy. He can play with it for HOURS. 

Climbing on furniture and pushing buttons.
He somehow accessed the projector advanced menu and it took us a while to figure out how to fix it. 

Stuffing more food into his mouth than actually fits

Staring at other kids

Drinking from the big straw cup

These splendid rings can be chucked across the room, stacked, or worn as colorful accessories

Fulfilling his civic duty

The grate is the most fun part of the park, although the slide is more and more fun

He is almost always happy when he's outside.
Let's see how true that is once we pass 100 degrees.

Sharing, aka "forcing my goldfish into other people's mouths"

Reading books

We Have Steps!

Elliot took his first steps on April 18th. That put him 2 days shy of 16 months.

He has been standing up on things for a while now, but this kid definitely takes his time with things. He started standing unsupported a few weeks earlier, but would never do it on command. If we tried to get him to do it, he would bend his knees and flop right down. Walking is shaping up to be the same. We can occasionally get him to play the "walk back and forth between mommy and daddy while they applaud wildly" game, but usually he has to instigate it for it to work.

He is walking more and more, but still short distances. The best part is that when he walks to someone, he ends it with a complete trust fall/swan dive/tackle hug. Then he'll pull away to clap for himself.

Walking practice with Aaron and Benjamin

Reminds me of an old-west duel.
Especially since Benjamin's tagline is "Hey, Partner" in his gruff voice.

Standing by a fountain

People keep telling me that he's going to get into all sorts of trouble when he starts to walk, but I don't know if that's true. He is a super speedy crawler and an accomplished climber, so walking won't let let him go anywhere he hasn't already gotten into. He just collects more head wounds from falls now.