Hartley Hartley: Elijah is 2!

Oh man, life is good. I think I understand bible verses now that talk about how children are a reward and gifts from God. 2 year olds - aside from temper tantrums - are wonderful creatures.

Elijah is way cool to hang out with. He feels like a little family member and is great company for me. I enjoy being around him.

He has about 30ish words - though he uses them quite sparingly. In fact, it took Rob and me a few days to compile the list and we stretch what we counted as a word. For instance, err is car. Sometimes it does feel like we live with a foreign exchange student who is trying to learn our language, but mostly just points and uses the same words for pretty much everything. Some of his favorite words are -

naa - horse
baa - sheep
nink - drink
noyunk - "oink" pig
Mee - Mickey Mouse
bye - in a sweet southern 2 syllable accent
grrr - bear, lion, tiger, etc. or play with me
i stuck - Eli's only phrase and his most useful one at that.

He loves Mickey Mouse, as you'll see from his birthday party pictures and has learned or perfected some things from watching the show. He can "tip toe tip toe tip toe" like Mickey and at the end of the show he gets up and does his own version of "The Hotdog Dance." His interpretation is skipping in a circle. Mickey also gets him to jump up and down a lot somehow.

Eli loves music of any kind, especially live music. He immediately starts dancing around and even has different types of dances to fit different music styles. He really enjoys our nightly jumping on the bed time. This ritual began when Nora was born as a special sister free zone for Elijah. Now he often gets on our bed when he wants to play with us or get extra loving. We'll wrestle him on the bed, let him bounce around, and rough house as much as he wants. Usually we do this before bedtime, but often we'll be in another room of the house and hear, "GRRR" coming from our room as an enticement to come and play! He also really enjoyed all the outdoor lights at Christmas and now gives a play by play during drives. He'll point out other cars (or errs) and say, "wheee" or "bump."

He still enjoys baby sister and doesn't seem to remember a time when we weren't carting her around with us as well. Now, he really likes to put his face in the way of her flailing arms and hands. Once contact is made he'll exclaim, "Oww!" and laugh. Yeah, right brother - no way that hurt! He kind of accidentally jumped on her a week or so ago. He was jumping and tried to Evil Knievel his way over lil sis. Luckily, he angled his jump and all but cleared her feet. I was right beside her and have no idea how he moved so fast. It startled her and I learned to stay between them, being right next to her is not enough to protect newborn Nora. Besides that instance, he's doing really well with gentle touches and learning to touch little sis with an open hand. Previously, he liked to knock knock on her head or torso. (it's a bad idea to play the pretend sleep/wake up game with a toddler if you're expecting a baby) He liked to knock knock on little sister to try to wake her up. He also loves to kiss Nora, though I also have to watch that. He seems to come in a little forcefully. yikes. little sister's going to be tough.

His favorite game is probably the book pointing game. He loves to look at points and either I'll point to an animal and he'll say what the animal says. Or, he'll point to a picture and I'll say what it is. He could (and does!) play this game for hours..... He also has started to interact with other kids even more. He still largely plays independently during play dates, but we see him starting to play with other kids. That is really neat. Last Sunday, Rob heard Eli laughing in his room from down the hall. When he got to the door, they told Rob that Eli and a little girl had been engrossed in a game of chase for the entire morning. Elijah loves his Sunday school class and skips down the hall on Sunday mornings to class. He loves that they go out to the playground pretty much every Sunday and tries to talk us into taking him back after church. A playground, by the way, is known as Wee. We found this out after walking to our car after church one morning. As we approached the play ground Elijah's cries of "Weee!" got louder and louder. As we passed the playground, his cries got sadder and softer and quieter, "weee..."

Below are some pictures from Elijah's birthday party last Saturday!