18 Months Old: Eli

Wow, I can't believe it!  Our baby is a year and a half old!  He is getting so big and growing so fast and learning so much!  He is just awesome and we love him so much.  :)

Here's some things about Eli at 18 months old:

• 33" tall, 27 lbs -- 75ish percentile for height, weight, and head circumference 
• sign language: new words he's learned -- balloon, cold, hot, again, rain, shh
• speaking: "yeahyeahyeah", please ("puh"), milk ("mm"), daDA (inflection on the second syllable), "blue", "Eli", "red", "adidas", "ball", "ick", "go", "nononono"
• animal noises: doggie (snort), bear (rah!), monkey (EH eh eh), snake (ss ss ss), pig (snort), cow (oo), cat (higher pitched oo)
• basketball -- He LOVES basketball. He can recognize a basketball or hoop anywhere. He loves to watch it and he's really good at playing too! He can shoot, dunk, steal, catch and dribble!
• folds his arms for prayers, and about half the time he waits to ask for things until we're done praying
• I taught him to smile for pictures by going "eee!"
• no longer puts things directly in his mouth -- finally! I wondered when that would end and it finally has.
• he's a stinker, he does things he's not supposed to -- climbs on the arms of couches, puts magnets in his mouth -- and looks directly at us waiting for a response
• he's sneaky -- tries to run out of the room at bedtime
• likes to brush his teeth, but doesn't really like mint flavor toothpaste
• somersault -- Uncle Weslin taught him how!
• puts buckets, baskets and laundry hampers on his head (he used to hate putting things on his head). He also loves to put his blanket over his head and run through the house to us.
• plays the piano -- He climbs up onto the piano bench, sits down and plays, and occasionally reaches up to the hymnbook to turn the pages, then sits down to play a different song
• answers the front door
• knocks on doors
• loves books -- with flaps, buttons or just pages!
• food -- loves grapes, hot dogs, cheese, milk, chips and dip, bread, pizza, fries and ketchup, fruit snacks, Eegee's, popcorn
• loves to climb on the playground and slide down the slides
• loves to climb up stairs
• he can say how old he is -- when we ask he holds up one finger to say "one"
• dances to the intro music of shows we watch
• loves to give high fives, pounds, and kisses -- if one person asks for one he usually will want to give one to the rest of the people around
• gives kisses to stuffed animals, and sometimes animals in books 
• loves exit signs, stop signs, the Arizona A, Arizona wildcat symbol, Steelers logo -- he can see and recognize them anywhere!
• knows and can point out clocks
• points out the moon
• likes Batman -- sings the theme song and can point out the logo
• likes to play daddy's guitars -- they are both set up in one room in two corners and he goes from one corner to the other and plays them back and forth
• still LOVES balls
• and still LOVES balloons
• loves to see pictures of mommy and daddy 
• points out pictures of his aunties and uncles
• loves to sit on the couch (he climbs up of course)
• pretends to talk on the phone -- holds it up to his ear
• he likes to point to things and have us tell him what it is -- pop-up toy with 5 animals, sport decorations in his room (basketball, football, soccer, baseball - in that order), stacker toy colors of each piece
• singing songs -- he loves to sing and do the actions to Popcorn Popping, Give Said the Little Stream, Book of Mormon Stories, The Wise Man and the Foolish Man
• likes to open and smell scented fragrance wax
• loves to play the "smell my feet" game -- he sticks his foot in the air or toward our face and scrunches his nose and sniffs as if to tell us to smell his foot. he giggles at our reaction of his feet being smelly! After a bath we do an excited "oo!" like his feet smell good, and he still loves it
• likes playing hide and seek! -- when we ask where his hands are he hides them and then reveals them (he's good at that especially during diaper changes), when we ask were Eli is he covers his eyes with his hands and then uncovers them, and he likes to play "hide Huggy Bear" where we tell him to wait in his room and we hide Huggy Bear and he comes out and finds him!
• loves swimming and bath time!
• wears size 18 month shirts but 18m size pants are way too long, 12-18m pants fit, but he can wear 18m or 24m shorts!
• finally drinks milk from a cup instead of having to use a bottle (took a painful day or two, but he's fine with it now!)
• still sleeping through the night and takes a long nap in the middle of the day (usually about 2 but sometimes 3 hours!)
• plastic surgeon says everything with the growth of his head is progressing fine and looking great! he's still got lots of growing to do and no sign of needing any more fixing (next follow-up in 6 months)