My friend Laurie over at Burlington Blurb does such a great job writing about her family and the ins and outs of life with three rugrats. It made me realize that I haven't really written much recently, mostly just posted pictures. At the risk of boring the heck out of you, here are a few of the most recent thoughts and developments in our world...

You might be able to gather this from our pictures, but we have a great time at home. A really really great time. Sure, we have some typical toddler moments of frustration and incomprehensible shrieking, but we are blessed for the most part with a remarkably lovely, loving, happy child. He loves to help out cleaning up his toys, he loves to snuggle and play outside. He has a great sense of humor and he is a quick study. In general, we're about as happy as parents can be.

I don't claim that Eli is any smarter or happier or better than any other kid, just that he's the perfect amount of smart, happy, and lovely to make him Eli. He makes me happy to be a mother, especially HIS mother.

So what's he doing these days? Let's see... He's 18 1/2 months old now and he is all over the place. He can walk and run and he talks a blue streak. He sings a lot, sometimes recognizable songs, sometimes his own tunes. He loves to dance, either to the radio, his own CDs or to the thumping bass of a car bouncing down the street. He is remarkably coordinated considering that I'm his mother, and he is a great climber. At the playground today, he climbed a small climbing wall built for much bigger kids with no assistance (yes, I was spotting him). He is also fearless, which adds to his success as a climber but also the number of bruises and scrapes he manages to acquire. He loves to pat the dogs and would dearly love to play with them but doesn't really know the rules of dog play (like, you eventually have to throw the toy, not just dangle it over Tabi's nose) and thinks tails looks like a lot of fun. He isn't interested in TV unless he's too sick to do anything else, which has only happened two or three times. He loves babies and always has me stop at the window of the nursery rooms at his preschool before I dop him off so he can look at the babies ("Babies sleep? Shhhh."). He's a hell of a good eater and will try anything we put in front of him, although occasionally it will come back out again. His favorite food is cheese and he asks for it at every meal (it sounds the same as "keys" and "trees" so context is important here).

He's incredible.


p.s. I do want to shout out to Laurie Burlington because Eli and I LOVE being in her music class on Friday mornings. It is SO much fun and Eli sings the songs all week long, whether or not I play the tape. Thanks for being a Music Class rock star, Laurie!