Its hard to believe that at the beginning of the year Eli could only say about five words because now he never stops talking. We are adjusting to the constant “noise” in our home. But we are thankful that the “noise” includes understandable words not unintelligible whines and screams. Eli has recently started doing some pretend play. Its fun overhearing him talk as he plays with his cars or take care of his yellow monkey. He has also started singing songs spontaneously. He will often miss a handful of words or verses, but its been pretty easy to figure out what he is singing. One of his new favorites is “Ring Around the Rosie,” though he sometimes calls it “Spin Around the Rosie.” He loves falling to the ground at the end!
Eli is one big ball of energy. This morning Eli was running back and forth between all the bedrooms at full speed. That didn’t seem to drain much energy, so Matt told him to flap his arms like a bird and try to fly. So Eli took off at full speed with his arms flapping trying to fly. I’m not sure it drained much energy like we hoped, but it sure cracked us up watching him.
I divided up most of the toys in our house into four big sterilite containers. I’ve started pulling one container out at a time. After a week or so, I pack up the toys and bring out a different container. There are fewer toys out, but they are somehow more exciting because of the rotation. Toys that Eli has ignored for months are now becoming his favorites. And even better, he is taking bigger segments of time playing on his own! I also like that there are fewer toys to spread all over the house and eventually clean up! So far, its been a great system for us!
Eli’s memory has also taken off. He’s learned his alphabet and can count to twenty (most of the time). He also talks about places he’s been, people he’s interacted with, things he has done and so much more. He loves looking at pictures and talking about what we were doing or who he sees in the pictures. One thing that has really helped Eli for a long time is telling him what is going to happen so he knows what to expect. We used to do this only moments before the event happened because otherwise he wouldn’t remember. But now he remembers things that will happen quite a bit in the future, like how we are going to fly in an airplane to see grandparents in a few months!
We are finally starting to see more signs of flexibility in Eli, too. Though he sometimes cries when going to childcare at church, he recovers very quickly and does great. We can also move his nap time and bed time around to accommodate our schedule. He still desperately needs sleep, but if his nap time is short, we can make up for it at bed time and vice versa. We have waited a very long time for some flexibility with Eli’s sleep!!
