Spring has Sprung!

The last few days have been just beautiful here, and Elijah and I are really enjoying being outside! Yesterday it was 81 degrees here, and today it's 77! Yippee! Both today and yesterday Eli and I spent time at the kids park near our house, and had so much fun. The swings aren't up yet (which Elijah finds confusing; he keeps going to where they are and looking around saying "swing"), but Eli's still enjoying himself sliding and jumping and climbing all around.

I think his favorite thing at the park is this rubber bridge that kids can walk on and bounce up and down. He spends at least half of our time at the park just running across it. Yesterday he saw an older boy swinging on the parallel bars and saw what you could do with them (he never could quite figure it out before!). So now he likes holding on to them and hanging and swinging himself back and forth. It's neat to be able to go back to the park this year and see all the new things that Eli can do there!

Here's a web album of the good time we had!

Fun at the Park!

Condiment King Strikes Again

Looks like someone really liked their ranch dressing!

Splish splash

When Eli "helps" do the dishes, it often turns out to be more like a shower. He's definitely a little boy who likes to splash around!

Hope you're wearing your raincoat, Mom!

Here I go! Splish splash!

Adorable

Here's a picture of Eli sleeping with his froggy at Grandma's house last week. Adorable.

This kid will eat anything . . .

I was making a marinade for chicken while Eli was finishing up his lunch in his highchair the other day (pretty slow eater - just like his daddy!), and Eli kept saying please please and pointing to the marinade. I hadn't put the chicken in yet, so I thought I'd give him a taste and see what he thought. It was soy sauce and Italian dressing mixed together, so not the worst taste, but not something I thought he'd like. I gave him the little whisk which I had used, and he gave it a good lick, then made a scrunched up face. Then another lick. And a big smile. Then please please please, I want some more Mom!

I'll just get a little on my tongue here . . .

Mmm, tasty!

Eli also has a thing for condiments and dipping things. Except most of the time he forgoes the dipping and just goes straight to the eating the ketchup/sour cream/barbecue sauce by itself and then asking for more. I tell him that it's a condiment, not an entree, but he hasn't caught on yet! (I know that sounds silly to say to a 21 month old, but I figure he'll understand eventually!) Yesterday we were mixing up tuna melts for dinner, and he grabbed the tablespoon and the mayo jar and got a glob out and in his mouth. Yuck! He really liked it though, and wanted more.
I can see eating ketchup and sour cream straight, but mayo?! This kid will eat anything!

I heard mayo was good for your skin
and thought I'd give it a try.

Take that, baby Pooh!

Elijah has a sleeping baby pooh doll which he likes to carry around sometimes, and that he puts to bed, or "night night" as Eli says. Last week Elijah brought me baby Pooh, saying, "night night, night night" so I pretended that I was rocking Pooh to sleep. I even gave baby Pooh a little kiss on the forehead. Eli didn't take too kindly to all the affection being shown to someone other than him though, and gave me and Pooh quite a nasty look. Then Eli walked over to me, grabbed baby Pooh, and threw him on the ground. And shot me a smug little look, as if to say, "You're not replacing me with baby Pooh! Take that!" Maybe it's a good thing we don't have child number two quite yet!

P.S. We haven't been posting photos lately because our camera has been acting very strange and not focusing correctly. I'm borrowing my Mom's camera for our trip to a Hawaii in a few weeks though, and I'll be "practicing" with it and getting pictures up again soon!

Smarter than the baby from "Look Who's Talking"

After work today, I was sitting in the van talking to Eli's Grandma Amanda (who graciously had watched Eli this afternoon while Missy went to visit her sister-in-law Lori in Kalamazoo). Mom/Amanda had dropped Eli off at my office after he had spent the afternoon napping and hanging out with her and Jeremy at their office across town.

After standing outside and chatting for a while, we decided to continue the conversation in the van to get out of the cold a bit. Eli roamed around in the back of the van -- likely a nice change for him from normally being strapped into his seat while he's back there! -- while I sat in the driver's seat and Mom sat in the front passenger seat.

Once he got tired of roaming around in the back, Eli decided to come up front and join us. He sat on my lap in the drivers seat, and proceeded to try and turn the wheel and to push all buttons and pull all levers within reach (as he usually does!).

I had my car keys out in my hand, and Eli took them from me, and pushed the "lock" button on the wireless keyfob a few times to make the horn make a brief "toot" (indicating that the doors have locked). (Eli does that at home sometimes, too. He gets a kick out of pressing the "lock" button on the keys from inside the house and hearing the van's horn sound from out in the garage!)

As we continued to sit, though, Eli decided to do something new. He took the keys, grabbed one in particular (as it turned out, the right one!), leaned around the right side of the steering wheel, and put the key into the igition! Eli was really excited when he was able to put the key in, and Mom and I were really surprised! I guess Eli has had a great vantage point from his car seat in the right rear passenger seat to see Missy and I start the car each time we travel!

Eli had lots of fun inserting the key into the igition (making the lights on the dashboard light up) and then taking it out again. Fortunately, he didn't make any attempt to turn the key once inserted (yet)! Still, we're going to have to watch the little guy a little more closely from now on to be sure he doesn't drive away!

If you were a bit bemused by the title of this post, it's a reference to the 1989 movie. There's a scene towards the end of the movie where the toddler climbs into the driver's seat of a car, and tries to start the car by attempting to insert a breadstick into the ignition. Our little guy proved today that he's smart enough to use the real thing instead of just a breadstick!