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!