Eli's food obsessions . . .

Elijah is hooked on two things right now - croutons and jelly beans. The crouton thing has been going on for a while, and now we actually hide the crouton boxes since he figured out how to open the closed boxes and the sealed bags to get at them! Very industrious child here, let me tell you! He says, "coo-ton, coo-ton?" and looks up at you with big puppy dog eyes. And when you say no or not right now he gives a mournful little, "Pease? Pease?" for please please. It's hard to say no to that, but we manage to 95% of the time. :)

Now, since Easter, Eli's become obsessed with jelly beans. In retrospect, making a candle arrangement for the downstairs bathroom that had jellybeans as an anchor for the candle wasn't the smartest thing I ever did (one of the cutest things, but not the smartest). Eli didn't discover the beans for a few days, but then he found out they were CANDY!

He was doing very good when we limited him to one bean a day, and was just leaving them alone after that. I felt so proud at my well-behaved little boy. Until about a week later when he had already had a bean and was asking for another. I said no, and thought the matter was closed. Then, I was doing the dishes and he was playing in the living room, when I heard the pitter- patter of feet going to the bathroom door, the bathroom door opening up (he has been able to open our doors for about a month now), and then closing. Eli didn't turn the light on though - I guess that would be a dead give-away he was in there! When I went over, I found him in the bathroom, in the dark, with two handfuls and one mouthful of jellybeans!

Needless to say, the jellybeans don't reside in the bathroom anymore. Eli can still have one a day if he wants, which he usually does. "Bean, bean, pease, pease," is the usual refrain. In fact, when I called Eli from Hawaii and Lori put him on the phone, all he wanted to talk about was "beans." He is obsessed that's for sure!

E-mail?

Eli woke up from his nap on Friday and I was finishing up doing some things on the computer in the office. He came back in there with me, and pointed at one of the monitors and said, "e-mail."

He was right! My e-mail account was open on the monitor he pointed at. I guess he's heard Jon or I say that we were going to check e-mail often enough to remember the word, and then was used to seeing the screen we brought up on the monitor after we said that. I was still pretty surprised though. I never thought "e-mail" was going to be one of the first 200 words he said!

Now the next question - is he too young for his own e-mail account? (Just kidding Mom - I can just hear you now and know exactly what you're saying!) :)

A future in commercials?

Elijah's newest phrase - "mmm mmm good."

He heard me say it when I was eating last week and started saying it too. The "mmm mmm" part sounds more like little throaty grunts, but that only makes it cuter. Maybe Eli is preparing to be the Campbell's soup baby and be in a commercial for them? Hmm, that might help pay for college . . . :)

Baby Jokes

Elijah has a silly sense of humor, and likes to tell what Jon's Mom has dubbed, "baby jokes." It started when he was probably 15 months old and would look at Jon or I with a particular look in his eye and then call us the others parent's name, and then laugh. Mama would be Dada, and Dada would be Mama, and he thought that was hilarious. Over the months I haven't written down the other "jokes" for some reason, but last week he had several in just a day or two, so I can still remember them.

I was giving him a bath and reading a bath book which has a duck and a boat in it. Eli got his look, and magically the duck became a boat! At least to Elijah anyway. Every time I would point to the duck and ask what it was he would get a huge grin and say, "boat," and then just start to cackle he was laughing so much! A few days later we saw an actual duck in our back yard and I asked Eli what it was, and he said, "duck," and then got a grin and shot me the look and said, "boat!" Silly goose.

We were playing with Play-doh last week as well (if refusing to touch it and just wanting to take the caps of the little tubs on and off is really playing), and we were practicing our colors at the same time. Eli had them all down - orange, green, yellow, and red (he can say all of them but red, but knows which one the red is when I ask). Then he pointed at his shirt, which was blue, and said, "blue." I agreed with him wholeheartedly, and then told him that we did not have any blue Play-doh. Out came the look, and then the green Play-doh suddenly became blue! All the other ones were the same color, but he would open up the green tub, yell, "blue!" and then start laughing like he had said the most hilarious thing in the world. It was so cute.

His other favorite game is that at dinner time he will point at Jon or I and say, "night night." At which point we'll pretend to be asleep. And then he'll yell, "get up!" or sometimes, "wake up!" Of course we play our parts and act like we were completely startled awake. Which sets of the most joyous sound to any parents' ear - our child's laughter. Eli would play this all night if he could, and never stop laughing the whole time. So if you're ever eating by him and he tells you, "night night," now you know to play along and get some big laughs from Elijah.

Eli is such a goof-ball and I love it! I'm glad he is so silly because then I can be silly too. And it's fun to see what "baby joke" he's going to tell us next when he gets that little look in his eye!

Moving!

The latest news around the Schneider household is that Jon has taken a new job in Grand Rapids - so we're moving across the state back to where I was born and raised! We're pretty excited, and I'm really looking forward to being closer to my family and extended family after being gone for 12 years. We've been staying very busy getting the house ready to sell (I've never done so much cleaning and organizing in my life!), and Eli has been very patient, with me especially, as we've had to focus a lot on things other than him.

This morning I was getting ready to mop the guest bathroom floor, and Eli was playing with his train set in his room. I filled the tub with a little water and then went to get the vacuum out of the master bedroom to vacuum the floor first. When I came back I was met with the sight of Eli sitting in the tub of mop water! Fully clothed of course! I was gone for less than 30 seconds and he ran from his room to the bathroom and climbed in the tub without me hearing a thing. No splash or anything, so obviously he didn't fall in. Plus, the look on his face told me he was proud as punch that he managed to get in the tub without my help! Everyday is a new adventure with Elijah, and I hope that his guardian angel is getting some hazard pay for watching out for all the mischief Eli gets himself in to!