Elijah is 17 Months Old!

My, time flies when you are having fun! I can't believe I am one month away from having an 18 month old. I remember looking at 18 month clothes we got before Elijah was born and thinking they looked so big compared to the tiny outfits I had laid out for his first days. I look at him now and he does not look so big. Don't get me wrong, there are days when I wonder what happened to my "baby" but most days, he still looks so small to me.  I am enjoying that right now because I know as soon as Rory and Patrick are born, Elijah will look huge to me.

Elijah and I really are enjoying our days together, our last ones as a twosome during the weekday. Because of my chronic insomnia, I'm afraid I am not as active as I would like to be with him right now but we still manage to have a lot of fun together. He still loves to help and is always finding new ways to be Mama's little helper. The latest way is by flushing the toilet for me. I know, I know. It is very weird but he likes doing it and I am beginning to wonder if he might be an early potty trainer because lately, he has been waking up with dry diapers.....and this kiddo has always been a heavy overnight wetter. Part of it might be that we no longer give him a bottle.  We had started to give him bottles when he weaned because I had a couple thousand ounces of pumped breastmilk for him.  We finished the breastmilk around 15 1/2 months but so loved the cuddling bottle time before bed and I don't think either of us was ready to give that up. Lately he had been showing less interest in the bottle and I had said from the beginning that once the breast milk was finished, the bottle would be gone and it just fell into rhythm that way, with about a one month delay.  My challenge now is that I don't feel like he drinks enough of his coconut milk. He will sometimes take a little from his cup but he is a water kid through and through, which is no surprise because he has never had anything but water and coconut/almond milk to drink. He does have his smoothie and yogurt every day but I am thinking of adding some calcium to his smoothie to up his intake because that mineral is so important.

Elijah had been very cranky for this past month or so and we figured out why. His molars (FOUR OF THEM!) all came in at once! He seems to have skipped the 3rd and 4th bottom front teeth but I am sure they will come in soon. But his molars came in within days of one another.  Since then, he has been sleeping a bit better, though he still has some bad nights where he wakes up and either Mama or Daddy get no sleep. (Chip has started sleeping in Elijah's room instead of me occasionally so I can try to catch up on sleep).

Elijah's vocabulary is going strong. We determined that he is right on track (and actually a bit ahead) from where he is supposed to be at this age and that even though his words don't sound perfect, they still count. He has begun applying the word "good" to things other than food. He started to say "down" which sounds more like "dow".  He made up his soon sign for "all done" and I know we have heard him say "all done" a couple of times but not with any consistency. He also started signing "more". Now Chip and I do not focus on baby sign. I used sign more with him when he was about 6-8 months old but we really don't do it anymore so......I am not sure how he picked it up but he just started doing it when we asked him if he wanted more. So we just go with it! He continues to experiment with different sounds and seems to really like the hard "C" sound.  We are working on animals noises and he can do a dog and an elephant. Um, the elephant comes from the way my grandfather used to imitate it. I do the same with Elijah and he does it now. I can't really describe it but if you want to hear it, ask me to show you. :)

Elijah is so full of love and affection and gentle kindness. I can see empathy starting to emerge in his little personality. I was crying the other day (full of hormones....just one of those days) and walked over and gave me a hug.  A little boy was crying at Gymboree and Elijah picked up a bean bag and walked over to share it with him which actually did make him stop crying. Oh how I prayed for him to be a kind and gentle boy (and one day man) and he truly is.

I haven't done a real photo shoot with Elijah for a while and am DETERMINED to do one for his big 18 month update! But here are some shots from this past month!

Happily riding his rocking giraffe!

Helping Daddy take apart the table that we sold to make room for a new playroom!

My sweet gentle boy

Happy baby....I mean little boy!

Giddyup!

"hey there Mama"

Some Gymboree Fun!

Elijah favorite Gymboree activity....anything involving balls or bean bags!

"I have the ball, Mama!"

He looks so much like his Daddy. <3