Time Flies When You Are Having Fun!

And Elijah is fun!

Ahhhh…at 18 months, Elijah is in my favorite stage.  About 15 to ~20 months is such a delightful time, in my opinion.  While it poses challenges because they begin to form an opinion but are unable to fully express it, it also brings such cuteness and humor to life.  I love the toddling, attempted talk, and curiosity that this stage brings.  Elijah, in particular, is very funny, independent, yet cuddly, and SO smart.

 

I love how this picture focuses on his eye as he shows me something he found.

Sweet face.

Physically, Elijah has gone from taking slow, careful steps, to learning to run.  The stage in between was priceless.  He’d move his feet quickly, but go nowhere.  Or, once he did get going, it was often sideways.  So cute!  He has also learned to walk backwards and walk on his tippy toes.  Also very cute!

All this activity has yielded a few bumps and bruises.  In fact he got his first smashed thumb nail several weeks ago when he closed it in Grandma’s tupperware cabinet door.  Poor guy!  He didn’t fuss too badly, though, so I didn’t think too much of it, then later realized it was black!  Yikes!

 

They way time is flying by, it won’t be long before I get a picture of this pose next to his first real car!  He’s already so grown up!

Verbally, he tries on words for size all the time.  Sometimes all he does is grunt.  Other times he’ll repeat anything you want him to.  I don’t think I could even begin to list all of the words he can say, though he’s not too consistent about many of them.  His newest cute word is “gog” (bug) that he repeats insistently as he points.  If it is within reach, he’ll smash it!  He’s also getting very good at animal sounds.  When rocking him and reading to him before naps, if you ask what an animal says, he pulls his paci out, makes the noise, and replaces the paci. 

Smarty pants!  He already counts on his fingers…or at least that is what it looks like when he has stuff stuck on them that he wants to get off.

I’ve been intending to wean him from the paci, but the poor guy had been sick with the coming of his one year molars, so I didn’t have the heart.  Besides, it’s so darn cute in the mornings and after naps when we pick him up from his crib and he throws his bear back in, then grabs his paci, gives it two or three more sucks, then tosses it in, too.

So. Darn. Cute.

Speaking of teeth…he now has all of his molars and we are waiting on those pesky canines.

    Cool dude.

Elijah is really loving playing with Josiah and cuddling with him. First thing in the morning and right before bed is when he seems to want to be held by Josiah. I love it! He’s also started tickling Josiah and walking up to him and hugging him. Josiah likes it, but gets a bit annoyed because Elijah doesn’t ever really let go on his own.

I love this cutie pie to pieces!

Elijah is still a picky eater.  When you find something he likes he will eat massive amounts of it, but like his mama, he’s not very experimental in his tastes.  In fact, if I’d let him live off of chicken and fruit then he’d be a happy camper.  Because of this, I find myself still pureeing his veggies and adding them to various foods.  At least he’s great at feeding himself!

Daddy is the giggle monster!  He can get both boys to make the cutest giggles that make us laugh so hard that we cry.  It is the highlight of each day.

We’ve had so much fun with this wildly passionate red head.  He’s independent, yet clingy on his own terms.  He hates restraint, but loves to cuddle.  He just has a wonderful personality that is all his own.

Here are two examples:

  Here’s his sweet, needy side…The other day I was desperately trying to pack everything we’d need for an overnight stay out of town for a wedding and Elijah was fussing and insisting I hold him. He rarely gets his paci if he is not sleeping, but I was desperate and hoped “Bear” and “Paci” would do the trick.  They helped, but he still wanted to cuddle.  Knowing he also loves trucks and soft things, I gave him a dump truck and a new blanket and he thought he was in heaven!

Here’s his fiery side…we were out walking the other day and I took something from him he shouldn’t have.  He doesn’t throw kicking and screaming tantrums, but he will throw himself on the floor/ground and just lay there refusing to move when you want him to and he screams if you pick him up.  Here, he decided to do just that, but the ground was dirty!  Ewww!  He never could make himself follow through and lay his head down on the dirt, too, then as he finally got up he was appalled that his hands were dirty :)  I love natural consequences.

We so look forward to seeing who he becomes with all this passion he has to work with.  We enjoy him daily and love the dynamic he brings to our life.  It’s been a fun (and interesting!) 1.5 years!

Precious Moments

Josiah has told me several times that he loves his brother, but I witnessed pure sweetness this morning.  I brought Elijah with me to get Josiah out of bed.  Still being sleepy, Josiah wasn’t hiding under the blankets this time, so Elijah just crawled up on him and laid on his chest.  Josiah put his arms around him and they laid there together for a few moments.  Then Josiah said, “I love you, Elijah.”   Awwwww….that’s what a Mommy lives for.

A Fun Loving 3.5 Years

Well, our “baby” is 3.5 years old now.  It has been a wonderful ride and I can’t believe Josiah is growing up so quickly.  Luckily for us, he says he doesn’t want to be big.  Unluckily for him, he can’t help it!  This little guy is learning daily, carrying on both fascinating and somewhat obnoxious conversations (think repetitive “why?” conversations), and becoming physically capable of so much.  He’s still a total sweetie pie, yet some days the terrible three’s are in full swing!

Josiah with hair. 

Josiah has become a total mixture of Jacob and I.  He looks just like Jacob, has my personality, and shares all of Jacob’s passions and interests, yet he puts his own unique twist on it all.  He’s a pure delight, in our book, and it has been so fun to see him truly love anything with wheels, not in the typical way little boys like these things, but in a very practical, realistic way that he sees Jacob work.  He talks all the time about the “work” he needs to do and, while he loves his sitter’s house, he will whine a little when we tell him he is going because he wants to stay home to do “all my work” with his trucks, tractors, and trains.  It makes me wonder just what he thinks of our work.  It must be play to him!  We’ve also worked with him to overcome my influence of timidity.  He’s learning to speak up to strangers, first by having to say “thank you” to the bakery lady at Publix in order to get a cookie – hey, you have to start somewhere!  He’s also getting better about being willing to play in public places (parks and such) even if people might notice him (he gets that from me, too).  He has even misbehaved in public a few times!  That’s big.  While it is a nuisance, it is also a sign he is developing.

Josiah used to be very reserved at the splash park unless we happened to have it to ourselves, but he’s beginning to really let loose there.  I’ve been trying to get him to sit under the water umbrella (seen above) for a long time and he finally did it on this visit, though the wind was blowing the water into him in this picture.  We had lots of fun!

After cooling off in the water, he ran around like a maniac!

Though he never quite mastered pedaling this thing in the grass or our dirt driveway, he did love climbing on it and trying to “look for deer” in our pasture.

Josiah is learning to pray. For the longest time he would repeat our prayers after us and that was SO cute, but that time has passed. Now, though he’s not always willing, he’s learning to pray his own prayers. Mostly he likes to pray for our animals, generally that Eeyore will not be scared of him anymore so that he can pet him, but he often prays for his toys, too. I encourage him to pray for people, but he seems to think that is our job. I guess God wants us to speak to him about what’s on our minds and hearts, so I guess that’s what he does and I think God is pleased to hear from him! He did melt my heart the other day when he prayed for Elijah’s teeth to hurry up and come in so they would stop hurting him and that he could stop crying.

Speaking of Elijah, Josiah is becoming a great big brother.  They are really beginning to enjoy playing together, mostly playing chase, tickles, and riding their new Jeep.  Just today they were playing trucks (also common) and Josiah was calling Elijah “Buddy”, probably because Daddy calls him that, but it was cute.  Elijah often cracks up at Josiah as they play.  I always have to make sure Josiah’s nails are short so that Elijah doesn’t get scratched when he tickles him.  Another favorite of theirs is that Josiah hides under the covers when we go to get him out of bed.  If we have Elijah with us, he’ll crawl up on the bed and tackle Josiah through the blankets and eventually pull them off.  They both giggle endlessly.  They are also beginning to cuddle and kiss.  I can’t get enough of it!  With all this fun, I’ll admit to some fighting, as well, pretty much always over toys.

No more hair! He matured a year with the cut, I think.

On the learning front, Josiah is moving right along with his numbers and letters, both verbally and with recognition.  He seems to struggle with some colors, however, and we are beginning to think he is color blind since green and red are a challenge.  Time will tell.

He wanted to read my book while getting his medicated apple juice after nap time one day :)

I guess at this point we can officially call Josiah potty trained, though when his GI troubles flare up (mild and rare) we do struggle again.  We are pretty pleased with our drastic decrease in our diaper usage since he turned three.

On that note, he is doing very well as far as his GI tract is concerned, so much so that I think we’ll be weaning off medications soon to see what happens.

He has always loved to eat, and fruit is favorite.

I blew bubbles (can you see them?) on one of our walks recently and he swung this pine branch to pop them all.  Boys!

      

It is so delightful to see his personality blossom and, at the risk of sounding like push-over parents which I assure you we are not, trying to figure out how to best serve him and parent in a way that allows him to grow best.  It has been a challenge, as I’m sure is true for all kids, but also fun to try to bring out his best.  We’ve found that when it comes to obedience, he responds best to choices.  There really is no choice because he can either choose to do what is asked of him and all will go well, or he can choose to put himself in time out or not get the proposed reward, for example.  The choice is always obvious, but it seems to empower him to be able to choose to do good.  Compliance increases.  To battle whining, we’ve learned that he responds well to telling him we don’t want to hear it but that he’s welcome to whine alone in his bedroom and he’s free to come out when he’s ready to behave and be quiet/not whine.  It’s pretty exciting on days when we get it right, but it sure can be tough!

This is a pretty typical display of his frustration when he can’t make things work on his own (notice the stuck spinning hind wheel).  Isn’t it pitiful?  We are working on getting him to ask nicely for help.  He gets it right about half the time :)

We love our little man and it is so exciting to think of his future.  So much lies ahead for him and I just pray that we can parent him well through it all.  He’s full of talent, abounding in imagination, and is lots of fun.  He’s changed our life for the better and we are blessed to have him.

Flying his new Spiderman kite.  I just know he will soar, too!