Eli Kaiser – 18 months

Only because he’s changing so quickly am I writing another post. Partly, this is a set of milestones, and partly, this is to help Keith and Susie decipher Eli’s words while they watch him for the weekend.

Yay to a kid-free getaway, and yay to grandparents!!!

Toddler adventures

Eli climbs the magazine rack in his Halloween dog costume

Since my last “Eli update” post, we’ve had quite a few toddler adventures, including our first visit to Urgent Care at Children’s Hospital. A few weeks ago, we picked up Eli from daycare and he’d had an ‘incident.’ Apparently, he was climbing a magazine rack and tumbled off of it, hitting his eye. We took one look at his face and figured that he’d earned his first shiner. None of this necessitated a trip to Urgent Care, and Nate wasn’t even concerned enough to show me or bring home the incident report from school. He just told the teacher that it would be fine, and we went on our merry way.

But an hour later, as we were home feeding Eli dinner, Eli started projectile vomiting. Uh-oh! That’s not supposed to happen! Immediately, Nate and I started thinking about a possible concussion. We checked his eyes, we looked up ‘head injuries’ on the Children’s Hospital website, and we called the nurse’s line. As could be expected, the nurse helped us come to the conclusion that you don’t want to take any chances with a possible head injury. Even if the bruise was under Eli’s eye, he may have bumped his head and nobody realized. Better to go into the Children’s and get him checked out. So we did. And Eli was a trooper.

Turns out, we were “lucky” enough to have the onset of a cold/flu bug coincide with a tumble at school. Lucky us! Nate, me, my folks, and our dear friend Marina got to juggle Eli while he stayed home from school, sick and clingy, for the rest of the week. He got better just in time for the snow to fall, so we had even MORE days at home with him. With that much time together, we got a pretty good handle on Eli’s newfound communication skills.

Eli’s verbal words and signs

As I’ve noted before, he says “no” very clearly.

He can also say “up” very clearly, but usually he’ll just stand at your feet, hold up his arms and grunt. We ask him to say “up,” but his vocalization depends on his mood.

He’s gotten into this habit of pointing, grunting with a “ehhh! ehh!” and crying when we say “No,” or “Not now,” or “I don’t understand what you want.” Sometimes, he’ll cry himself into a fit, and it’s funny and annoying at the same time.

Most often, he’s asking for his Lovey or his Binky. Both have achieved proper noun status in our household.

• For whatever reason, Eli’s named his lovey “Rah” for rabbit. It amuses me to no end that Nathan and I and everyone who deals with Eli on a regular basis calls the thing his “Lovey” and he’s decided to call it “Rah.” I guess it’s because he rarely eeks out more than one syllable, and his likes to know that “Rah” goes “hop, hop, hop” like all other rabbits. He does this on occasion—makes Lovey hop around—and it’s totally adorable.
• “Bi” stands for “Binky,” and to this object, Eli’s grown more attached that I would like. He asks for his “Bi” all the time, but he only really uses it for bedtime and sometimes naptime. If we’re not diligent in keeping it out of sight, he’ll insist on having it in his mouth. In the morning (6 a.m.—much earlier than we’d prefer), he’ll wake up crying and asking for it. We’ll hear him wail, “Waaaaa! Ahhhh! Bi?” over and over until one of us decides to get up. He’ll give it up willingly once we sit him down for breakfast, but if he sees it after he’s done eating, he’ll ask for it again.

Sometimes, he’ll ask to be read to by pointing to the pile of books and saying, “book!” This would be hard to decipher without the pointing, because he doesn’t enunciate the “k” very often, but Eli loves to have stories read to him and I’m thankful for that!

Eli’s food vocabulary isn’t very large, but he’s a really good eater. When you ask him if it’s time to eat, he’ll often repeat “eat!” eagerly. And he’ll tell you pretty quickly if we wants something that’s not yet in front of him.

• “Da!” – Eli will point to what he wants and you can hold up items until he agrees… Or you can just place something in front of him. You’ll know quickly enough by his adamant response if he doesn’t want it.
• “Nana” or “Ana” for banana, which he’ll also sign for. (Holds up an index finger and runs his other finger up and down it, as if he’s peeling a banana.)

• “Apple” – but usually what he wants is pineapple. I guess our visit to Hawaii when Eli was 6 months old has a lasting impression on him…
• “Cheese” for, surprise! cheese – but he doesn’t say this too often.
• Cookie – While not spoken, Eli signs for this quite often. Eli holds one hand open and points at his palm with the index finger of his other hand.

• “Mil” for milk – The sign for this is opening and closing one’s fist, like you might be milking a cow.
• “Jue” for juice – We try not to give him this, and if we do, it’s extremely watered down. But my parents give him watered down juice every Wednesday, and if he sees us drinking some, he’ll ask for it.
• “Wa” for water – Eli’s sign for this is a pointed index finger hit against his cheek a couple of times. He asks for water more than he asks for milk.

Favorite foods

This kid eats just about anything (thank goodness we have a good eater!), but here are a few of his favorite things:

Eli tries pistachios... and likes them!

• Greek honey yogurt (or any flavored Greek yogurt). We find the thick consistency of the Greek yogurts more toddler-feeder-friendly than regular yogurt. But he likes those too
• Dry cereal, especially when he can dip the pieces in the yogurt. Cheerios and Puffs work really well.
• Fruit. This kid really loves his fruit, especially bananas, blueberries, strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, and mandarin oranges (like satsumas or clementines). He’s less a fan of pears and apples, but a lot of that depends on how they’re cut.
• Eggs, especially scrambled. There have been times where Eli’s eaten two scrambled eggs, plus yogurt, plus fruit for breakfast. It’s as if his stomach just expands to fit whatever he puts down!
• Pancakes and waffles. These are special occasion breakfast foods, but over Christmas, we made these more often and even gave Eli some maple syrup to dip. He LOVED it.
• Rice, especially with some sort of gravy. Amusingly enough, he love Thai food with rice.
• Pasta. When I was pregnant with Eli, my favorite thing to eat was Mac’n'Cheese. Even the gross Easy Mac would satisfy my craving. So it should be no surprise that Eli likes pasta… of all kinds!

Recognizing animals and body parts

In my last “Eli update” post, I shared a video of Eli sharing some of his animal sounds. He’s kind of over giving animal sounds on call, but he’ll do it if he’s in the mood. Rather, he really likes pointing at the animals that he knows while you call them out.

He does like to make his Rabbit aka Lovey go “hop! hop! hop!” which can sometimes sound like “hup! hup! hup!” and could easily be confused with “up! up! up!” His hand motions for this are index finger pointed and moving his hand around like he’s hopping. He’s not quite dexterous enough to get two fingers up in the air like bunny ears, but he’s working on it.

We’ve been working with Eli on naming his body parts. He has some of them down pat, but he still gets confused on cheeks, lips, chin and ears. He’s a pro at pointing to his nose, he really knows his teeth (because we brush them every morning and every night), and he knows his head and hair pretty well. He can usually point to his eyes, and he definitely knows his feet and his toes. His where his tummy, arms, elbows and knees are remain a bit fuzzy in his mind, especially when they’re covered in clothes!

Naming body parts will probably be a fun exercise for us for many months to come.

Until next time…

OK, are you tired of reading yet? Are you even still with me? I’m tired of writing, so, until next time!