Playdate & Birthdays!

Hello all! Hope everyone had a great week & weekend. I'm a day late posting (I know, you were terribly worried) due to leaving our camera at Grandma & Grandpa Clarkson's house-sorry! Most of the pictures this week revolve around our first breastfeeding group playdate and Uncle Blake & Cousin Sammie's birthday. I do have additional Eli "news" so let's get started!

Eli is definitely at the developmental stage where he loves to feel like a "big boy" and do what we do. While cleaning for our playdate, Eli insisted on helping me sweep the floor. Thankfully I had already swept & mopped while he was napping so he really didn't have anything to sweep:

Eli sometimes could care less about getting his diaper changed and other times he throws a full out fit. The key seems to be to find something he is interested in such as a book or toy and let him take it with him to change his diaper. The trick, though, is to make sure he doesn't put the toy in his dirty diaper while changing it! Here's a picture of him after a diaper change where I gave up trying to put his pants on. He then decided he wanted to "ride" his choo-choo:

Another favorite thing for Eli to do is hang out in Eric or my closet when in our room:


Now for the playdate pictures! My fellow breastfeeding mamas (some have weaned, some have not) decided to start an outside playdate from the regular support group. Our first one was on Wednesday of last week at our place. I think it was a lot of fun and the babies and mamas seemed to have a great time! Can't wait for the next one!

Eli's ball popper machine was a hit from the very beginning:

The playdate in full swing:

Trying to figure out the remote control train:

The riding toys definitely got a lot of use:

Eli showed all his friends how he likes to pull all his books down off the shelf....even if he did almost hit poor Colton on the head with a couple:

I have always been proud of Eli for doing so well with sharing his toys. I didn't have to remind once to be nice to his friends and share his toys. He does have a little issue, though, with patting his friends on the head a little too hard. It's all out of affection, though!

Uncle Blake & Cousin Sammie have birthdays 1 day apart. On Saturday we all met up at Grandma & Grandpa Clarkson's for their birthday dinners. Sammie asked for Mexican and it was quite yummy! As I've posted about before, Eli really likes his cousin (his one & only!!). Here's a picture of Sammie reading to Eli:

Eli helping Uncle Blake eat his birthday cake....yummy!:

Grandma & Grandpa Clarkson have an old keyboard that has those really bad beats you can play. Eli LOVED the keyboard as it was just his size and found the different beats perfect for dancing. Check out this youtube video of Eli as I couldn't get it to load on Blogger:



Now for Eli news:

1) Eli is back to enjoying being read to. In fact he brings books to us all the time to have us read them to him. He seems to pick a favorite for a day or two and then move on to another one. He chooses books that he knows items in the pictures he can identify. It's as though he is "showing off" the words he knows! It's very cute.
2) While I think we won't be attempting potty training for awhile, Eli has started to identify when he has poo-poo and will tell us or one time he walked to his room and started knocking on the door. If he has poo-pooed he will say poo-poo when we ask him (because we either smell it or he is grunting or secluding himself) or sometimes come to us and say poo-poo on his own. I talked to a couple of mommies at playdate and they suggested putting him in cloth diapers over the summer as it allows them to feel when they wet vs. disposable that lifts away the liquid. I also know Eli isn't ready because there is no way he would sit still on a potty chair! No rush, though!!
3) In order to find the magical solution to helping Eli like brushing his teeth, we bought toddler toothpaste that is fluoride-free and safe to swallow. We found a tube with a choo-choo so he loves carrying it around. Now I give him the tube and put some of the gel on his teeth while he chews on his toothbrush. I then give his teeth a quick cleaning (while he kicks and cries). The vibrating brush seems to be too much as though it tickles his teeth so we are back to a regular toddler brush. Baby steps!
4) Eli now insists on eating some of what we eat at our meals. This is great as it means soon he WILL be eating what we do at meals so no extra prep for him. But, I feel this needs to be taken in baby steps as he still has a gagging issue. He still continues to enjoy eating whole peeled apples and bananas which is really cute to see him eat.
5) Eli's new words: "boo"=balloon & "wa-wa"=water. He is identifying a lot of items in books and surprises me when I ask him to point to something and he does. He can point to many animals & some shapes. He also acts like he is counting and points at things one by one and says "two" over & over.
6) Eli continues to do well at his craniosacral appointments and is holding his adjustments each week. After this week we will start to go every 2 weeks and then hopefully monthly. I am going to take a free class from his chiropractor/therapist in February that will allow me to do some work at home. Yay, Eli!

We don't have anything too exciting happening this week. We'll try to attend some sort of activity whether it be Music with Mar, Toddler Town or something of the sort. Have a great week!