Finally an Eli update!

Rushing the Photographer
Originally uploaded by pure_h2o.

I've got a lot of updating to do. Where to start, where to start...Well, the other day, Franz and I counted all the words that Eli says, and he's got over forty, and the list gets longer every day. And no, "momma" isn't one of them. He says vacuum, but not momma. Thanks a lot son.

Eli's also started the wonderful habit of hitting. He only does it when he gets super excited, and mostly the cats get the brunt of his excitement, but every once in a while, he gets in a good shot to one of us. Yesterday, he hit Sona, and she scolded him. I was in the room, and he turned to me as if to say, "Do you see what is going on? Sona is telling me no. How dare she? Could you set her straight for me?" I backed up her scolding, and Eli pulled out the only card he had left: the irresistable pouty face. You could tell that his huge saucer eyes were just barely holding back the tears, but that lower lip was sticking out so far, you could park a car on it. It took everything I had to not crack and back down and let him slap Sona in the face some more. But I stayed strong. I really don't want to raise the kid that hits. That kid is annoying.

We visited Kim at the gym yesterday, and she was struck by Eli too. And the same thing happened: she told him no, he looked at me, and then he put on the pouty face. Kim hadn't seen this face before, and I could tell that she had succumb to its power, and if he hadn't broken eye contact when he turned to look at me, she would have been forced to let him continue to beat her. We must not let him know how powerful that face is.

For the first time ever, I lost Eli at a store. We were at the bookstore, and for those of you who haven't been there, it isn't very big, but I still managed to lose him. I think where I went wrong was under estamating just how fast Eli is. He was running around, and I thought he was going down one isle, but apparently, he booked down another isle, and made it to the front door. The whole sceen lasted about forty five seconds, but it felt way longer than that. I am beginning to think that a baby leash isn't a bad idea.

Eli has also learned how to jump. Yesterday, we were watching Seasme Street, and the letter of the day was "J" and Elmo was jumping throughout the whole show, and this inspired Eli. He leads the jump with his head, and rarely does his feet leave the ground at the same time, but he sure gives it the ole' college try. Its pretty much the funniest thing I've ever seen.

Its been hard for me to take pictures of Eli because his newest thing is to rush the camera whenever I have it out. He's super interested in it, which I understand, but it makes for a lot of close ups with him looking like a deer in the headlights. So until this phase is over, we'll have to get used to this face here. Sorry.