17 months

Things have settled down after our move. Elijah had a difficult few weeks with lots of crying, screaming and tantrums, but he's a lot more at ease now that we're back into a routine.

Over the last few weeks his vocabulary has skyrocketed. His favorite words right now are: hot, ice and more. He also has started to group 2 words together. His first "sentence" was "fire hot."

He has 4 molars and 7 front teeth.

He understands the concept of 'hot' and backs away whenever I tell him something is hot. Last week I told him it was too hot to wear sweaters and now he thinks his sweaters are hot. Whenever we get dressed in the morning he points to them and tells me they are "hot."

He has a vague understanding of gender. Every time I change his diaper or strip him for a bath he points out that he has a penis and then informs me that I do not.

Whenever I ask him what he wants to eat he always says, "orange."

He thinks 'I love you' is synonymous with 'good-bye.' Whenever I tell him that I love him he waves at me and says, "bye-bye."

He is in a phase where he does the opposite of what I say - even when I'm offering something he wants like dinner or to go out. If I tell him to come, he runs away. The best way to get him to "come" is to turn my back to him and within 10 seconds he's hanging all over me. I am learning the ways of reverse psychology with this one.

I discovered my parental achilles heel: screaming. It makes me feel like a crazy person.

He sleeps 11-12 hours at night and 1 1/2-3 hours during the day.

He loves bath time now that we got a squishy bathmat and added bubbles. If it were up to him he'd take 2 or 3 baths a day.

We're not big on TV. David and I might watch a couple movies during the week, but I've tried to keep Eli's screen time very low (as in none). This passed month I've had such low energy that I started renting disney movies from the library thinking he'd be pacified for a bit, but no. He had no interest until I put in Aristocats. Now he wants to watch them sing "Scales and Arpeggios" all day.

 He started to pray with us. He folds his arms, sits still and sometimes closes his eyes. He even says 'amen' at the end, which sounds more like 'aim.'

He started to spontaneously hug us all the time. I don't think there is anything more affirming as a parent than having your child show you that they love you.

I showed Eli a box full of my old Barbies and he pulled out a little toddler Barbie and decided to keep her. He calls her "Day-dee," which means "baby" in Eli talk. He mostly plays with her in the bath where he repeatedly "washes" her hair and shoves her in and out of an old sippy-cup.

His hair is starting to look like a little mad scientist, but David has become attached to it and wont let me cut it.

He loves to be naked and since it's so warm I let him run around the house only in his diaper.