21 Months

Eli is 21 months now. Everyday he cracks us up. I love seeing the little person he is becoming.

He is losing a lot of his "babyness" and is more and more like a little boy. Although, he has been wearing the same sizes for over a year (since my mom and Al brought them last April). His 18 and 24 month clothes have been awesome and have lasted us so well. Man, he was a chunky 8 month old! His weight has been the same (13 kgs) for almost a year. He just stretches up, not out I guess.



(11 Months ago)



(Today)

I think the time outs are working. He has been in time out much less than the last month, so I think we are doing something right! He gets it now. He is not perfect, but much less naughty and very few tantrums.

His speech continues to develop as he starts to put words together and form sentences. Now, I am not saying he is a genuis (although George will!) and using full on sentences (Good morning mother. May I start the day with a glass of milk please.), but things like "It's cold" , "want nanas (bananas) pease (please)" and "mama get it." His speech has been fun and helpful. Yesterday as I was doing dishes, he was in the hallway and said "Mama... snake." I froze for a second, sure that this was the day I would finally see a snake in the house. Our neighbors found one in their house recently. I quickly ran to where he was and saw a small, thin creature. I breathed a sigh of relief when I saw it was a centipede. However, some of those are poisonous here so I kicked it out of the house.


He loves singing. We figured out why he was singing "Hakuna Pizza." He is trying to say "hakuna cabisa" which is the beginning of the chorus to the Kiswahili version of "Nothing But the Blood of Jesus." Now it makes much more sense! He is amazing at identifying songs. Sometimes at night, I hum songs and he'll name them by saying either the word that starts the chorus or first verse like "asante", "kote kote" , "wewe" etc. Names and directions remain his superpower. It's really incredible. He is really fun to read books with. He knows the names of the books and likes to find the picture in the book that is on the back and front cover. It takes a long time for each book, though, because he has so much to say about each page.


Eli is just now noticing movies and tv. He was never interested in them before, which was more than ok with us. We don't have a lot of movies so he doesn't get a lot of choices. We have let him watch two movies "Lion King" and "Frozen" which he loves. He can't sit and watch the whole movie, so we just skip around to the songs and avoid any scary parts ("Be Prepared" in Lion King is terrifying!). He can name the songs so we just go back and forth according to what he wants to hear.



Right now he is into reading, building tall towers with his blocks, taking walks with Papa, and cleaning (sweeping, wiping surfaces).





He is still very friendly with everyone. He loves kids and adults alike.



(Here he is reading the newspaper with our good friend, Charles. Eli calls him "Uncle Charlie" and yells "Charlie's office" when we drive by it.)



Our neighbors gave him a bike. (One cool thing about the ex-pat community is everyone passes their things around when they leave or don't need them anymore. We all know how hard it is to find things here or bring things here. So, anything like this is much appreciated.) Eli LOVES it.



He is not the only one!



As I watch Eli grow and learn, I really have realized how important it is to be intentional with his upbringing. He learns by repetition and observation. We could teach him anything and he would watch and then eventually do it. He won't just learn how to do math on his own, he has to be taught. Same with learning about God. It's so important we incorporate God into all we do so Eli will grow up to know God and love Him. Eli is learning to pray right now. It's so cute. He knows how to fold his hands and close his eyes. Then he says "Amen" or "Amina" after he hears "in Jesus name..." It's just the start, but our own relationship with God started at some point too. Mine, when I was little and George when he was older. I pray Eli's start blossoms into his own lasting, solid relationship with the Lord.