Elijah @ 2

Thought I better record some of the things about Eli @ 2 yrs old. (don't have time to write the letter, so dot-point will have to do!)

* Eli is wearing a size 2/size 3 clothes. He's really tall!!

* He goes to 'kindy' one day a week and now enjoys it thoroughly. He gets very excited to go to 'kinny' on Tuesdays.

* His favourite foods are sultanas (tarnies), yoghurt (wogik), fruit bars (bit bar), baked beans (bake beans) and he loves yummy treats like biscuits (bickies), milo (mino) and chocolates (kokik). Oh, and cordial (cor-yoo, which used to be cor-cor) and water (woka, which used to be just wok).

* He's getting fussy at dinnertime though. It took a few smacks for him to see we are serious about him eating. Now we are having to encourage him every little step of the way by saying 'Yay!' after every mouthful - but it works, mostly.

* He knows his colours VERY well, and can distinguish between them all. He knows blue (boo), green (geen), red (wed), yellow (arllow), black (back), white (white), pink (pik), purple (purpoo), orange (oyij), and brown (blem).

* He can nearly count to ten even! 'one, two, pee, bor, bise, kix, seden, ate, nine, den.' He can count to 4, then needs a little help for 5. He knows that 6 comes after 5, isn't too sure about 7, but knows that 8 comes after 7. And needs a bit of help to get to 10. Won't be too long and he'll be rattling it off no problems though. It wasn't even something I was really conscious about teaching him, but rather we just count things (and talk about colours) all the time.

* Oh my, he's going through the 'terrible twos' at the moment something shocking! He stirs up Jaidyn, he stirs up Lani. He jumps on them and wrestles them and hits Lani with random objects all the time. He's disobedient and oh-so strong-willed. He says 'no' to me all the time, and gets a smack at least once a day!

* We are going through a horrible sleeping cycle with him at the moment. He wakes up, without fail at about 4.30am every day. He comes down the hallway into our bed, and sometimes goes back to sleep, but mostly he just wiggles. We usually give in at about 5am and come out and watch a movie or try to play 'quietly'... I tell you what though, I'm almost at the end of my rope with it. He is then cranky and feral most of the morning (well, day!) because he really needed more sleep. He ready for his sleep again sometimes as early as 9.30am! NOT good. As he then won't have one in the afternoon and he's a right little monster all afternoon. If I can, I try to take him and Lani outside, or go out somewhere in the morning so I can delay his sleep, but then he'll often fall asleep in the car. So we're ALL out of whack, and now we have to really try to put a stop to this yucky habit.

* He loves to play outside on the swing, trampoline and on his bikes. He loves following Jaidyn around catching bugs too. And he loves going for a walk sometimes in the afternoons too.

* He's really into the Wiggles right now. We have a few DVDs that he loves and he got some cool Wiggles clothes and toys for his b'day too. He knows all their names too.

* We watch a lot of movies - too many really (bad mummy). He loves watching his Wiggles DVDs, sometimes VegieTales too, but equally loves the movies too - his favourites this week are 'Cars' and 'Happy Feet'. He's over 'The Bee Movie' which was last month's favourite.

* He's developing a real love of books now. He goes to bed at night fairly well now - I usually read a story, and then he'll sit and 'read' for a while too before going to sleep (although sometimes him and Lani like to play silly-buggers from across the room, giggling at each other.). His favourite books this week are 'God made Puppies', 'Pop goes the Wiggles', 'Wiggly Friends', 'On the Farm' (complete with cool googly eyes) and 'Ben the Bee'. Sometimes he'll 'read' saying 'bla bla bla'.

* Him and Lani have started screaming randomly at each other. Fun. Its a big game really. When Lani screams, Eli says 'No keeming!!' (no screaming) but he screams it at her, so then she screams again, and back and forth we go. Who knows what the neighbours think... sigh...

* Blue, his beloved teddy bear, is no longer. We lost him somewhere, and I can't for the life of me work out where. We've looked all over the house, and called the shops we were at last time I remember seeing him... he's ok with it though ('boo gone') and I think the sentimentality of it gets to me more - I would have liked to have kept him :( Not sure I even have any pics of him :(

* He can pretty much say anything we ask him too. He just copies us. He actually said his full name 'Elijah' last night, but that's still a work in progress.

Some things he says:

* Wa-wake!! (wake up)

* No keeming! (no screaming)

* Un-no (I don't know)

* wahoo!! (so cute, says it when he's excited about something, like if we go outside to play)

* Li-Li opib (Li-Li open - he likes to open everything himself these days)

* Li-Li turn!

* boo-goos (boogas! lol)

... and I can't think of any others off the top of my head!!

Well, better go attend to the ferals that are running rampant all over the house... happy Sunday.