18 months

Since I'm finally getting this written at the end of the month..you'll have a complete idea of what he's been up to during his 18th month as well :) It's been busy here, of course. Eli is quite the character and so much fun. He knows what he wants and knows how to get it. He loves to try anything James does and he is very determined to not be out done.

Here's what he's been up to:

*Sleeping..argh! So we decided it was time to switch him to a big bed since all 3 boys will be sharing a room and Sam will need the crib. So we got bunk beds! It's a twin bed over a full. James is on top and Eli on bottom. I knew switching Eli would be hard because he likes to test the limits and is such a climber. I had no idea we wouldn't sleep for 2.5 weeks though! It's been a rough transition. It's not just Eli though. James started waking up in the night and instead of falling back to sleep he starts crying because he's scared of something (statues going to get him, googly eyes, no notes-we don't know where half of the ideas come from or what they are?!) So we have James scared and Eli not staying in his bed! It has been about every hour to every other hour that one of them is awake. If I went in they wanted me to lay with them and sing or fall asleep with them. One night I stood for an hour and held James hand! He would scream or run in our room if I didn't. So we decided Mike handled the situation better and he had to go in to comfort them- it takes him 5 minutes somehow. I call him sleep whisperer! But he couldn't run in their every hour and comfort them. So we started with the hall light. We left it on so James could read until he fell asleep. He liked that-but it didn't help in the middle of the night. And it was too bright for our room! We got him a reading light that was on a timer so it would go off at 9 and then turn back on at 7 when they were allowed to get out of their bed. Yeah..that didn't help them stay in their bed :) I put the CD player in their room and we put their 4 favorite CDs on the ipod to play on repeat all night. They liked it, but it was still too dark in the middle of the night and they'd still run to our room. So we got a night light and ultimately we had to put up a gate in front of their door.  The first night of the gate they screamed when they woke up as if they were being stabbed. So I tried the method we used when they were babies learning to sleep through the night- cry 10 minutes, go comfort them for a minute and so on until they fell sleep. I played that game for an hour..and then he slept for 30 minutes! And the gate just caused a diversion for us to go into their room! We stuck it out..something had to work! Last night James woke up at 10:30 and Eli at 5:30, but Mike went in and patted them and sang once and they fell back asleep. They came out of their room at 7:10. It was a miracle. We'll see how tonight goes...taking one night at a time!

*Eating: there was a two week period where Eli would refuse to eat more than a couple bites or refuse certain foods..but once again, I was more stubborn than him...and now he's a great eater again. He eats everything..and he eats nonstop! He's been learning to stay sitting on a chair. He has to go in the highchair if he can't stay sitting, and he's not a fan of the highchair (cuz James is sitting on a big chair so he wants to too). So that's going pretty well.

*Talking: He has learned "mom" to where anyone can understand it and where I know he's using it intentionally. He was screaming it the one night :) He says yes, shakes his head no. He has picked up quite a few signs now: more, done, eat, go, drink, please, thank you, help, helicopter. He likes to grab onto our finger now and lead us where he wants to go. I had his 18 month wellness check the other day and like I thought his Dr. wasn't concerned.  He said if he isn't talking more by 2 years old then we'll start to be concerned, but he is still communicating and he has a brother that talks nonstop so it's pretty common.

*Loves to put the shape puzzle together, play trucks, go outside, jump on the trampoline (James got one for his birthday and we have it in the basement!) read animal and truck books, push the shopping cart with cooper (his stuffed dog) in it, help with the laundry, playdoh

*Potty training is going..but we are far from being finished. He will start to poop and shake his head yes telling me he has to go. If I am not around though he'll come and tell me he already went and needs his diaper changed. He's pooped on the toilet a couple times a week, but he's not a big fan of waiting and sitting on the toilet. I've used
 the phone a couple times as a motivator and that has helped.

Halloween is in a couple days so the boys painted a pumpkin. I had them start by putting their hand print on the pumpkin, which I put a ghost face on. Then they got to paint the rest of the pumpkin and put glitter on it. They loved it. We went and got costumes tonight. James is going to be Batman and Eli is Spider man. So they will be cute, of course. I will post pictures of that later!