Communicating with baby signs

Eli has been communicating a lot more lately. On Wednesday afternoon at Sarah and Elliot's house, Eli made the sign for nap. I took him home and put him down for a nap -- he didn't cry or anything!

A few days ago I asked him if he wanted milk or water (with the appropriate baby signs), and he told me he wanted water. It was really cool!

I am hoping to teach him more signs so that he doesn't get frustrated trying to get me to understand him. I taught him dog yesterday.

At the coast

Every day we were at the coast, we took Eli to the sandy beach that was only about 1 mile away. There was a trail that went from our house, which overlooked rocks and the waves (and tidepools filled with sea anemones), straight to this beach that went on forever. Michael and I ran there almost every day. Eli played in the sand, learned that sand doesn't take good (it tastes yucky, in case you didn't know) and he put his feet and hands in the water, which was freezing.

The day after the Oregon Coast Aquarium, we went to the Sea Lion Cave just north of Florence. It is the largest ocean cave in the world and it is home to many many sea lions that make weird farting-like noises all day. It was quite impressive, although Eli acted as though it he had seen it all before.

We also saw Haceta Head Lighthouse, but unfortunately we couldn't take a tour because those don't start until mid-March.

We drove up to a trail overlooking the ocean one evening and we watched the sunset from a little stone "castle" on the hill. Gorgeous.

We went out to eat in Yachats on Saturday night and heard a band. Eli was entranced. He just sat and stared at the two singers/guitar players and sometimes bobbed his head to the music. Hmmm.... might be a musician in the making.

Overall, it was a fantastic vacation and Eli has already asked us to go back to the coast. (OK OK, not really, but Mama would like to think so....)

Oregon Coast Aquarium

On our first full day at the Oregon Coast (last Thursday), we took Eli to the Oregon Coast Aquarium in Newport.

Holy cow, what a great place for kids! He walked through a huge tank filled with sharks and all kinds of fish. There were windows all around you and on the floor. He touched starfish and sea anemones in a tidepool display. He saw otters being fed fish and then swimming around in front of him. He saw seals and sea lions playing in the water. And he saw puffins, birds that are native to Oregon (but "puffins" also happens to be the same name as his favorite cereal, so he seemed a bit confused).

I'll post more about the rest of the trip tomorrow.

Eli meets ducks

Today Eli saw real ducks for the first time. We went to a pond in Minto-Brown Island Park with Sarah and Elliot. We threw some stale bread and a few puffins (it's a kind of cereal). Eli was so excited when we first arrived, and he wanted to just walk right into the water and greet the ducks. Then two big huge bully geese came out and started hogging all of the bread but they were noisy, which was fun for Eli to hear.

Oregon's sesquicentennial

As a native Oregonian, Eli insisted that we take him to the state's 150th birthday party on Saturday at the Capitol. There was free ice cream, hot dogs and cake, and lots of photo opportunities. Eli really really liked Smokey the Bear. Jess and Ben really really liked the live Gold man, who was supposed to resemble the Gold man on top of Oregon's Capitol building, who is supposed to represent all of the Pioneers who settled Oregon. The live Gold man, however, had put on too many pounds to be a true Pioneer.

Random stuff...

Eli spent this past weekend with his Aunt Jessica and Uncle Ben. He even let them put him to bed on Saturday night! First time for Mama and Daddy to be gone during bath/bottle/book/bed time. We survived OK and Eli did splendidly. In fact, he slept the entire night Saturday night. Whew...

Eli now nods his head "yes" but doesn't seem to know exactly what it means. He definitely likes to shake his head "no" when we ask him to nod "yes," and we all laugh at his joke.

He is walking more and more each day, but he still crawls for much of his mobile periods. He still loves to go up the stairs and shut the gate at the top. Then he wants to go back down the stairs and do it all over again.

We are headed to the coast tomorrow and we are looking forward to showing him the Oregon Coast Aquarium, Sea Lion Caves, tidepools and sand!

Visitors from S.I. and walking

Eli had a blast with my cousins Angela and James, who visited this weekend from Staten Island. Eli practiced his walking a lot while they were here. He was also drooling up a storm -- probably because there is another bottom tooth coming in.

All of his practicing paid off. Tonight he was walking between doorways and all sorts of other objects, instead of just between Daddy and Mama. Seems he has a lot more confidence now :)

Kisses for Mama

Tonight I got my first real kisses from Eli. Big slobbery, drooly kisses right on the mouth. Eli crawled over to me from Daddy, crawled onto my lap, looked me square in the face and kissed me!

Absolutely adorable. I swear Michael was gonna cry...

Last night, Eli showed us that he knows how to shake his head "No." We don't think he knows what it means yet, exactly. But he thought it was pretty funny, especially when we tried to teach him how to nod his head, "Yes," at which point, he laughed and shook his head, "No" again.

For Daddy too

To not make Mama feel bad about her singing abilities, Eli also waved Daddy off when Daddy was trying to put him to sleep for the night. "Bye-bye, Daddy," Eli waved. And then smiled when Daddy left the room.

Night-night

Eli couldn't sleep for his morning nap. He kept coughing -- the last symptom of his cold last week.

So I tried to put him down a bit early for his second nap. He was a little wired, crawling all over me and reaching for the curtains behind me. And when I put him in his crib, he just screamed and had these huge crocodile tears streaming down his face. I started singing to him and I offered him his bottle, which calmed him down. And after taking a few sucks, he pushedhis bottle away and waved bye-bye to me. As in, "OK mama, get out now. I need to get some sleep." I was in the middle of a song! It was the first time ever, I believe, that he asked me to leave his room for his nap!!!

Peek-a-boo

Michael and I play peek-a-boo with Eli quite a bit -- putting a blankie on Eli's head and asking where Eli is, putting a blankie on our own heads and asking where Eli is and hiding behind furniture and jumping out and yelling "peek-a-boo."

But Eli had never had a super active role in the game until a few nights ago when I had him on the floor of the bathroom after his bath and I was drying him off with a towel. He pulled the towel completely over his head and waited for me to say, "Where's Eli?" and then he pulled it off really fast and said "Doo" or something that seemed to be similar to "peek-a-boo!" He did it 6 or 7 times and he was laughing and laughing. I thought it was so so funny...