Happy New Year!

It's been a long time since I posted . . . we've been busy, yep, but I have to say life is getting easier in a way because Elijah is rapidly transitioning out of baby mode and into little boy mode. Rapidly. Some days Marty and I will talk about how it seems like he made some enormous developmental leap overnight. Speaking of which, we've also successfully night-weaned him, which is a major change for all of us. Last night he slept from 8:30 until 4:00 without waking! And he's super sweet. He says "love you" a lot. Even "love you so much," and he likes to be tickled, and give hugs and kisses, and laugh and laugh and laugh. Anyway, here are some of the things he's been doing recently that impress us with their total radical amazingness (they might not sound impressive, but I swear that somehow they are):

• he has started saying "um" when he's not sure what he wants to answer in response to a question (neither Marty nor I says "um" that often, so I'm not sure where he got this . . . it's peculiarly adult)
• he's crazy with the prepositions and the pronouns . . . he gets gender right, under right, over right, etc. . . . one very funny thing he's been doing is saying "somebody's" when he sees an object that isn't clearly "Elijah's" or "mommy's" or "daddy's" . . . so we'll be looking at a book and he'll point to things and say "somebody's bowl," or "somebody's helicopter," or "somebody's cup" etc. he continues to LOVE books and we read and read all day long.
  
• he can count to 12, and he's not just reciting the numbers . . . at least he seems to understand that he's counting . . . he'll count blueberries on his plate, or steps at the library, but after he gets to 12 he reverts to six. everything after 12, so far, is six: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 . . .
• he can almost sing the entire alphabet song, recognizes many letters (and numbers and shapes), and can tell you what words begin with certain letters (he seems partial to D and P and C and E). he also sings a lot of nursery rhymes all by himself: the "baa baa song" and the "star song" the "sabo song" (sabo = spider), and he asks for the "muckus" song a lot, which is his daddy's jewification of "little miss muffet": little miss muckus / sat on her tuchus / eating her matzo brei / along came a spider / who sat down beside her / and frightened miss muckus bye bye. he likes to dance. he likes to play piano with his dad or all alone. he asks for songs all the time, so much so that we're constantly making songs up. one duet we made up together is about a caterpillar. it goes: the green and fuzzy caterpillar moves along the stick / he moves a lot like an inchworm, which is just like this / we don't touch the caterpillar because he's delicate (E sings "delicate") / and he's busy! he's off to build himself a chrysalis (E sings "chrysalis") / and he'll stay inside that chrysalis for approximately two weeks (E sings "two weeks") / at the end of which time he'll emerge a beautiful butterfly (E shouts "butterfly") / a butterfly, big, and flapping its wings!
• he occasionally speaks in complete sentences: "I want apple juice" was the first. he also said to me once: "Aunt Ruthie loves everybody, everybody!" and he often says little random things like "Squirrel is under here" or "Thomas is cozy."
• he's a good eater. he loves applesauce, mashed potatoes, (soy) hot dogs, broccoli, cauliflower, cherry tomatoes, blueberries, bananas, Lara bars, cheese, pancakes. he says "more yummy yummy" when he wants more of something particularly delightful (a muffin, for example). and he has started saying "delicious."

His birthday is coming up (only two months(ish) to go) and I'm thinking it'll be a seagull-themed hot-dog party.

One thing he still needs to work on, which we're all quietly working on, is that he gets kind of stressed out around other kids, particularly at the library (where we go to play almost everyday). He will push people, but it seems more out of a sense of space than aggression. And he gets really stressed out and will shout a bit and come running to me when little kids play near him or come up to him at all. My thinking is that it's something about his personality, a bit defensive, a bit private, and also a phase. I don't want to make too much of it, but we do talk about how when we see other kids we don't push or yell we just say hi and try to share. Yesterday, in fact, he did a great job at the library. He said "hi" to every kid he saw (followed up with "go away" once) and only pushed one kid (who, frankly, was a little jerk) and shared really really well. So, yeah, hopefully it's no big thing. What upsets us isn't so much the behavior itself, which isn't really all that bad, but how stressed out he seems by other kids. Except, of course, his BELOVED Harperjack and Johnjeffnate!!! He also has a few little boys he likes to play with at day-care and whom he talks about at home: Kendall and "Heepo" aka Hooper. The teachers, Miss Tina and Miss Diana, say he's never a behavior problem but that he does like to do his own thing. Aunt Ruthie mentioned that she thinks he'd really like Montessori, and I think she's probably right. So, need to look into Montessori . . .

Anyway, new pics are up at Shutterfly. I got a pretty awesome camera from M for Xmas, so at some point in the December pics you should see a shift to better quality. They're so good you can actually see the individual boogers in his nose! Here's one as a tease:













In other news, there's not much other news. It's been cold and snowy here. We had a quiet little happy Christmas, except for that moment when I cut my finger opening a plastic toy packaging for Elijah. Ouch.









Elijah's day-care has been closed for the holidays and he's really missed it, which is good, because it makes me feel less guilty about sending him to day-care at all. I got vegan cookbooks from everyone, it seems, and so I've been cooking up a vegan storm. A delicious storm. We've been traveling a lot: PA and NY in November, CA and Bloomington-Normal in December, back to CA in January, then to DC in February. I've been doing readings for my book. One very weird one at a bar in NYC. A really lovely one at CalArts. I think I've finished my new book. Almost. Very close. Getting ready to teach a brand new class at Naropa this spring, on "first books."

New Photos Up at Shutterfly

In which Elijah plays with Thomas and Grammer Lynda and Grandpa Pow, and enjoys putting his mama's clean undies on his head, and discovers the biggest leaf in the world, and arranges his trucks into various formations around the house . . . here.

Catch up

Colds. Two in two months. Everyone sick. Blech. Snot. Poor us.

Words. So many words! I've been writing and teaching with em. Marty's been writing em too. Elijah's been learning new ones every day. Some favorites (of mine, of his): smile (which he pronounces "saba"), caterpillar (calpidah), Grandpa Paul (Gampapow), Dumptruck Duck (adum aguch aduch), Thomas (the Tank Engine, which he pronounces "tahps"), cozy (which he pronounced "coze" until very recently). Some favorites of his (or at least things he talks about all the time): bulldozer (bullo), bus, truck (guch), kitty cat, airplane (aybaden), helicopter (helcloppah), KK (my frined Karla), necky bath (this is pics of him in the bath with cousins, which he asks to look at every day at least once . . . in general he is pretty into nudity, wants to be naked, is happy when we're naked, shouts out "necky" whenever he sees people outside in tank tops or shorts or photos in magazines where the models look undressedish). He also talks about all of his grandparents a lot and his cousin Harper (although sometimes he calls her hippo and he also named his hippo Harper). He also modifies things all on his own "Big truck" or "Loud motorcycle" or "Brown leaf" etc.

Ideas. I'm amazed at how much Elijah thinks and conceptualizes (one night at dinner he said "rocket ship" so I asked him where it went and he said to the sky [sykah] and I asked him what else is in the sky and he gave me a long list: moon, sun, airplane, cloud . . . ) and remembers . . . not just that he remembers things but that he remembers orders and minute details. He will tell me stories about what he did or what we saw together and he's very particular to put things in chronological order. He's started watching Elmo's House on Sesame Street after naps (I have two DVRed episode that he watches) and he will start to talk about Mr Noodle (missa noonul) and all the things Mr Noodle did on the episode and puts them in the order he did them in (hop like a kangaroo, waddle like a duck, leap like a frog, etc.). Yesterday, he saw a new episode (the second one, which we hadn't ever gotten to) in which Elmo plays a steel drum on a beach in the Caribbean and he completely freaked out. He demanded to be let out the front door and stood on the porch saying "Elmo? Rum?" Rum is his word for water, and so I guess he wanted to go to wherever it was Elmo was and see that sparkly blue water. It was super weird and he's never mistaken a picture for reality before. Maybe he was a Caribbean drum player in a former life? Whatever it was, this kid needs to see the beach!

Pics. I put up photos from September. October soon.

Autumn. It's cool and pretty here. This is Elijah in autumn gear:

Words, words, words

There's sort of no point in keeping track of Elijah's new words at this point . . . he's starting to come out with them too fast to track, several each day at least. So, here's the last list I'll make, just to remember the "first" of his words:

Please
Thank you
Flag
Broccoli
Avocado
Quiche
Apple
Ballerina
Love
Lid
Lap
Grass
Touch
Push
Backhoe
Motorcycle
Airplane
Roller
Ship
Lay down
Sit down
Blue
Green
Kiss
Bedroom / room
Oval
Diamond
Ladybug
Monkey
Snake
Hippo
Elephant
Caterpillar
Giraffe
Eye
Backyard
Big
All done

He also can tell you what all the letters of his name are if you point to them ("Elijah, what's this?" "E." "Elijah, what's this?" "H" . . . ) and I just realized the other day that you can turn the tables and ask him what everyone and everything on the bus is doing ("Elijah, what do the wipers on the bus do? "Swish, swish." "Elijah, what do the babies on the bus say?" "Wah wah wah.").

New Batch

Elijah has a whole new batch of words. He's also been saying some pretty awesome sentences. 3am the other morning: "Mama, help . . . more ninny-milk." He tells long stories with what he's got. When he and his dad go out in the jogging stroller early in the morning he comes back and tells me: "Dada, lolo (stroller), honk honk (geese), mmmmm (moon), guck (truck) . . ." I'm also pretty amazed at how much he remembers. We passed a school bus and then immediately after it a fire truck on the corner of our street last week and now whenever we go in the front yard he says: "Bus, weeooo weeooo weeeoo." Also we checked a book out of the library and read it a few times and the next time we went back to it he knew the noises for "how each animal eats": bear = grum grum, cat = lippity lap, beaver = crunch munch, giraffe = rip-scrunch, etc. And his problem solving skills are sharpening. At the library last week he was holding a piggy bank toy and went up to the Playskool playhouse wanting to open the window shutters. He realized he'd need his hands, but wouldn't give up the pig, so he put it between his chest and the house and leaned on it. Problem was, he was then leaning on the shutters, which open out. So he put the pig back in his hands and thought. So then he put the pig on the floor, opened the window, picked up the pig, threw the pig through the window, shut the shutters, end. Anyway, here are the words I can decipher (there are of course many more that I can't yet figure out):

stroller (lo-ler; cute, but can't really compete with cousin Jack's amazing stro-ler-ler)
wind
close
bean
noodle (a very emphatic nhoo-nul)
rice
seeds
raisins
bunny rabbit
butter
yuck yuck (for any stray hairs, spiders, or spider's web, of course)
snacks
belt
grrrr (for scary face)
la la la (for song)
pillow
light
wall
bed
shirt
bulldozer
helicopter (says "clop")
bath
scissor
Pat and Pat's house (our neighbor)
penis
bare butt
back
belly
bear
zebra
blocks
umbrella
yes
off
in

PS - Pics up at Shutterfly for August.
PPS - He is still the world's worst sleeper. Last night he was awake from midnight to about 3:15. Cries a little, snuffles, rolls around, can't get comfortable, sits up and talk, complains, laughs, talks some more, whispers to himself, eyes wide open, rolls around, can't sleep, sits up, crawls down the bed, repeat. New plan is to cut off all nighttime ninny-milk cold turkey (except for nursing to sleep). It's getting drastic. A year and a half later and none of us is sleeping. Still. For shit's sake.

Some S P R A W L reviews

I told Dad I'd be sure to post reviews here, when I got some. So here is one at Bookforum. And here is the start of one at The Believer.

For the record . . .

Elijah says:

hi
bye bye
mama
dada
baby
Loretta
Elijah
stick
dirt
rock
yuck yuck
bear
truck
car
bus
choo choo
neck
necklace
mouth
cheeks
knee
water
cup
pancake
olive
watermelon (see previous post)
grape
apple
spoon
walk
glove
out
sun
moon
cloud
no
balloon
kitty cat
ball
hat
hot
cookie
cracker
bread bite
egg
ninny (nursing)
flower
up
down
grandma
pat pat
round (a verb)
sock
shoe
clock
booger
gate
dump
book
bike
boat
bonk
rip

He signs:
more
all done
nursing
buttefly

He makes animal sounds for:
cat
dog
sheep
horse
cow
pig
pigeon
peacock
goose
donkey
monkey
lion
dinosaur
tiger
bear
fish
snake
bee (bug)
owl
bird
duck
squirrel
rooster
chicken
dolphin
turkey
frog

That's all I can remember right now.

Oh, and he has been trying like the dickens to say "ballerina" because of a small plastic figurine on the shelf. The closest he gets is saying "ball" + "watermelon," which actually makes sense, I think, from a musical standpoint (but then again, I am the proud mama).

Watermelon Man

Watch him in action here.

Rocking the indie bookstores!

Awesome little write-up about S P R A W L on their website. Scroll down to find it.

Genius

Probably all parents have moments where they think their kid is a genius. I think it has to do with how totally amazing kids are. They kind of are, all, for the most part, genius. That said, lately Elijah has been blowing me away with what a for reals genius he is! He has started word combining . . . and he can't even really talk, yet. So, for example, this morning he woke up between me and Marty and we were both like, blahhhhhhhhhhh, and he was all, hooooooooooooray, and it apparently took me too long to start to rise, so E grabs my head in his hands and says dee da (translation: up) mama. So, of course, I dee da-ed right away. Another example: we've been working really hard on trying to teach him to be gentle with the cat. We even checked out a book from the library called Tails Are Not for Pulling. So now we ask him: Elijah, are tails for pulling? He thinks about it for a while and then shakes his head no. As of yesterday he started actually saying "no." He says nnnnnnnnu. So this morning when he went to give the cat his daily greeting/morning attack, we said: Elijah, are tails for pulling? And he said: Adn (his "meow") nnnnnnnnnnu. Also this morning he said "dis sssssssssssssssss." Translation: read the snake book. Total genius!

Also just wanted to mention that he's been talking in his sleep a lot. Mostly he wakes up asking for us to read: dis dis dis. One night, though, he didn't wake up but he said "Dada" really loud and then giggled.

Greg and Heather!

Marty went to Denver last week to see our dear friends Greg and Heather get hitched. Pics up now in the July album at Shutterfly. This is my favorite. They are beautiful!

That's me between Peter Mayle and Stephen King!

Check it out. S P R A W L front and center in the McNally Jackson Bookstore in NYC! And with a "Recommended" sticker to boot.

Noises

This is a picture of Elijah trying out a goose honk. He's a very good honker. It's quite enthusiastic, quite life-like. In a way, the animal noises are names. When he sees an animal in life or in a book he points and makes its noise-name: mmmmm (cow), ney ney (horse), ssssssssss (snake), da ha ha (sheep and my favorite, crazy, maniacal, sheep-laughter), hon hon (goose), a guttural trill (pigeon), a snort (pig), zsa zsa (bee), panting (dog), two soft blowing o's (owl), etc. For cat, he's been saying kee ca (and his meow goes: dadn dadn, for whatever reason). He also says raw raw raw (for rocks), ba (for ball), rou rou (for round and for things that spin), dick (for stick), dir (for dirt), guch (for truck), ou (for outside), dee da (for up), duh (for down), wa wa (water), bbbbbb (for bubbles), hoh (for hot), boom (balloon), hah (hat), guh ou (go out), mama, dada. And there are still the Momo noises: deegadeegadeegadeega, duhguyduhguyduhguyduhguy, meenumeenumeenumeenu. It's clearly starting to get really frustrating for him that we don't always understand what he means. We often don't. Last night when we were doing our bedtime routine, he kept raising his arms (a kind of existential pointing-at-everything) and saying dis (which is what he normally says when he wants you to read a book, but it's usually when he has a particular book in his hands). I kept showing him books and he'd shake his head to say no and do the whole thing over. I still have no idea what he wanted. Maybe he didn't either? Anyway, sitting at breakfast just now and he's going hm hm hm hm and making the sign for more. More strawberries, please.

Walker

I've had some requests for walking vids. Here he is in Chicago O'Hare airport on our way back from Denver two weeks ago. Before you tell me to cut his hair, it's usually curly, what with summertime in Illinois, so not just laying there on his face like that. He had flat Rocky Mtn hair that day. But cute, you know, no matter what. Enjoy.

Catching Up

We're been busy lately, which seems wrong, somehow, since it's summertime. It's so hot here today, hot and sticky and tornado-warningy. Makes me tired, cranky, lazy. But there's no time for any of that! I'm busy getting Dorothy's second book to the printer this week, and working on publicity stuff for our first book, and some stuff for my own book(s), and we spent a week in Boulder at Naropa where I taught a class called Performances of the Everyday, and gave a reading, and moderated a panel on small press publishing. And of course there is always Dalkey work. Always! Meanwhile, Elijah is busy in all his own ways . . . he started walking the first morning in Boulder. Maybe he needed a change of pace? Or a truly different altitude? He just woke up and walked. Done. And he's started obviously mimicking our speech. He had on a shirt today with a duck another duck and a goose and he walked around saying (sort of) Duck Duck Goose, which I'd said when I dressed him. He also makes a whole zoo's worth of truly adorable animal sounds. Newest additions: goose, snake, rooster. And his pigeon is getting really good. Uncle Ethan would be so proud. He's just so communicative lately. He points and gestures a lot and this morning, after clearly asking to go out for about an hour (we were really busy doing Dorothy stuff and waking up and making breakfast, etc.), he waddled into the kitchen with his sandals in his hands and held them up to me. Kid knows what he wants! He is a very sweet boy. Gives lots of kisses. Has started trying to pick up and hug the cat. Loves his mom and dad very much. And is loved, ridiculously, totally, resoundingly, in return. Yesterday we went to a little petting farm with Katrin and Anton and a goat started to nibble the hem of my skirt (actually, I was a little scared too), and Elijah got so upset. He was pretty obviously afraid the goat would eat his mom and also it seemed he wanted to defend me but wasn't sure how, since the goat was about an inch taller than him, and had horns. Okay, M is getting him to sleep and I'm going to brush my teeth and read. I'm working my way through Anna Karenina during naps. Pictures soon.

I finally put up new pics at Shutterfly. Also . . .

You may have noticed a lot of vegan-type websites and blogs popping up under my links over there. We've officially made the switch. There's been a little back and forth (from vegetarian to vegan) and I still sometimes eat vegetarian when I'm at a friend's house and they've cooked me something but not cooked vegan. Anyway, we're getting there and I'm feeling so happy about the decision! If you ever want to talk about it with me--the food/recipes, the animal rights issues, the environmental issues, the love--I'd be thrilled to!

Also over in the links: Dorothy, a publishing project! Not sure when you last checked it out, but it's pretty close to a f'reals website now. Or, actually, yeah, it's f'reals. We just got two advance finished copies of our first book back from the printer. It's pretty. So pretty.

And: Siglio. The book page for S P R A W L is now up. The book had its first review, at Publishers Weekly. It was neither good nor bad, which I'll decide to think of as good. Really, I think it tipped more to the good, but it was largely descriptive. But the two reviews under mine (the only other ones I glanced at) were kinda brutal, so all in all, you know, huzzah.

xoxo-D

PS: Here's a teaser:

Off to Swim Class!

Katrin's Camera

Touch-a-Truck Day

(click a pic to enlarge)

Mr. Martin Riker

Has up a smart blog post, here.

Stuff and some other stuff and then some pictures

It really does seem like language just happened to Elijah. He now says:

cracker : gach ga
truck (pretty much anything with wheels) : guch
flower : oof
kitty kat : gee gach
dirt : dih
balloon : boon
spoon : boon
cup : ka
car : ch
go outside : ow
door : do
mama : mama
dada : dada

It seems to make him so happy to be understood. Just a minute ago he looked at the cupboard and said gach-gah and we went over and got a cracker and he was mightily chuffed. He also signs. He still signs to nurse. He signs hat/head. He makes dog sounds (panting), pig sounds (almost a snort but more like a German person coughing), cat sounds (a screech), and bee sounds (zzzzzzzz). He claps when he wants you to sing (which is almost all the time, even when he's nursing). His favorite song has been the teddy bear picnic one (by a long shot). But he's also into the wheels on the bus song (urgh) and that don gato song. He clucks his tongue when he likes a song and sort of bounces a little to show approval. Boy's got rhythm. His clucks usually keep good time.

He's not walking yet, but this week he started taking steps while holding onto our fingers. Before, when we'd try, he'd just fall right to his knees (on purpose) and crawl away. He hasn't seemed too bothered about walking. He's more into kicking and talking. He likes to spas out on the mattress or in the bathtub. And in addition to speaking baby English he also is really into vocalizing all possible sounds. It's almost like a sound experiment in our house. I wish I could capture it on tape. The noises he makes are sort of unbelievable.

E was super on our trip to Colorado. He loved being at Greg and Heather's - they have two cats (two tails to catch!), and a little rubber dinosaur, and one of those cat bowls that perpetually runs a little waterfall . . . and carpeted stairs, which are basically heaven to Elijah, who climbed up and down about fifty times a day, often saying "gach gah" because he knew the crackers were upstairs. In general, the kid likes to eat, preferring, it seems, banana and avocado above all else. He also loves bread, and crackers, and pasta, and raisins. So it's basically a carbs thing with him. He also is pretty cool with tofu and scrambled eggs (he likes a little thyme in his eggs).

AWP was good, in as much as AWP is ever good (as opposed to the ways in which AWP is evil). We saw people. We bought pretty books and also a few ugly books. Mostly it was just really good to see friends and the Rockies were friendly too. Here are some pics.

Kentucky and a Joke

We just got back from a quick trip to Louisville (where we were assured that we should be calling it Loo-uh-vul even if we're not locals). Elijah was awesome. He had so much fun meeting people and crawling on new grass (Kentucky grass!) and climbing up new stairs (Kentucky stairs!) and crawling on new carpet (Kentucky carpet!). I gave a reading and a talk on form and it went really well. Lots of people and lots of questions and I even sold some books. Then an awesome dinner under pink blossoms in the "gallery district." All in all, a welcome and charming little break. And I'm getting paid for it!

In more important news, Elijah is telling his first joke. Well, he's funny pretty often, or almost always, and he had his "shake your head at Daddy joke" and his "suck air in while saying 'E' joke" but this joke seems a little more sophisticated. He points at dirt or a cord (or takes them in his fat fingers) and then puts his finger inside his mouth while shaking his head "no" and smiling (or downright busting a gut). Then, when Mama follows with the requisite "No, not in the mouth, Elijah" he just loses it in a mess of giggles. He does this about twenty times a day now. Good times.

Leaps and Bounds

As a follow up to the last post . . . lately it seems like Elijah learns a new word or something everyday. Today I asked if he wanted a cracker and he pointed inside his mouth and said "ah ah." When he was done he looked at me and did it again, meaning, I guess, "More please." Amazing! Also today I was talking about his clothes and I said "shirt" and he grabbed his shirt and tugged at it while looking at me. Then I said "shoes" and he pointed first at one shoe and then the next. Genius!

Elijah and His Aboom

A few months ago I posted something about Elijah and his first words . . . I said he was saying "Mama" regularly and had started to say something all his own for "Kitty." I'm 98% sure I wasn't making that up, but then there were no new words and that word for kitty has pretty much disappeared (replaced by nothing, he mostly just points and screams at the poor Doctor). "Mama" didn't disappear but he still often said Mamamamamamamama. If you asked him "Where's Mama" he of course knew the answer, same with "Dada" and "Giraffe" and all that jazz, but now, as of about a week ago, it's like a light went off and he points at me and says "Mama" like a real word and like he really gets it. Also this week, he has started pointing at something else and saying the same thing over and over. It's a balloon we got at a party a few weeks ago and he looks at it and says, everytime, "Aboom." A new word? A coincidence? I have no idea. Like teeth coming in, this whole language acquisition stuff is exciting and sometime frustrating and mostly really unbelievable slow. Although, as I type that, I'm reminded of how really it's just slow to us. To Elijah, the world must be so overwhelmingly new all the time. Everything's an adventure. In fact, I just this second heard Marty say to him: "You've got your mommy's panties on your foot, son. I don't think she wants them there." See? Pretty exciting stuff . . .

Monday Night at the Library

Stuff

Some stuff lately:

Elijah pouring the cat's water bowl over himself, totally fascinated.

I handed Elijah one of those plastic cups with the soft plastic layers around the top (to keep cheerio-type snacks inside while allowing tiny hands in) and he figured it out right away and was so into it that a minute later when I talked to him he jumped. I've never seen him quite so engrossed in anything before. He sat there eating puffs for about half an hour. Very pleased with it all.

He screeches in gleeful anticipation whenever he sees a dog out on a walk. Even if we're inside the house. If we're out walking, inevitably the dog walker and dog stop to say hello. E is very social. If you even say the word "hello" in conversation, he starts waving.

If you hum or beat-box or read a rhythmic story, he dances. If you snap or clap, he dances. You dance, he dances. Say dance, he dances. The other day we were walking around the house (me holding E in one arm and on my hip) listening to Feist or Cat Power and I was snapping with my free hand and pretty soon E started clicking his tongue as a way of joining in. It actually did sound a lot like my snapping.

He likes to feed mama. In his high-chair, he will occasionally hold out a pea or a puff or whatever for me to take with my mouth. He is also neat, in his way (not with books, which he pulls of every shelf he can reach, nor with clothes, which he loves to take out of drawers or baskets). He won't usually accept a spoonful of food until he has swallowed what is in his mouth. Also, with the cup mentioned above, if he spills a puff on the floor, he either eats it or puts it back in the cup.

His funny joke with dad: see dad and shake your head back and forth really fast until you're dizzy. Hilarious.

E turned one and surely never a cuter baby ever graced the age:

new glasses and toothbrush

Me in ELLE Magazine

Okay, not really in the magazine . . . but on their blog.

Must-See TV

We like to call this one, "No Pukey."

Attention Grandparents!

New pics are up at Shutterfly (link to the right).

The Will to Language

One of the coolest things about being with Elijah all the time is watching/hearing his movement into language. He absolutely talks all the time, we just don't know what he's saying yet. When he picks something up he jabbers away at it, and when he's mad he says "Doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo," or lately "Nay, nay, nay, nay, nay, mama." He says "mama" very clearly now, usually when he's sad or angry. He also says "dada" but that often still comes out as "dadadadadadada" noise.

One thing that makes me happy is that he still does his air-talking, which I thought might be all gone by now. I think I've written here about this before, about how when he's very intent or happy he'll talk in a little gasping whisper and say "Taa, paa, too, pah, taa, daa, tee, pah" etc. It is amazingly cute. Also amazingly amazingly almost heartbtreakingly cute is his new thing of going "bbbbbbbbbbbbbb" where his lips vibrate and tickle his nose. We "talk" in bbbbbbbbb together. One of us starts it and the other responds. His pudgy little face is awesome vibrating to his quick bbbbbbb lips. I love it.

Anyway, I am writing today because I'm pretty sure he's said his first non-mama-dada word. It is . . . . drum roll . . . kitty cat. Big surprise. It's cool too because his noise for "k" is like bush-man clicking. He makes the click twice and says, sorta, kee ka, kee ka, whenever he sees Spangley. Rad.

He also knows, for sure, these words (besides Mama, Dada, and Kitty cat, of course):

ball
giraffe
banana head (pictured above)
shoes
foot
book
touch
inside/outside
Elijah

These are all things he will point to or go to if I ask him to. (For touch, he'll touch if I say to touch; and we play inside/outside games where he lowers a toy into a container and I say inside and he brings it out when I say outside, etc. Over and over. He thinks it's great fun.) There are probably others I'm not thinking of. It's fun and I wish I could be more philosophical about it, but he is cranking out and crawling away and I have to gooooooooooooooooo

Happy New Year!

Also, two new months up at Shutterfly (link is to the right).