15 months already?

Words Elliott is saying (or at least words we recognize so far):
nigh nigh (night, night!)
addy or d
dada
mama
mmm (more)
da (dog)

Some things Elliott is doing:


He has two dance moves: rocks slowly back and forth without lifting his feet and slowly bends his knees down and then up to standing on his tippy toes

Lots of hugging and kissing and missing people when they have to leave to our house, even if just for a moment

Some biting (ouch!) out of frustration, as a way to communicate and, we think, as a way to relieve some serious teething pain.


He gets extremely excited by machinery of any kind: vacuums, blenders, lawn mowers, trucks of all kinds. He does a very excited machinery dance and becomes distressed when the machinery goes bye bye. He can be found playing with our vacuum, which lives in our living room these days, for extended periods of time.


Loving on and taking care of his baby, lots of hugging, kissing, strolling, dancing with, and baby even gets bitten once and again, no discrimination here.

He has reopened the track in our house. Addy and Elliott can both be found running circles in our house after dinner or any time!

He must do everything his big sister does.


Climbs, climbs, climbs. He is a climber and has mastered both the ladder and the climbing wall on our play structure. He's a thrill seeker on the slide as well.


Still a charmer, sweet, sweet, sweet smiles and glances, and a super snuggler who loves his blanky.

Elliott continues to be easy going in many situations. He can keep himself occupied with ordinary items, books, or toys anywhere we go. And he also continues to be very fiery, knowing what he wants, and demanding it with his not so fine tuned language skills, think loud screams, grunts, and cries. He is a busy littler duder running himself ragged and hitting bed around 7 after only one nap during the day, but he still has trouble sleeping at night. Elliott, thankfully, does not mind the car and we've already taken a couple of trips to Pennsylvania to hang with the cousins and Zia and Zio.

He loves to eat carrots, apples, hummus, yogurt, salad, oatmeal, potatoes, and most other veggies, including greens. He finally started eating avocado after consistently spitting it out for the last year, after we fed him the delicious guacamole from La Fiesta here in town. Now he gobbles it up. Guess it has to have all the fixins in it for him to enjoy it!

It completely baffles us that 15 months have already gone by. It's hard to imagine, now, what our life was like before we had Elliott. What a joy it has been to watch him grow. Though we really noticed or maybe felt is a better word, the other night, after his surgery, when his sleep was all messed up and he was up at 9pm, that being a second child really does shape who you are and how you interact with the world. It shapes how parents interact with you and simply that you have an older sibling who messes with you both in good and not so good ways. We enjoyed watching Elliott play by himself for a while, meandering around the living room, talking, playing and interacting with us, just him. Addy is so incredibly verbal, and animated, and demanding, that her needs, unless Elliott needs a diaper change or to nurse, or a spotter in his many climbing adventures, seem to take precedence over his. Or at least her actions seem to, they are bigger, more boisterous, and so Elliott, even though we notice his growth and achievements as a family, seems to be in the background. Maybe, to Addy, it doesn't feel this way, but having just that little bit of time the other night, with just Elliott really highlighted that for us. As much fun as it is to play all together (except when they are both crying, and this has been happening far too often lately) it's a friendly reminder to somehow carve individual time with each one, a moment here and there to enjoy them as individuals.