Slacking!

We haven't been keeping this up very well lately, have we?

May has been, for the most part, the month of going places. We've been to Holiday World and Kings Island, and Eliza got her first trip to a water park when we went to Splashin' Safari.

She had a lot of fun at the water park, especially floating on the lazy river. She wasn't crazy about her life jacket, which had a pillow to help hold her head up, but she did like playing in the wave pool.

With the start of hot weather, Janie's working some long hours, which is hard on all of us. On the upside, we get to go to a friend's wedding next weekend, so there's a fun road trip in store for us.

Eliza is a chatterbox lately, and she's starting to put some longer sentences together. She's able to identify a lot of objects, and is working on expressing her wants and desires pretty clearly now.

Pictures soon.

A year and a half of Eliza Jane Smith!

Eliza is 18-months-old today. We've come leaps and bounds in the past month. She'll now mimic pretty much any word we say (which is both a good and a bad thing - Brian and I are working on this) and she likes to mimic our actions. She's learning her letters by pointing to them as the credits roll at the end of TV shows and movies. No kidding. She names them (not always correctly)and then will look back at us for applause. The other day she was prancing around the house saying "seven, eight, nine!" in a low whisper over and over again. Just like the cliched observation everyone makes about babies - she's an information sponge.

She can walk down the stairs with a little help from the banister (and Mom) and she'll stay in the living room without the baby gate up. She's gotten very social and yells "Hi!" at everyone in the grocery store. Loudly. She now eats with a fork or spoon all on her own and has acquired a taste for pot pies. She even eats her morning cereal with milk in it like a big girl.

She sings along with TV shows and the radio. She generally picks one syllable and repeats it over and over, but it's still singing! Her new favorite TV show is Blues Clues. The very old version, with Steve. She gets all worked up when it's mail time and will always try to sing the mail song.

Today was her 18-month half birthday so we decided to get her a cupcake to eat after dinner. I think the size was a little overwhelming, so it took her a bit to dig in. We snapped a couple of pictures of her eating her cupcake, and of course we have a few more to share. Look at this big girl!

A!

Tonight we were reading a book with Eliza. We always read her favorite and seasonally inappropriate book "Easter Bunny". Eliza was pointing out the eyes on all the animals and saying "eye", which is wonderful. Then she did something that stunned us all, she pointed to an "A" in one of the animal names and said "A". Clear as a bell. We were shocked. She's always pointed to the letters on people's t-shirts and we name them for her, but we didn't expect her to retain it. Brian decided to see if it was a fluke. He said "Eliza, where's the A?" and she pointed to an "a" all alone in a sentence.

We turned the page and she pointed to an "A" and said "A!" again. Then she pointed to an "L" and said "L".

I hope she'll be an early reader like her Dad!

Bop!

Eliza has been bickering with me about my name. Her speech has picked up a bit over the past week and, in addition to long time phrases "who's that?", "what's that?", and "oh wow!", she's added "eyes" and "cat" and started mimicking words when we say them. Now when I asked her to say "Mom" she very loudly says "Bop!", as though she's arguing with me. I don't think she'll ever say "Mom" on a regular basis. Some people think I should just go with it. Can you imagine a 16-year-old Eliza calling her mother Bop?

This weekend we celebrated Valentine's Day with Eliza by taking her out for her first trip to Chuck E. Cheese. While not the magic experience Showbiz was when I was a kid, it still seemed like fun for a kid. The pizza, however, is just about the worst I've ever had, and half the games were broken in some way.

Eliza didn't know the difference. She had a blast watching all the older kids play. She even shouted "Hey!" at them as they'd run by. We got a little video of Eliza riding her first baby ride all by herself. If you pay close attention to the first video, you can hear her call me Bop.

I'm a slacker!

Sorry for the lapse in posts. We've been so busy with work and the approaching holiday and we haven't had much time to update. We're hosting Thanksgiving this year and we're too excited for words.

This past weekend was a productive one. We both had to work Saturday, but Sunday we cleaned up the house and then headed out to the park. The weekend before that, we went back to the Orchard with Brian's Dad and Stepmom. We had a ton of fun on a hayride and buying apples for another pie. I also bought some pie pumpkins and tried my hand at a homemade pumpkin pie. We have pictures from both weekends and plan to post them shortly, we swear.

Eliza is, of course, thriving. Lately she's learning to get her way by squealing loudly. She's also learned to say "up" when she wants out of her high chair or she wants someone to hold her. She doesn't have any other baby family members to play with, so she's fascinated when she sees other kids. She needs some buddies and I think we're going to be working on that soon.

Pictures to come soon!

Finally! The best sound...

Eliza has been a chatterbox lately. She says "Who's that?" constantly while pointing at various things (pictures, objects, etc.), Eziza, Ah-boo (we haven't figured this out yet, but she says it constantly), and "Hot". All food is "hot", no matter the temperature.

She routinely says "Hi, Dad!" to Brian, but she has not yet mastered my name. Until tonight...

I left a room and she momentarily got upset, I was in the kitchen and I heard her yell "MAMA!!!" from the living room.

Ezaza is 13-months-old

Eliza can say her name now. It sounds like Ezaza, but she makes a pretty solid attempt. Last night, she very clearly said "Eliza" in this throaty growl she makes. Brian looked at me and said "You did just hear her say her name, right?"

She's making small attempts to walk on her own, but she can't take more than 2 or 3 steps without losing her balance and falling down. Mostly she'll opt to sit down and crawl to her destination, but she's slowly growing more brave.

Today she's 13-months-old!

Edit: Oh, okay. By popular (and by popular, I mean my Mom) demand, we've decided to continue on with Raggedy Ann pictures. At least we'll try monthly 'til she's two.

Second word...it figures...

After spending all day working on "Momma", Eliza decided she'd say "Dada" instead.

It's hilarious. Never let it be said that she doesn't have a sense of humor.

Like a Surgeon

The pediatrician recommended that Eliza see a surgeon for her umbilical hernia. We'd had a couple of doctors tell us that we shouldn't worry and it would clear up by the time she's a year or two old. That's why we were surprised when a local general surgeon recommended surgery.

That didn't sound quite right to me, given the fact that EVERYTHING I'd read seemed to indicate otherwise. I decided we'd take Eliza to Kosair's in Louisville for a top notch second opinion, which we did this past week. Turns out, they seemed shocked that a surgeon would want to touch it. They said no surgery unless it doesn't correct itself by age 4. Otherwise, they'd only fix it if she needed to go under general anesthesia for something else.

We're completely relieved.

In other news, Eliza is babbling like she's going to skip small words and start speaking full sentences. I reportedly said my first word at three months, so maybe we have a little prodigy on my hands.