Eldore turned nineteen months on the 19th of June.
His language has taken a turn for clarity. He also has learned to nod–a fortunate companion to his incessant head-shaking–and has begun to punctuate the gesture with an emphatic YAH. (Not yeah, but definitely yah.)
His confidence in repeating words seems to have grown, and he has thus officially brought the household to the stage of Be-Careful-What-You-Say-Around-The-Toddler.
Still, sometimes he prefers not to hassle with words when there is obviously a mutual understanding of the subject at hand. One day I asked if he wanted milk.
“YAH.” He nodded emphatically, and did a little dance as I went to the refrigerator.
“Can you say milk?” I asked him as I poured some for him.
“YAH.” He nodded again, watching closely the approaching glass.
“Muh…muh…milk.” I said.
He reached for the glass. “YAH. DAT.”
The progress in language has meant a new possible activity between he and I: the Conversation. Another day, I had him on the changing table before his nap when I took a closer look at his hands.
“Oh, have you been playing in the mud?”
He nodded. “Yah.”
“Goodness, your hands are dirty!”
He wiped them up and down the front of his shirt.
“Well, let’s clean them off.”
He nodded again. “Yah.”
The conversations are brief but delightful.
Jeremy says he leads with his belly. He runs like a rag doll, legs dancing and arms flapping, flapping as he hurries to whatever has caught his attention. Sometimes he stops in time, and sometimes he careens into things. He’s become very adept at busting his lip, and usually at very inconvenient times, like just before bed or the morning of his doctor appointment.
He chipped a front tooth trying to go down the concrete steps at the Ham House. I was standing right next to him, and I’m still not sure what happened. But he slipped and he busted his lip (again) and he cried and later I noticed the piece of tooth missing.
We named him “Eldore Rex”, and I wrote not long after his naming that I saw–or maybe hoped–he would lead the charge of his brothers and sisters. Last night I watched him outside with them all, playing ball with Jeremy, and noted how much more aggressive Eldore is than his brothers were at his age (although, to be fair, two of them were not even walking yet at his age.) It is more than just a desire to keep up with them all. He is determined to be Top Dog.
When he isn’t trying to dominate his siblings, Eldore amuses himself by eating, shaking things, stealing pencils, eating, playing cars, looking at books, dancing, eating, pushing stuff around the floor, and yelling at the Google Home to stop. (“STAHP, GOO-GUHL!!”) He likes to sing “Happy Birthday”, “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star”, and Bad Lip Reading’s “Seagulls”. He also loves singing the Doxology with us in the morning, though he’s always trying to beat us to the amen at the end.
Always vying for the last word…even if that last word is “YAH”.
Leave a Reply