{Elijah James - 15 Months} | The Paul + Charity Show

Elijah James you are 15 months!

You are growing in leaps and bounds! Your walking has become more confident and you even enjoy running around. While you seem to like walking, you love to dance! Sometimes you turn on music by yourself using your toy jungle set. Sometimes you wave and look at the Amazon Echo and wait for us to turn on music. When dancing you will often run around, clap, and squat down. It is the best! You like it when we sing “If you’re happy and you know it” and you are even starting to get the stomping down.

Elijah, you soak up information like a sponge. You are able to use sign language to tell us if you want 'more' food and when you are 'all done' eating. We think you're learning the sign for food as well since you will occasionally make a sign that looks like it should be for food and you are happy when you get some. You can point to you belly, your nose, your ears, and the dog when we ask you where they are at. You understand that hats go on your head and use your imagination to make lots of things, like plastic containers, into hats. You love moving and rearranging things. You move the kitchen towels from one cabinet to another, or you'll pull out all the canned goods and put them in a drawer. You are very intrigued with putting toys inside boxes and then opening and closing the box. You enjoy when mama stacks things up so that you can knock them down.

You seem to understand short commands such as when we tell you to go "feet first" down the stairs or when getting off the couch. When we ask you where your yellow ball is you will start looking for it. At night when papa puts you to bed, he asks you to say night-night to the hallway and bathroom, you understand and wave to them.

Elijah, you are perfecting your 1^st few words! This has been very interesting to watch you learn. Sometimes you will practice saying the words several times in a row to make them sound like when we say the words. So far we understand you saying "uh-oh" "dog" and "ball". The way you form your ‘b’ sound is so sweet, you pucker out your bottom lip to try and get the sound right.

You have also started to experiment with temper tantrums. Sometimes they start with mama or papa trying to help you with something and you not wanting help. Sometimes they start when you want something and mama and papa are not understanding what you want. It has got to be tough to not be able to verbally communicate. It took mama and papa a while to figure out what was going on when you would throw a tantrum. When you have one we try to give you space so that you can learn to process your emotions, unless you are hurting yourself. We are really looking forward to getting to communicate with you on a deeper level.

You are very funny around new groups of people. You often start out shy, then you like to look at people, look away real fast, and then look again. You wave hello and goodbye and you also enjoy giving and blowing kisses.

You love playing fetch with Charlie. However, you also seem to think that anytime you throw a toy at her she should go get it. You often stop what you are doing to go over and pet Charlie (sometimes gently and sometimes not). You also love to grab at her paws, which she definitely does not enjoy. You enjoy "sharing" things with mama and papa. If we hold out our hand, you will put anything in it from sticks, rocks, and toys. You also really enjoy feeding papa food. You think that is so funny.

You transitioned smoothly into your toddler one classroom. Within a couple weeks you stopped drinking from a bottle, started drinking whole milk, and started sleeping on a cot instead of in a crib. In your new class there is a dedicated nap time where everyone lays down together and you have done really well with that. You sleep much better in your new classroom, sleeping 2 hours on average compared to only 1 hour in your old class. There were a few weeks where drop-off was difficult and you would cry when mama left, but you seem to be over that.

During the last three months you had your first swim classes, celebrated the 1st birthday of all your PEPS buddies, experienced lots of park dates, your third haircut, enjoyed your first Easter egg hunt, had a sleep over at our dear friends the Pretzel Kaetzels, celebrated Mother's Day.

In the next few months you are looking forward to: Seeing your cousin Brendan graduate high school, visiting your east coast family, taking your first trip to Alaska, and summer vacation with mama.

Here are a few photos and videos of you from the last three months: