Eli's birthday was actually this past Monday, May 26, but since that was Memorial Day and many of our friends had plans, we decided to wait to celebrate until yesterday! We had a blast at the park with lots of Jacob and Eli's friends and the kids had tons of fun playing on the playground and just running around in the huge expanse of grassy play area!
Here's a little recap for you of Eli's development at 2 years old:
* Knows the shapes square, triangle, circle, star and oval.
* Can count 1-13 (although a lot of times he misses 6 for some reason!!)
* Knows most of the alphabet
* Is currently taking a tumbling class once a week at the YMCA and he loves it!(Jacob did this at the same age)* Can sing Row, Row, Row Your Boat, Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star, Wheels on the Bus and the theme songs to Veggie Tales and The Little Einsteins. He also sings parts of several other songs that we have on CD - and he LOVES the band Hawk Nelson and Lifehouse makes him fall asleep - strange!!
* Loves to watch "Mity Mouse" (Mickey Mouse Clubhouse), "Hanny Manny" (Handy Manny) and "Einines" (The Little Einsteins) on Disney Channel.
* Can name pretty much every animal by sight (including ones like rhino, zebra, giraffe, elephant, deer, moose, and randomly tapir (because we have some at our zoo) etc.) and if Michael and I know the sound the animal makes, Eli knows it too.
* Knows the following restaurants by sight: "NaDonalds" (McDonalds),
"Ennys" (Wendy's), "Popeye's" (he says that one right), "Noli's" (Fazoli's), "Red Robin", "Burder King" (Burger King) and I think there are a couple more - Note - this is NOT because we are regulars at these places, he really learns them after only going to them once or even just passing by them and asking "what's dat food?"....* Knows Walmart, Target, Walgreens and the mall on sight and gets really angry when we drive by the mall (which is about 1 mile from our house) and don't stop because there's an indoor playground there that we frequent in the colder months!!
* He also talks much more inteligbly than Jacob did at 2. He says anything he wants to say and will repeat everything you say! He is up to 5-6 word sentences and it's quite amusing sometimes. Yesterday he said to me "what was dat sound, mommy?" because a noisy motorcycle passed us in the van and he wanted to know what it was because he didn't see it at the time!!
* Read here to see my previous update on him. As far as his physical development goes, he saw the orthopedic surgeon again in March and he told me he doesn't
want to see Eli again for a whole YEAR. He really doesn't think there's much wrong with him, other than a bone growth issue, which is totally liveable. He goes back to see the geneticist at Children's in Denver in August and I suspect we'll get another good report. He will continue to have the ultrasounds of his organs every 3 months until he is appx. 8 years old. This is just a precaution because sometimes kids with "hemi-hypertrophy" (the asymmetry) sometimes develop kidney tumors that are cancerous and they develop and progress VERY quickly (that's why they do the ultrasounds every 3 months).
* He is still receiving physical therapy for his neck. We are down to once every 3 weeks (rather than weekly). He is also still wearing the neck brace that I showed you in the other post. He is doing really well and continues to progress in his ability to hold his head straight. He can do it, it's just a matter of teaching him to do it all the time until it becomes habit - that's kinda what the brace is for. He has also progressed to being able to tilt his head the other way of his natural tilt. He now does it when we ask him to and if we catch him sitting leaned over, we can say "lean the other way" and most of the time he'll correct himself. It's just a matter of time now!* As far as he (and we) are concerned he is a very
normal 2 year old. He even runs faster than Jacob does..... He can also jump incredibly well for his age according to the physical therapist. He has absolutely no physical limitations and if he has to deal with different size shoes and a lift on the right one for the rest of his life, then we're perfectly fine with that. No biggie!To see more photos from the birthday party and professional photos click here.
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