Craaaaaah

Elijah is standing behind me. Blowing air past his lips, Elijah makes a "craaahhh" noise.

"You're copying me aren't you, Elijah?" I ask.

Elijah smirks at me and laughs a little. He is copying me.

You see, I've had a bit of a cold lately. One of those annoying ones that causes you to be congested for a very long time and subsequently causes you to cough and blow your nose several times a day, even though you feel otherwise healthy (I'm already feeling much better, thank you).

I'll head to the bathroom to blow my nose and soon I hear the pitter-patter of Elijah-feet in my direction. He follows me to mimic the sound I make when blowing my nose.

This is pretty cool for our kiddo who's never mimicked much of anything we do (pretty cool indeed!). Elijah will sometimes imitate gross motor activities, but I really can't think of much that he has mimicked verbally. Even cooler is that he's been doing it all week. It's not just a one day thing or a one person thing (he's mimicked Andy too). Often when we've heard verbalization from Elijah we won't hear it again for six months, a year, or longer. It's a long time to wait.

So, when Elijah comes up to me and copies a noise I'm making? I'm beyond thrilled. He's really copying a sound with his mouth. I hope you all realize how profound it really is. Is it a word? Nope, but in my book it might as well be. That's how cool it is. Just tonight, I pretended to make the sound and Elijah did it too. "Craaaaah," he said, a smirk on his face. This back and forth verbalization is the beginning of speech, so yeah, it's pretty exciting.

Oh, and who cares if it's something gross? It's like a kid repeating that one thing you didn't want them to in an embarrassing setting. A parental rite of passage, don't you think?

{Also, how in the world am I supposed to spell this sound? Craaaah will have to do, I guess.}

Tweet

Whirlwind

As Elijah and I reached the door to the grocery store, the piece of paper I'd been clutching in my hand went flying 15 feet into the air, torn from me by a wind gust.

I laughed.

And then Elijah and I, hand in hand, went on a chase through the parking lot for my dry cleaning slip. As we ran, the paper stuck to a lamppost. Soon it was only a few feet away. Just as I bent down to pick it up, again it would be blown far out of reach.

I thought I was in a comedy routine. I was secretly hoping someone was watching on the security cameras. It was hilarious, like someone had tied a string to my paper and kept yanking it just out of reach.

I finally caught up to the slip of paper, but only after traversing the entire parking lot. Elijah thought it was hilarious. 

And this is kind of how my life feels lately, like a whirlwind. I think 2011 will go down in history as the busiest year ever - perhaps one of the most fun, too. I thought things might start slowing down now that it's autumn. No such luck. September has been a whirlwind. Oh, and October is almost over too?

I thought I'd better write an update for you all lest you think we've dropped off the face of the planet.

We're still here, chasing things, laughing as we go.

Here are some of the things we've been up to while I've neglected the blog...

Elijah went back to school for his second year of preschool (he loves school).

On one of the last hot days of the year, Elijah and I took Andy to the park we'd discovered on one of our adventures.

I turned 30 (really, that can't be true because I'm only 20!).

Elijah's aunt Casey got married to Tyler (congratulations you two!). 

We celebrated the Feast of Tabernacles in Galveston Island, TX.

 

So, there you have it. We're still alive and well. And we've been having a lot of fun while not here in Elijahland.

Tweet