Catch, Climb, Run and Jump

Eli's large physical movements (in teaching we call them gross motor) have improved leaps and bounds lately -- literally. He's now always jumping and running everywhere. His running has progressed past the awkward toddler gait and he can really haul now. He's funny too, on our home bound days, which my pregnancy craziness has forced us to limit, I used to worry about him getting enough exercise. But, I realized that he literally runs between each activity. To the point that, throughout his hour of screen time (we've recently been forced to start limiting him now as DVDs, Sesame Street and videos on the computer are increasingly holding his attention) he likes to jump up and run across the room touch the garage door knob and report his favorite part to me in the kitchen as he runs by, as I'm usually doing dishes or cooking.


Of course, getting good shots of him running is nearly impossible, but here are two recent attempts.



The rest of the pictures that follow were all taken on the same day at our neighborhood Tot Lot. His most exciting advancement for me has been catching. I read in a toddler book somewhere that if you want to work on catching, blow up a beach ball, but not all the way. I tried that tactic this summer, but to no avail. Then, about a month ago I unearthed the beach ball again and figured I'd give it another shot. This time it clicked, I guess developmentally he was just ready (of course I'm still waiting for this to happen with potty training!) Anyway, now, if the throw is good he seems to catch it at least 75% of the time -- pretty exciting. Here are some shots of our game of catch. Interestingly he's been really good at throwing for quite some time, to the point that we've had to limit throwing in the house to foam balls. Thankfully, not only can he catch now, his aim is getting much better, too. In the pictures, notice his side arm throw.







The other thing I've noticed is that his climbing has really improved too. He's much more confident and less awkward.




And, finally these pictures are of Eli reacting to Daddy throwing the ball really high. He loves to watch people throw balls as high as possible in the air and I love to see his facial expressions.