These are a few of his favorite things

Eli loves...

- Books, books, and more books.

Today we read to him for two hours. I only know that because I'm counting for the Summer Reading Program at the library. I figured we might as well get some free stuff if we're reading anyway. It got so bad a while ago that we were encouraging ANYTHING other than reading books. We felt like very bad teachers -- discouraging books.



- "Za-Za Noodles."

Za-Za is Eli's current name for Grandma Sallie and he calls plain white macaroni and cheese "Za-Za Noodles." It took me forever to figure out what they were. I've been pureeing spinach, cauliflower, and/or broccoli and putting it in his noodles since he expressed interest in pasta. Then, about a month ago we went out to dinner to Outback with Grandma Sallie and he had plain noodles, no pureed veggies, so we figured out that's what he wanted, no sneaky veggies. Of course, now he just has to eat them on the side now, which thankfully he still does.


- "Me-mes" and "Bake-bake."

His favorite meal besides noodles is pancakes and bacon. In fact, he loves it so much that we served it to our "lucky" family for his second birthday party.


- Driving his ride on toys all around the house.

He has a "Cozy Coupe" and a little "quike" (a bike with four wheels) that he likes to ride all around the house, especially now that we got hard wood floors. He says, "Ewi go fast, Mommy."




- Maisy, Elmo, Mickey Mouse, and Winnie the Pooh.

Some of his favorite books are Maisy books, we spend a lot of time at the bookstore reading them, and we always borrow them from the library. He loves his stuffed Elmo and wants Elmo to read and play with him (murder on our vocal chords.) We went to Disney World in February and ever since then he loves anything with "The Mouse" on it. We have a stuffed Mickey, Mickey clothes, Mickey crocs, and one of his favorite songs is "The Mickey Mouse Club." He calls it "bum, bum, bum, bum" (his interpretation of the beginning of the song.) The recent addition is Winnie the Pooh.



- "Choc-Choc."

I think he would eat chocolate every hour of every day if we let him. He hasn't been introduced to many other sweets, and the ones he has he hasn't shown much interest in. He asks for chocolate, we ask him when we have chocolate. He says, "after dinner."


- Mommy.

He is definitely a Momma's Boy right now. Daddy is his second favorite, but at times it seems a pretty distant second. Poor Daddy, I'm sure he'll have his time, too. I think part of the attachment is that I'm still nursing him, and he definitely likes his "nummy-nums", especially when he wants to go to sleep.


- Duplos (Legos for Toddlers), Trains and Lincoln Logs.

These are his favorite Daddy toys, and they play with these constantly. I can play too, but I'm a very poor, unimaginative substitute.




-The "Boofstore."

He loves the bookstore. They have a Thomas the Train set and lots of Maisy books. It's like going to a play group that we don't have to arrange. He also loves to go on speaker and sprinkler searches outside the bookstore through the outdoor shopping mall.


- His number and letter floor puzzles.

These are his new favorites, at the moment I think we spend the most time playing with these. They were another great thrift store find. We take them apart, put them back together. We hunt for letters, Elmo finds letters, we walk over them and recite them. It goes on and on. It's gotten to the point that I suggest other activities, and yet again I'm suffering from teacher guilt. He now knows about 20-26 of his letters and his numbers from 0-10. And, we truly haven't been trying, he's obsessed.