Do I even try to catch yall up? Eh, for my sake and memories I'll do a quick re-cap. Eli started a day school at 20ish months. There's more to it than just a babysitting service, he actually learns stuff. It's hard to tell how much he learned there and how much was normal growth but at 2.5 he had a great vocabulary and told he talks a lot for his age. We hit our terrible twos. I want to say they stared at 16ish months and went until about 27 months. He still has his tempers but WHEW for a while there I was ready to send him packing. I had no idea what to do but alas he turned a corner. Praise Jesus! Speaking of Jesus, we read his bible every night and I try to tell him things like "look at the clouds. God put the clouds in the sky, aren't they beautiful?" So randomly he'll look at something like the trees and say God made the trees Mamma. That's cute.
He says a few other cute things regularly. I'll show him something new and he'll go "No WAY Mamma!!!! I can't believe it!" As if it's the most exciting thing he's ever heard. Today he hugged my growing belly and said, "Mamma, I love Noelle." That made my heart happy and gave me small hope for the future. He is not yet potty trained and has developed some weird fear of the potty all of the sudden so we are kind of at a stand still with that. He eats great but I still cut up his food. I'm trying to do it less but he won't take good bites on his own and in general always asks for help with eating. I end up finishing my meal and then feeding him the rest of his. I want to break the habit but so far he eats anything and everything, is well behaved at the table, and it's just hard to want to mess that up. He's gotten super helpful around the house. He puts his dishes in the sink, throws away his diapers and other trash, puts his clothes in their basket, and even puts his toys up when asked. He also loves to try and "help" with things. Like vacuuming, cooking, moping, dusting, yard work...pretty much everything which is great but also a little pain. I pretty much have him make every meal with me. He sleeps from 9pm-7/8am and I'd like to have him in bed earlier but it just seems like our days keep getting pushed back later and later. He also naps from about 2-4/5 everyday. As he learns how to better behave he also is gaining new independence and he'll say weird stuff like "don't come in my room Mama" or "don't look at me". Not quite sure how to handle that yet. Sometimes I just do what I was doing or if I don't really need to go in his room I'll just say "ask nicely," then he'll say please and then I just walk away. I also have totally ruined his day by not letting him do something by himself that he wanted to do because either we were in a hurry or I just didn't feel like waiting. For example, climbing into his car seat. I picked him up and he was saying "I want to do it all my byself" (for some reason he swaps my and by) but anyways, I didn't let him and he screamed and cried for like an hour. And talked about it the whole rest of the day. Sorry not sorry buddy. For the most part those fits are few and far between now. He knows his letters, numbers, colors, and pretty much what everything around him is. He can count to about 15. Overall we think he is doing fantastic. Im a little nervous about throwing a newborn in the mix and also starting over when things are so very smooth in our lives right now. I can't think of anything else major to share or any big issues that we are having at the moment. I could recap every moment from the past year but that's just ridiculous. If I think of anything critical to share I'll post it another time. 
