Eggs!

Six to one, half a dozen to the other.

 I decided to dye some eggs with Aeli this year.  He loved it!  He was considerably more skilled at placing the eggs into the mugs of vinegary colored water than he was at removing them, however.  His face was amazing.  "Da?" he'd ask, pointing to the bright green or orange.  When we'd place an egg in or pull it out this incredulous smile would spread across his face.  (A similar smile occurred during our Passover seder while we were all whipping each other with green onions during Dayenu. sp?) The whole eggy affair probably took fifteen-minutes, and was well-worth the crazy arm workout of having him on one hip and doing everything else with one hand. 

I made Aeli an Easter basket out of a strawberry pint.  I hid it this morning with two of our colored eggs, some passover biscotti, a strawberry, and a kazoo inside it.  He was so excited about the eggs.  He even brought one to me and, once I sat him in his high chair, started to tap it in order to crack the shell himself (himshelf?).

THEN, post-breakfast, while in the bath to de-egg all the wrinkles in his rolls, The Dog Days Are Over comes on the internet radio.  He looks up, starts waving his arms in the way that means "Nicole and Dana" and then does the sign for "all done" and stands up.  Like, "This is my jam!  I gotta go dance!"  So I wrapped him up in his towel and that is exactly what we did.

The area beneath my eyes looks like I haven't had enough sleep in two years, which is about right, but on mornings like this especially, it's worth it.

No Way!

 Aeli has a couple real words now!

He's been using signs for a long time (more, all done, uh-oh, and this shrug thing he uses like "I don't know how that happened, Mom.  I really don't."), but suddenly on Wednesday he decided to bust out with a verbal whammy! 

I was changing his diaper and Shelly was telling me about Aeli making a lot of noise at the restaurant that day at lunch, banging on the table and what-not.  I looked at him and said, "Aeli, making noise?  No way!" and did a little hand gesture to go with it.

"No wey!" he repeated. 

Mind you, his word for "kitty cat" has sounded like "gi--ga" for months, so this seems like a remarkable milestone.

Also, he's decided to verbally announce "oh-oh" when he "drops" (or throws) something on the ground, and also offers and asks for kisses by puckering his lips and leaning toward you. 

This kid is THE BEST!