Eli has the last bits of a cold with lots of extra snot.  Yesterday he thought it was entertaining to pick his nose and wipe the snot on the wall creating streaks of snot randomly placed at his eye level on hallway wall. Daddy told him that was inappropriate.

Eli and I were driving home from toddler preschool. We pull into the garage, then gather our things, like Eli’s lunch container, school notices, etc. Eli asks if I have my keys and my phone. I assure him that I do. Eli then says “Mommy, I want a phone too. I want to go to the store to buy a phone.” At 2, he’s already asking for a phone.

Eli and I were in the car coming home from toddler preschool. Eli says “I picked my nose at school today. Shari (the teacher) told me not to pick my nose. I want to pick my nose.” A few minutes later I look back at him in the car seat, watching him pick his nose.

Eli was eating pickled herring while sitting in his high chair. At 2.5 years of age he has such snobby tastes. He also has an affinity for turning on the stove dials. So, while noshing on his herring I was cooking onions and spinach in a pan for dinner. Eli wanted to reach over to turn on the stove but I already had done it.

Eli kept insisting, so Dad says to Eli, do you know the letter “N” and the letter “O”? Put together, what does that say?”

Eli’s response to Daddy’s question was “Yes, it says “ON”!

Eli and I were driving home from his toddler pre-school, taking the on-ramp to the highway. Getting on is a little tricky because there are am abundance of potholes there. It’s like playing in an obstacle course trying not to knock out the cones. I told Eli they (the city)  need to fix the roads. (At this time of year in Minnesota, the roads get pretty bad with holes everywhere to keep us alert). Eli’s response was to get a hammer and a ruler and Daddy would fix the roads.

In Eli’s younger years (when he was half as old as he is now), he used to love playing in the bathroom. He was so infatuated with the tub and turning on the faucet in the tub. When he just learned to walk and went wandering, I always knew where to find him. Now, his little sister, Isabel is equally as fascinated. The only difference is that when she enters the bathroom, she takes all the bath toys and throws them in the tub, one at a time. This is her way of telling us she wants a bath.

Eli wanted to open a can of corn kernels today. He likes to eat corn out of a can, something he learned from his Vietnamese grandma. Together, me holding his hand, we turned the can opener to open the can. As we turn the opener, Eli says “you’re doing a good job”.  A little later, we open a jar of spaghetti sauce to poor over cheese stuffed shells to bake in the oven. Eli takes the spatula to scrape the remaining sauce out of the jar. As he is doing this, he says “get out” to the sauce. My 2 year old helper.

Today Eli wanted to open some new packages of leap pad books. The books are packed in tamper proof plastic. I told Eli we needed scissors to open the books. He ran to the living room to grab his scissors to cut the plastic and the proceeded to cut the plastic. After a short attempt, no luck. The scissors are play dough scissors for cutting and playing with play dough. To a two year old, scissors are scissors.

Eli’s 2 year old vocabulary is exploding day by day. Yesterday he wanted to go up the stairs in our house. He said “Mommy, wanna go up the stairs Mommy.” I responded by saying, “In a minute Eli”. His response was, “whatever you want Mommy”.  Apparently he has heard Daddy say to him “whatever you want” and now has made this statement his own.

Whenever I get junk mail, I give it to Eli to open. He thinks the mailman is giving him a gift.  Today he opened an offer from Capital One for a credit card and looked through the pamphlet and letter. As he opened the pamphlet, he told me he was reading it, and looked at every page. Many more gifts to come.