M.O.M.

Eli has started using that term with me: "Mom". When did he grow up enough to stop using "Mommy"? When I refer to myself in the third person, I use "Mommy". When Lehr or D or anyone else refers to me, they say, "Mommy". Yet in the last week, randomly Eli will bust out a "mom". The conversation goes something like this:

"Eli, do you want to play with legos?"
"Please!!"
"I'm going to build a tower. What are you going to build?"
"E-I goin' to build a tower tooooo. Good job, Mom!!"

Weird. He'll also throw out those 'good job' compliments in appropriate times. Or 'nice shot' if we're playing hoops.

My new favorite thing about Eli is his ability to take more than one direction/instruction and follow through. This week he's successfully obeyed my 'orders' before nap time every day. Once lunch is finished, I usually do a quick clean up of our dishes before the three of us head upstairs for books and nap time. Since Maddux has been out of sorts this week, I've put her down before book-time with Eli most days. As we walk up the stairs I tell Eli I need him to go into his room, get out a diaper, pick one book, and then he can get his blanket and wait for me while I put Maddux to bed. Four of the last four days, Eli has completed these tasks perfectly. The first day I walked in to find him looking out the window while he held his blanket. On his changing pad was one clean diaper. On the rug where we read books was one book from his shelf. Winner winner chicken dinner. It doesn't get much better than that!