Dear Eli,
You are 24 months old! TWO! You are the most grown up two year old I know. You are smart, funny, cheeky and kind.
I am so proud to be your mum Eli. You really do surprise with how much you know and comprehend. You are excited to become a big brother in a few weeks time, thought I think your excitement is mostly fed from Lior’s excitement. And what Lior likes, Eli likes! Just in the last few weeks you two have started to have more fights and disagreements. This is happening parallel to spending more quality time together and playing together independent of me. You do tend to stir Lior up a bit, and wait till he is on the brink of violence and then do it again so that he gets into trouble for hitting or over-reacting. You know how to turn your face quickly into a pouting sad face and say “Lior did it”. This always reminds me of how clever you are – knowing when it’s the right time to attack, and then managing to work it in your favour. Unfortunately for you I’m wise to this already, so guess that’s what we’ll be working on this year…!
One of my favourite things is when you grab me around me neck, pull me close to you and make our noses rub together.
One of my least favourite things is when you come to the side of my bed at 5am, get your face super close to mine and say “Mum, caca (poop). Nappy off?” And then I have to wake up in a panic because I’m worried you’re in the middle of taking your night nappy off. :-/
You love to learn. Your favourite books right now and the ones that YOU can read. Don’t get me wrong, you love it when I read you a picture book, but at the same time you must always choose one of those books that’s just pictures. Then you can point to the different things, name them and then beam at me as I tell you how clever you are. There is a really basic reading book (aimed at year 1s I guess) that you can read. You remember all the words (using the pictures as prompts if you forget) and turn the pages at the right time, so it really does look like you’re reading it! Your favourite colour is blue, and sometimes it’s green. You can easily identify all of the main colours with pink being the easiest for you for some reason. You can sort of count to three or four, and at the very least you can copy someone counting up to about 15. It is so cute when you count by yourself. You usually count, “One, two, three, four, three, four, three, four!”. 
You have started toilet training a month, or six weeks ago. This was led entirely by you and I resisted for a few weeks because I am entirely not ready to do this again so soon, plus I have fears of us putting in all this effort and then you regressing as soon as the baby is born. But, we are persevering anyway.
You have a very feisty temper and a strong personality. Sometimes I get so frustrated because you are so stubborn about the most stupid things! And then I have to really get serious with you and tell you that it’s not okay, and that I am the boss! You usually realise that this point that it’s true, I am the boss, and as long as it’s on your terms in some way you will give in. But still, you can be really, really determined, and have a really big tantrum if you don’t get your way. I have a lot to learn from you because at the moment (I’m going to blame pregnancy here) you are pushing all my buttons and I’m not responding the best way possible. We need to learn to work together a bit better. That being said, you and I really do get along, and while some days you are like this, in the same day you can be the kindest most helpful, great at sharing, and sensitive little boy! You respond really well when someone asks you nicely to do something. Like if Lior says “Please Eli can I have that back” you usually give it back straight away even though you’ve held it hostage for the last 10 minutes while Lior has a tantrum.
At two you like to be very specific about who you are talking to, or who you want to do a task for you. Sometimes you ask for something or start talking and either Luke and I answer you, but not the person you thought you were talking to and you will say “No talk Daddy! I talk Mummy!” or vice-versa. And sometimes you can tell when someone is feeling frazzled and so you might ask for something like your sausage to be cut up but you look at the frazzled parent, and turn to the (less frazzled) parent and say “Daddy do it”. In general you like to be specific about these things.
Favourite Foods:
- Watermelon
- Rice Crackers
- Apples
- Meat
- Cucumber
- Carrots
Most Unusual Words:
They’re not unusual in our family, but they sometimes strike me as being words that your friends probably don’t run around saying…
- Naked
- Shabbat Shalom
- Hannukiah
- Pokemon
- Pikachu I choose you!
- Various pokemons names
- Coffee
- Eli’s coffee!
- Hack (like computer hacking)
Favourite Games and Toys:
- Puzzles
- Reading books
- Playing pokemon
- Playing superheroes
- Water table
- Playing in water (always with the water!!) and swimming (no formal lessons yet)
- Throwing anything and not picking it up
- Ever since camping you’ve loved scootering, and lucky for you Tillie & Tex bought you one for your birthday! Tillie is an excellent scooter teacher, and was very patient with you while you were camping.
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- Kicking balls
- Stand-up Paddleboarding
- Thomas the tank engine
Favourite TV Shows:
- Well, you don’t really watch TV anymore, but maybe once a week I let you and Lior watch Pokemon for an hour or so.
- I think you still really love Frozen, even though you haven’t really watched it since Israel… but if we see anything with Frozen characters on it at the shops you are very excited.
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