Dear Eliot: Two Years, Seven Months

Dear Eliot,

I think you are the handsomest, cutest, smartest little guy.  You love to draw (and I'm convinced that you could draw all day), so I recently began working on teaching you to write your name.  I write your name a few times in a light-color crayon and then you trace the letters with another color.  You're not perfect at it, of course, but you get the concept and are doing great at it!

Over the past week and a half, we've been working to transition you to sleeping in your big boy bed in your room.  You did great up until the last couple of days.  Something has been off, and I thought it'd just get easier after a week, but you regressed some and say you don't want to sleep in your room.  However, we're remaining consistent and it just takes longer to get you to bed.  I think I might have been pushing you to go to bed too early (at 8:30 pm).  You've slept in your room every night, though, and then creep in our room in the early morning.  We rewarded you with a Cars comforter.  I had never bought you a blanket for your bed, not even as a baby, since you had been using one of our old quilts.

You're so helpful and want to be involved in everything we do.  Whether it is cooking, cleaning, going to the gym, or doing work, you want to be a part of it all.  In fact, your dad was packing up his laptop to go do work and you grabbed your play laptop and said that you were coming to work too.  It was so cute.

Things are still going great with Jack.  You make the best big brother.  You love to cuddle with him and rubbing your nose on him.  You talk to him and tell everyone that he is your baby.  You also love to match your brother.  If Jack is wearing stripes, you have to as well.  If Jack is wearing a dinosaur shirt, you have to as well.

You're so busy and like cuddling a little less since you must always be going, going, going, but I know I'm still in your heart.  Whenever a sentimental scene comes on tv with a mother and child, you run up to me and hug me.

Although we didn't get to go to the beach much since Jack was born at the end of June, we've had a great summer in our own backyard.  I'm not looking forward to summer ending, but we'll have a great fall.

I'm so proud of you, Eliot.  You're really no baby anymore.  You keep growing bigger and doing bigger things.