21 months

After about the 18 month mark whenever people ask how old Elias is, since, unlike previously I can't seem to rattle off his exact age in months, weeks, and days, I've noticed I've started saying he's "almost two" every now and then.  I know his birthday is still three months away, but my "baby guy," as I call him, really is starting to look and act the part of little boy.

Take, for example, various staple outings that can be downright tedious when you have to constantly hover around your novice walker.  The playgrounds designed for the 2 to 5 set really do get to be a lot more fun as your kid approaches that age range. 

Certain play areas, like Berkeley's Totland, still seem like work to Elias, as he very seriously moves from one push toy to the next (and, while varying in length and severity, getting him to leave always ends in a tantrum).

Even at Totland, though, it was a pretty exciting development when Elias figured out how to use his legs to push himself around on the various bikes and cars.  And our most recent visit to Children's Fairyland a couple of weeks ago was my most enjoyable time there with Elias.

We're still having issues with the aimless wandering and refusal to both hold hands or sit in the stroller (Remember that cat herding commercial a few years ago? Yeah, it's kinda like that...) but it does seem like overall things have improved ever so slightly in that department.  And it helps that on this particular visit we were better about letting Elias pick the route and set the pace.

Elias continues to add words to his vocabulary including Grandma (which sounds like "gamma"), just in time for a recent visit and to her utter delight, of course.  He continues to ask for her (equating her recent visit with weekends in general, I think) and points to the extra chair at the table where she sits when she visits.

Another new experience last month was Elias's first ride on the subway, a budding interest falling under his general fascination with trains.   Elias experiences a range of emotions as you can see in the following series of images, from anticipation, to fear, to desire (signing "more" in the last image, which I think actually came before the previous three but Neal reports that he was indeed asking for more after these pictures were taken).