Hearing, now with more listening.

Shelby, Eli, and I spent a lot of time together. Since Eli's day care is closed for two weeks around Christmas, we've used a combination of parent-care, baby-sitter-care, and mom-and-dad-care to keep Eli entertained. One notable discovery is that Eli is developing quite the receptive vocabulary. He can identify his body parts, Triscuit and Noodles, and, perhaps most impressively, objects around the house. He can point to the oven, doors, cabinets, and more. We have to be very careful of what we say - even though Eli isn't talking back, he is absorbing our discussions.

He is also very interested in books. Shelby and I have read him more than 20 books each of the last few days. Fortunately, he isn't as wed to specific titles as he was a few months back, giving us a little more variety in what we read to him.

Eli returns to school tomorrow. We fear that the adjustment will be hard on him. He is finally happy to spend time in the playroom at the gym, which is now familiar because we went several times during his break, but we suspect he will not like being apart from us for entire days. I am also not sure how Eli will cope when I go to Uganda in two weeks, nor when Shelby and I go to Brazil and Costa Rica in February.

Well, we can't worry about the future when there is so much to do today!