Funny Ephraim

Paul finally was able to capture Ephraim's "trying something hard" face. Always makes me laugh.

Ephraim loves playing with water. He purposely spilled water on the kitchen floor. I held his hand so he could walk safely away and I could clean it up. But then he slipped and since I caught him he thought it was funny. Here he is hamming it up for dad.

Ephraim will be 15 months old next month and is growing so fast. He is very communicative. He has lots of signs and gestures for what he wants (both arms raised for "open this," clasped hands lifting for "help," "ma baba" for "my bottle," fingers in mouth for "feed me now"). He knows what it means when I say it's time to put on our shoes and socks (and if I put his on first he talks at me to make sure I don't leave without him), he knows where to go for a diaper and a bath and brushing teeth. He loves practicing climbing the bunk bed ladder. He can climb all the way up very quickly. Lately he has been refusing to let mom get him down so he can practice climbing down himself. He has hit the cars phase and loves playing with the many toy cars we have collected (vroom!).

Gabriel, on the other hand, has just about outgrown the cars. While he occasionally plays with his train set (usually as an elaborate car road), he prefers to play pretend. He is Batman or some such hero, or a character from Star Wars. He runs and jumps around the house punching and kicking badguys (look out for Ephraim!). Gabriel invents names and words all the time. The cute part is when he teaches us how to say it (syllable by syllable) and what it means. "Cha-choo-ser" is the name of the car in "Cars" that sneezes (cha-choo) then goes real fast. Did we ever mention that his nickname for his little brother is "Bombak"? No idea where that came from.