I wouldn't want you to get the impression that just because I tend to write more about Isaac there's nothing going on with Elias. On the contrary. He's quite a little spitfire, a handful, and does it all while looking amazingly, perfectly cherubic.
In addition to his cuteness, there's his personality. He sparkles. He's just in constant motion, and nearly always in trouble of some kind. This reminds me of a moment when Isaac was about three, and a passerby looked at him and said, "Let me get this straight: he IS Dennis the Menace." Yes. Elias has a little of the devil in him, too. Like, say, putting the camera in the dog water (yesterday), or hitting me over the head with a stuffed orca while I'm on the phone, or drawing on ALL the walls in the house and running away full speed when caught. He does things like suddenly grab a bag of chips and dump it all out on the table, and then when I stand up to clean that up, suddenly c\grab a glass of water and dump that out on top of the chips. He's REAL FAST. When we were at Vassar, I had my friends Colin and Donna watch the boys while I did a little quick shopping in the Vassar store. Donna followed Isaac around, and poor Colin was tasked with Elias. He would pass by periodically at a brisk walk, arms laden with miscellaneous items Elias had thrown down or handed him. "This is insane!" he would cry, and keep moving. "How do you do this?" How indeed. With the three of us adults on the job, I was able to pick out a t-shirt. Now, imagine me trying to get a whole list of groceries, single-handedly, with both boys.
Elias also is painfully accident prone, and no day goes by without some disfiguring bruise or cut, usually on the face. (Modeling– I think not.) He does thing like standing up on the easy chair I'm sitting on and then somehow falling down between it and the wall, smashing his face into the windowsill. Or running towards a video game at a restaurant, and pitching forward so that the corner of a foot-tall platform hit him square between the eyes. Or repeatedly going under the table and standing up… CONK. (Maybe he's beautiful but not too bright?) I guess this is all part of learning to walk/run/deal with the world, but it's pretty hard to watch. And although I can manage to rescue him from harm nine times out of ten, there's always such a pure volume of times per day that he still manages to get some pretty serious damage on a regular basis.
Meanwhile– oh, the communication!! He's a wizard. He's constantly sending and receiving bits of information, and clearly loves to connect with people, but just almost none in standard English. His signing skills are pretty good. He knows signs for… eat, more, hot, worm, bee, hurt, butterfly, dog, fall down, thank you, one Tum please (he made this sign up due to a pressing need) nursing, water, and much more, as well as a whole range of barn and zoo animal sounds and several made-up references to Thomas, Bob, Wiggles, and Diego. (I am not happy to admit any of that.) He has put together adorable sentences, like "Isaac is calling you, Mama." Which he explained by saying his word for Isaac, Aaah-gn, and then enacting the calling of Mama. He said, "Aaah-gn: Mama! Mama!" He loves Isaac and Daddy. Sometimes when we are alone Elias will ask out of the blue, "Aaah-gn, Dad'n?" And I'll explain, "Isaac is at school and Daddy is at work." This seems to satisfy him.
Isaac is suddenly enamored of the annoying Go Diego Go! series, which his little friends at school seem to like for some reason, and I guess parents tolerate because it teaches Spanish. Anyway, Elias has been calling it "Go-go-go!" which is not too far off the mark. He calls yogurt "aa-oo-ga," and seems indeed to be calling it, coaxing it gently forth from the fridge when he goes over and croons, "aaa-ooo-ga!" He likes to talk about how snakes bite and turtles swim in the water and bees can hurt you.
He babbles steadily and, as if the universal translator or Star Trek is broken and coming back online, random words pop into view– like "Hot" or "nap." Or "binoculars!" We were sitting around the other evening and Elias saw them on the mantle. "Binoca!" he said, pointing. It's incredibly helpful now that he can say "Yeah" and shake his head no. At the very least we can play 20 questions until we figure out what he's wanting.
Often, he wants to talk about an incident in which Percy (Thomas the Tank Engine's green colleague) ran right through the chocolate factory and got covered with chocolate. He describes this dramatically in pure baby, with lots of emphatic gestures. And I say, "Are you thinking about Percy? Getting covered in chocolate? — What a mess!' And then he beams with joy because I know what he's talking about (and also, probably, because the chocolate-covered Percy is a pretty funny sight.) Yesterday he was apparently telling his Percy story (he sings a few bars of the Thomas theme to let me know that's the topic) and then signed FROG. This tipped me off that he was now talking about a similar incident in which Thomas was pushed off the tracks and on to a raft, with a frog looking on. "And the frog was watching him?" I asked. He laughed and his eyes twinkled, with "You got it!" written all over his face.