New Cute Tricks...

On the phone again. He just loves walking around the living room, talking on his phone (our dead cordless with the battery removed). He even giggles when he's talking on the phone.
Eli is toddling all around, and really enjoying spring. He just loves playing on the tot lot behind our house. That park, with the tot lot, field, and pool, more than compensates for the minimal space we have for Eli to run around. Although he does get really mad we won't let him walk on the stretch of sidewalk behind our house with the broken 40s. He loves the slide, and sometimes the swing, and watching the other kids. But he also really likes the other kids' toys and ride-ons they bring, which leads to some unfortunate meltdowns when we have to take him away from the toy.
He still likes making a mess of the cups and bowls in his drawer, but then after he throws everything on the kitchen floor he takes all the metal spoons and puts them all tip-down in a cup. It's an odd stroke of organization.
New developments this week: He figured out the concept of self-feeding with a spoon. He's still pretty messy on the coordination, but he at least gets the idea...and then fingerpaints with the drips on his highchair tray. Am I supposed to claim that as budding artistic genious? His other new skill (or silly baby trick) is touching his head, ears, and nose on command. He's still working on eyes and cheeks though.
He's definitely comprehending some of what we say to him, but he hasn't repeated much of it back, almost everything is still "da" or "ah" (with variable nuances in definition depending on the intonation). He is saying "Hi" pretty reliably now though.
He also has been dancing lately, which is about the funniest thing ever to watch. I guess they've been teaching him some sort of a dance game at daycare. He claps his hands, waves, pats his legs, and shakes his head and wiggles his whole body, which makes him laugh. He started doing in the car on the way to Florida last month. Now he just randomly does it when he's in a silly mood. Kid's got some serious toddler groove.