Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Sucker

I served Elliott broccoli florets with hummus for a before dinner snack, and he is currently just using them to suck all the hummus off. Jokes on you, Elliott. I snuck artichokes and spinach in there. Booyah.

Friday, November 19, 2010

19.5 month edition

Around here, we are knee deep in the "my turn my turn" phase. Which means if we are brushing his teeth, I get a turn for 3 seconds, then Elliott grabs the toothbrush and says "my turn" until I turn it over. He has to be involved in making his oatmeal at breakfast time now, so I have him dump everything in the bowl, and then I stir it for a half a second and he grabs the spoon and says "my turn" until I let go. He helps me to pick up his laundry, throws away his own diaper, brings his dishes to the sink, and throws away any trash he finds. I've had to slow down everything I do to help him feel involved, and while it would just be easier most of the time to do it myself, he seems to really enjoy being a productive part of the household. It's kind of nice, actually.This is exactly what it looks like. Or, if you aren't familiar with yoga, it is Elliott imitating me doing the downward dog pose. He has much better form than I do.
He stretched out this mat, and started doing this on his own. I showed him upward dog too, just so that he's a balanced baby. (That is a joke- I'm not that weird.)
We're also still figuring out his eating. After talking with his teacher, and discovering I'm being a control freak with his food, I've started sending things that I know he likes. It's much less stressful knowing that I can sneak in at least one serving of veggies in his oatmeal (we make it with pumpkin), sending him with a pb&j and some crackers with hummus at lunch time, and giving him turkey dogs or spaghetti for dinner. Then I can introduce new foods on the side, and if he likes them I can just add them to the list of things he likes to eat.

The toilet training is still underway, but he's doing great. He does best if he's upstairs and has lots of books to choose from, so I think for Christmas Santa will be adding to his library. His current favorite books are a book of first words, books with flaps he can lift, and The Very Hungry Caterpillar. He's started to try to finish the sentences in that one, saying "Hungry!" at the end of each page that ends with "...but he was still hungry."

I think my favorite new development is that he is starting to sing. One day in the grocery store he started to sing something that sounded suspiciously like "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star", and then later in the car he was singing "Brother John". When he washes his hands he his own version of the ABC song, and sometimes in the car he'll just try to sing along with whatever song is on the radio by going "Aaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!" either really loud or in a funny falsetto.

He's still a charmer and seems to love new people, though occasionally he'll get shy with a new person around. It occurs pretty randomly, because he'll see some of David's friends (who he's seen several times) and he gets really quiet and watches them closely for a few minutes before opening up. However last night we had a babysitter come over who had only watched him once before, and when I opened the door he shouted "HIIIII!" and ran up the stairs to see her. Once they got to the living room, he grabbed a book, nuzzled up to her on the couch, and pretended we didn't exist. He wouldn't even give me a hug goodbye, which is really weird for Elliott. I guess he just likes college girls. :)