Monday, November 28, 2011

Randomness from ell

Lately, these are how all of Elliott's goodbyes go:

Elliott: "Okay, Mom, I'm leaving. See you later!". Shuts door for .25 seconds then opens it again. "Bon appetit! Bon appetit, mom! Bon appetit!"
Me, finally: "okay, buddy, Bon appetit!"
Ell: leaves

I couldn't begin to tell you where this came from or why he thinks it means goodbye.

Saturday, November 26, 2011

Elliott's contribution

We are getting in the Christmas spirit here. This is ell's contribution- which I swear I didn't coach him.


The star on the top is my star shaped cookie cutter. Daddy did help him reach the top though.



Monday, November 14, 2011

This boy

A couple of things that make me smile:
Toddler ingenuity. Elliott really wanted to ride this stuffed horse, but whenever he sat down on the horse it wouldn't budge. So he stuck it on a school bus and rode it around that way. There, I fixed it.






His love for his " shows". This one was wonder pets. He needed to wear the backpack for some reason. He also dressed himself in too-small backwards sweatpants and house slippers. Comfort is key around here.





-

Tuesday, November 1, 2011

Happy Halloween, y'all

Elliott chose his own costume this year, and then I helped him modify that choice into something I could actually pull off. You see, there is this random man who rides around downtown (like through the streets of the business district) on his horse for some reason. We see him all the time, and one day we went over to say hello and show Elliott the horse. We found out that the horses name was Topaz, and after refreshing Elliott on the whole costume/trick-or-treat thing, he told me he wanted to dress up like Topaz. Now, I do realize you can buy those horse costumes where the kid is the cowboy and wears the horse part like a pair of pants with suspenders, but so far I have made Elliott's costumes and that is a bit beyond my scope of things. So after some subtle redirection, we decided he would go as a cowboy. Thanks to Aunt Lizzy, we had most of the stuff already, so I made him a vest and a hobby horse (which we abandoned after a dry-run at the church trunk-or-treat, because I had to carry the dang thing around).

Anyway, Enjoy!





Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Settling in

We are finally finding our way around Bartlesville, and have even had the chance to meet the new pediatrician since ell is under the weather this week. Since things are pretty quiet this week, here are some of the few pictures I remembered to take.


When we brought home Loki, we brought this crate with us. It took a lot of convincing someone that it was for the dog though. I guess it is just his size.


He loves the new bathtub, except when it is draining because I made the mistake of reading him "the tub people", which is a story about a wooden toy getting stuck down the drain. I had to show him several times that he is too big to get sucked down the drain.


And here is the little bit of time he felt up to working, where he colored a sheet about the letter "c". I am trying to start to work on letter recognition with him, but I am trying to learn the Montessori way to do this. I found a great app on my computer that does this, and I am thinking about ordering some sandpaper letters for him too. Out of seemingly nowhere he knows " w" and points it out all the time, so I am going with it.


Lastly, here is some of his latest artwork, and I am convinced he is a budding artist. This is his drawing of drums (bottom left), a guitar, a trumpet (top middle, the lines are the keys), and the yellow curvy line is a saxophone. He just doodled this and showed me his band. Also, he will turn 2 1/2 next week. Crazy.

Tuesday, September 20, 2011

Loki

This is our newest family member.


He is trouble. Especially combined with Elliott.




Monday, August 29, 2011

Interview

I just found a cute idea to interview your kid at different ages, and to my delight Elliott actually had a few answers for me. I present to you, an interview with a two and a half year old

What is your name? Elliott Timothy (pronounced Eyyitt Timafee)
How old are you? Two and a half
What is your favorite color? Blue
Who is your best friend? Aunt Charlee
What is your favorite animal? A zebra! And a lion, too.
What do you want to be when you are all grown up? Two and a half.
What is your favorite movie? Lion king (we just watched it for the first time a few days ago)
What is your favorite book? Where's Dave? (surprising)
What make's you happy? David makes me happy
What makes you sad? I don't know, Mommy.
What is your favorite thing to eat? A sandwich. (also surprising, but I think he said this because I had a sandwich yesterday for lunch)
What is your favorite song to sing? Baa baa black sheep.
What is your favorite game to play? Mikalaylee (ukelele, which he ran to go get and play as he said this)
Can you write your name for me? (while saying Timafee, Timafee, Timafee... He drew basically this:)
\ | \ | | / |

Recent conversations

David and elliott are walking down the street in town to go get breakfast. David notices that Elliott is walking strangely due to the fact that he has put his own flip flops on and they are on the wrong feet.

D: Your shoes are on backwards, buddy.
E: No, I doubt it.
D: no, but they are. That's why you are walking funny. They are on the wrong feet.
E: Mmmm, I doubt it.
D: No, I'm telling you that they are on backwards.
E: (Thinking) Maybe a little.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Elliott is eating oatmeal and I sit at the table with him to have some tea.
E: You eat with me mommy?
N: I sure am, buddy.
E: You eat lunch with me?
N: Yes sir.
E: Lunch with Mommy and lunch with God!

He seems to be adjusting to our new life in Oklahoma pretty well, although I can tell he is thrown off by all this. He has been quick to have meltdowns out of frustration and several times has sent himself to bed for being tired, even though he just woke up. I think he will start a morning preschool program this week so that he can socialize and settle back into a routine. I just have to take care of a few details and try to weasel ourselves into more than one day a week, which is all the program that I like can offer us right now. I visited several on Friday and felt a little snobby going into a few of them. I guess his last school set the bar very high, because I found myself thinking "TV time? I can do that at home", and sizing up the teachers I met. To my own defense though, at one school the teacher ignored a child completely while talking to me, and stood by as a couple of little boys started wrestling and then biting each other, and then started yelling at the biter in front of me. Not being firm, but yelling. Yikes. Anyway, the school we settled on is very nice, and emphasizes letting the children be independent, which i like. I even met his potential teacher, who seemed very nice and good at her job. I'll keep you posted on how all that goes.

Monday, August 1, 2011

E's first recognizable drawing

On the left is a drawing of a kitty cat, with eyes, a mouth, tons of whiskers, and hair (?). On the right is his abstract drawing of a trumpet. The cat especially makes me believe my child is a genius. I may also be biased.

Wednesday, July 27, 2011

Serious about his stickers

As I mentioned, I have been working hard to keep Elliott from the tv lately, and it seems like art projects work out the best. After combing through the internet to get other moms' ideas of activities for two-year-olds, I made a list and set out for Michael's (craft store). I found several little things to add to my bag of tricks, and this afternoon while I was putting away the groceries, I put a few of them to the test.

After a disastrous attempt at stamps (he ended up falling off his chair somehow- I have no idea), and markers, and crayons, we finally landed on these foam stickers I found. I gave him a piece of construction paper and a pile of stickers and showed him how it worked. He has been quietly for about 10 minutes now, and we have gotten more stickers twice. I went to sit at the table with him and watch him create.

E: "I'm working."
N: "Yes, I see. You are working very hard."
E: "No, go 'way. I'm working."

I see how it is. But I walked away and am leaving him be. I'm learning it's best not to mess with a quiet, busy two-year-old.

Tuesday, July 26, 2011

Time out

Elliott just came up to me and pointed to a toy school bus in the corner.
"He's in time out. He pushed my motorbike. He's in time out."
I asked him if he was going to go tell him why he was in time out.
"He have no eyes. He have no face. He's not a big boy!" Well, obviously. My mistake. And after a minute, he got the bus out of the corner to ride again.
He just returned the bus to time out though, because "He not listening again. He's sad."

Sunday, July 24, 2011

And we're back.

I can't believe how fast this summer has gone by. We will be moving to Oklahoma in 3 or 4 weeks, David is about to become Dr. Ingram, and Elliott is getting bigger and smarter every day. We started out this summer going outside, having playdates, going to summer festivals, etc. Then one day it was oppressively hot and I decided to let Elliott watch several pbs tv shows. It took 5 minutes for him to become a full blown TV addict (I wanna watch Cars! I wanna watch Eh-mo! I wanna watch Go GO GABBA!) and then we had to reel it back a bit. So as we crept closer and closer to moving day, I made a "bucket list" of things to do in Ann Arbor (which David apparently finds cheesy, but I guess I'm pretty cheesy sometimes so whatever) and we have steadily crossed things off. We took him canoeing, to the petting zoo, to the water park, and to several outdoor summer concerts. I bought water paints, washable markers, and made playdough in an effort to give him things to do instead of watching tv. It's a slow process, but he's currently making up a song called "Where's the little girl?" because he can't find the girl from his playmobil farm set. I count that as progress.

Elliott constantly amazes me with his imagination, and each day I find myself adding something to my mental bank of things-he-has-figured-out-early. When you ask him why something is happening (like why he is in time out, for example), about half of the time he can tell you why ("Acause. I spit out my food in a floor." or "Acause. I threw Daddy's toy.")
Are you sad? "No. I grey."
He wants to see just how much you will let him get away with. He likes to go to the "big pool" which is the city pool, but he does NOT want to get in lately. He'd rather stay on the s
ide with a toy and make you play fetch, or find a random stranger to go hug- which can be pretty awkward. New people moved in next door and he greets them by saying "Hi Neighbor!" When he hugs me, he says "Oh Sweetheart, I love you too." If you ask him a question, he either answers with, "Yeah, I think so" or "No, I don't really think so." Earlier, I spelled a phrase I shouldn't have said, and Elliott said "Don't say that mommy" (I don't think he can spell...). I was looking through my archives a few days ago and Elliott is just as I imagined he would be- a insatiably curious chatterbox.

Sunday, June 12, 2011

My two year old

Elliott has had several developments in the last month or so. The first of these is a little "girlfriend", another talkative, bossy two year old cutie pie named Willa. They play together almost exclusively, hold hands, help each other put their shoes on, eat snack together, and hug and kiss goodbye. It's a trip for sure, but it's funny to see him trying to imitate David and me.

The second development is a bustling vocabulary. He talks and sings nonstop, and has added lots of fun phrases, such as:

"Why? Why? Why?" (ad nauseum)
"Whatt?" (which I write with two "T"s, to emphasize how short and crisp he says it)
"Your choices, mommy." (which means, pick one- these are your choices, mommy)
Also, he refers to himself as buddy when he is trying to talk himself through something. The other day he was trying to put on his pants, and managed to get two feet in one leg. He said, "Wrong hole, buddy," and then corrected himself.
"Stop Mommy"
"No Talking! SHHH."
"Goodbye. I go a hospital!"

As soon as my camera and computer cooperate, I'll post some videos. Sorry!

Wednesday, May 11, 2011

Happy mudda's day tew you!

A song from the cute blonde kid- better late than never?

Also, the shakiness is due to the fact that I was just pointing the camera over my shoulder hoping I was aiming in the right direction. I was stopped at a light when he started singing, and of course the light turned green right after he started. I assure you that I WAS paying attention to the road though.

Monday, April 18, 2011

A concert from Elliott and Elmo.

Elmo's voice is at least an octave or two too high.
Consider yourselves warned:

Things we're working on

Five minutes ago, Elliott and I were watching Bob the builder on the couch, when out of nowhere, he smacked me in the forehead. He's been a little more aggressive lately, taking other kids toys and grabbing them in the back of the head to get to whatever they are working with. He likes to watch the adult in charge, too, so he can see just what he can get away with.
So after the forehead smacking, he got a firm talking to and lost his show. When he got upset about losing his tv show, I walked away from him acting out. He came over to me and said, "You watch Bob the Builder, Mommy?" So I told him "No, we are not watching shows because Elliott is being mean. Mommy is not happy, Elliott."

To which he replied, "Where'd Mommy's happy go?"

Sunday, April 3, 2011

Things I love...

Elliott sings himself to sleep. Tonight's concert has included "Do you know the muffin man", "The wheels on the bus", and now "Old MacDonald". All of these are sung loud enough that we can hear all of the words from upstairs, even though his door is shut.
Also, forgive me for being crass, but my friend Lizann insisted I share this with the blog...
This morning Elliott and I were playing with his new train set, and he (ahem) passed a little gas. Being the paranoid mother of a potty-training two year old, I start questioning him:

Me: "Do you need to go to the bathroom?"
Ell: "NO."
Me: "Are you sure?"
Ell: "No. I burped?"
Me: "You burped?"
Ell: "Pants burped."

You're welcome, and please forgive me. Thanks.

Saturday, April 2, 2011

Birthday party!

Are you bummed you couldn't attend Elliott's second birthday party? Well, bum no more. I have some treats for you guys, and aside from missing out on the cake and fajitas, it's almost like you were there with us!
First off, we all know this wouldn't be my blog if there weren't a picture of an adorable little boy with no pants on. So here he is. He got a skuut balance bike (and I realize the bike is put together wrong. I had to flip the frame to accommodate some small little legs) on Thursday morning. It's still a little tough for him to maneuver, but look how proud he is!
I dug out his birthday banner, the birthday table cloth that grandma made (although it is pulled up in this picture to avoid staining it with pumpkin oatmeal), and his birthday crown. He LOATHES the birthday crown. See his little hand? He is going to yank it off his head for the fourth photo attempt in a row. Booyah, Elliott. I got a picture anyway.
I decided since he has really been into trains lately to have a train themed party. I found the most adorable cake pan that made individual train car cakes, and it was a pain in the neck to decorate. My initial plan was to make one long, elaborate train cake. Three cars into decorating, I made a sheet cake and decorated it like a track with some grass around it and plopped six of the cars on top. I don't have time for that mess right now.

We ended up having a party for our friends since Elliott's friends are really more like people who fight over the same toys. We had fajitas, chips and dip, cake, punch, and frosty cold beverages :)
Elliott cleaned up. This is a toy that holds four wooden balls, and when you pound on them, they roll down the wooden tracks and get spit out another side. He loved it. He also got some new books, a wooden tool set, and a soccer goal!
Elliott also got a wooden train set, and he really liked it. He provided the party entertainment, and we watched him play for most of the night. The cars to the train are magnetic, and he had a little trouble with matching poles and then getting the whole train to stay on the track. One of our friends, Adam, kindly gave Elliott a lesson on how magnets work, and then later another friend told us that the freight car is carrying "soda pop". Love that, don't you?

Another awesome thing to know? When the train cars fell off the track or came apart, Elliott said "Aw, snap!" When he managed to put them together and get them successfully on the track, he'd say "Teamwork!"
He knew how to blow out candles this year, which made it all the more fun. He saw his cake when he got up from his nap, and could not understand why he couldn't eat his "birthday" right then and there. "Wanna eat my birthday! I get it. No mommy. I get it." I'm very lucky that my reflexes were awake today, otherwise he would have succeeded in pulling the cake on top of his head.
Happy birthday (party) E Monster.

Thursday, March 31, 2011

Happy birthday to El

Two years ago, on this day, Elliott made me a mother and David a father. He has really enjoyed having a whole day all about himself. We took cupcakes to preschool, pizza for dinner, and opened presents. He still is convinced that he's one and a half instead of two. Anything in the mail that isn't bill-sized is a PRESENT for EYYITT! Anyway, here is a video of me letting him break his Aunt Sissa's birthday rules (Whoops! Sorry Aunt Sissa!) and open presents early.
Also, he opened Grandma's present yesterday:

And here's a video of him playing with his new Duplos.
We're having a little get together for him on Saturday, and he'll get his last present (a wooden Thomas the Tank Engine train set) then. I will do my best to get good pictures of that too. And again, I apologize that my child seemingly never wears pants. I promise he does own them, and occasionally he even puts them on. Just not if a camera is around, I guess.

Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Deep, healing breaths

Today, featuring Nicki and Elliott

6:00- stumble out of bed, and quickly try to prepare myself for the day before I have to wake E.
6:40- wake up Elliott, who stumbles out of bed and wraps his arms and legs around me in the biggest morning hug ever
6:45- fight with Elliott over him taking off his pajamas and diaper so that I can send him to the bathroom
6:50- After an enthusiastic "I did it", try (unsuccessfully) to get Elliott to finish, because if he doesn't then I will be changing his underwear and starting a load of laundry before leaving the house
6:55- Decide that if he won't finish, he won't get to put on the bottom half of his outfit until he does. Elliott decides that the world is crumbling immediately afterward.
6:57- Decide to leave the hollering lump of child in the bathroom floor and take myself (and the bottom half of Elliott's outfit) upstairs to get coffee, breakfast, and lunches together.
7:00- Feed pumpkin oatmeal to a half naked little boy. He gleefully finishes all of it, and then dumps a glass of milk on the table. "Wha happen a milk?" Proceed to clean up milk, and then deposit said half naked little boy on the potty seat so we can finally go to work.
7:01- Half naked little boy proudly proclaims "He did it!" Which he did. Proceed to dress him and try to shuffle us out the door.
7:10- Remember he needs to have his medicine. And he wants to carry his bunch box (not a typo). Almost leave the house without his coat. When he has to put down the bunch box to put on his coat, he falls apart again.
7:12- Take deep breaths before scraping the mess of a child off the floor, stuff him into a coat, carry him to the car and proceed to work.
7:55- Finally get to work. Haul Elliott to his class, where he proceeds to sit just outside of the doorway and look at me like "What are you going to do now?" Luckily his saint of a preschool teacher interceded for me. I love her.

Entire day at school and work goes by.

4:01- Walk in Elliott's class and am greeted with a hug that involves both arms and legs. Notice that he is miraculously in the same underwear I sent him to school in! Smell something weird.
4:02- Go change Elliott's clothes.
4:10- Go to pick up David to enjoy this gorgeous weather we are having. Make sure a backup change of clothes is in my bag
4:20- Wait outside of parking garage for David. Avoid weird people and hide from the panhandlers. Explain what a motorized wheelchair is.
4:25- Notice a ladybug lands in Elliott's hair. This means good luck! Carefully remove it and let it crawl across my hands so that Elliott can see. Explain that he must be gentle, but he can touch it.
4:27- Casually remove the squished ladybug from Elliott's hand and wonder how much bad luck that means. "Wha happen a lady bug?"
4:30-6:15- Have a wonderful meal with David and Elliott in the sunshine. Decide to press my luck and meet some friends afterward.
6:25-7:30- Unsuccessfully try to explain personal boundaries, why Elliott can't climb on other people, why we can't jump on the booth in the restaurant, and eventually hand him off to David.
Once in David's lap, he is still and quiet for 10 minutes. David hands him back. He immediately resumes acting like a chimpanzee. Decide to go home.
8:00- Agree with Elliott that I'm tired too, and we are going straight home to go to bed.
8:05- Brush Elliott's teeth and ruin his life by doing so. Not that I did anything unusual or painful. He just didn't want his teeth brushed, and I didn't let him win that one.
8:06- Take lots of deep breaths. Finish getting him ready and put him in bed.
8:08- In between dramatic sobs, hear "I wanna go night night, Mommy". After telling him, "Then go night night", hear him actually say "No, I wanna go night night with Mommy" and decide that he's sad, and tired, and my baby. I'm not sure how long he will actually want me to lay down with him while he settles down. So I tucked him in, snuggled in beside him, and watched him settle himself down and fall asleep. And then I (almost) forgot about the rest of that other stuff.

The end.

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

No Jack in the Box

So, Elliott received a Jack in the Box at Christmas, and he has a hot/cold kind of relationship with it. He likes the music and singing pop goes the weasel, and if he has enough warning he thinks it's funny to watch the clown pop up. But there are many times that the clown sneaks up on him, and he nearly jumps out of his skin. Being the horrible woman that I am, I think that this is hilarious. But now that Ell has gotten a bit older, he can hold his own against his cruel-natured mother.

Monday, March 14, 2011

Snow days

A few weeks ago we had several inches of snow dumped on us, and Elliott's preschool was cancelled, which meant we both got the day off. Now, this guy is pretty busy these days, and I hae to be pretty creative to keep him entertained. I drug out some butcher paper and we started coloring. Actually, when I say "we started coloring", I actually mean I was ordered to draw fish and pumpkins and trucks and Elliott would grab a crayon and "color" them, meaning he would scribble all over it before I even finished. Once I learned how this worked it was fine, but was pretty frustrating at first.

Anyway, we colored two three foot long pieces of butcher paper, front and back, and I decided to bow out after a while. I was bored and running out of things to draw. I put my crayons away and told Elliott, "Mommy is all done coloring, but you can keep coloring as long as you want to." Elliott picked up the crayon I had put away, handed it back to me, and said "No. You not finished. Draw a fish." This video is how I finally negotiated my way out of it.

Sunday, February 20, 2011

watching what I say and do

I try to remember the little eyes and ears that are listening to me. I really do. But sometimes. things slip by. Like the other day when I was stuck behind a purple car on our street who was going three miles an hour down the entire street. We were so close to being home. One more block. And if I were to hit the accelerator, even a little, we would have plowed into the car. Knowing my son would copy any rude road behavior, I kept my comments to "Ugghhh... GO."
Which was fine.

The next day we are driving to school, and I am waiting to pull out onto a road with a limited view of oncoming traffic. David smiled at me and I noticed that every time I took my foot off the break, rolled forward, and then stopped to let another car go, Elliott would say "Ugghh. UGhhhh." Then I finally caught a break in traffic and pulled out, just as Elliott said "GO."

Then there was Friday, when we came home from school and had just enough time to go potty and change clothes to meet David for dinner. He grabbed his potty to empty it out in the toilet, and spilled it all over the seat, narrowly missing my pants and boots. I know that I shouldn't have, but instinct overcame wisdom and I said "Jesus!" as I jumped out of the way. Guess who had to apologize for saying the wrong thing after her son repeated it?

Other things he says constantly:

"Where (Mommy/Daddy/car/bus/truck/random object) go?" ad nauseam, about an object in plain view
"What happened?"
"No I do it!"
What's your name? One ina half. How old are you? Eyyitt.

He still loves singing. He comes home at least once a week singing a new song I had no idea he knew. This week it's the Hokey Pokey. Last week it was Mr. Sun. His favorite food is cereal bars. He dances all the time. If I am doing anything that takes my attention away from him he hangs from my knees. He wants to do everything himself and at his own pace. If you rush him he will make his legs go to jelly and pout. If he realizes he is crying for a silly reason, he tells himself "No cryyy......" We pray before bedtime and he folds his little hands and says "Amen" at the end.

He is really fun right now, but David and I welcome bedtime with open arms at 7:00, because all three of us are usually exhausted and whiny.

Thursday, February 10, 2011

Right. I'm back.

So, yeah- I went missing. But I'm here now, and that's what matters, right? Right.

I've mentioned before that Elliott LOVES guitar. He loves any music, really. He loves guitars. He sings songs he learns in school a lot. He sings along with bad pop music- and I'd tell you what kind of bad pop music, but I'd be afraid that you would seriously doubt my abilities to parent. He sings along with good music too, but he doesn't know the words so he just sings "Aaaaahhh" instead. He even makes up songs. So David was awesome and got him a ukulele for Christmas, which is a perfectly sized toddler guitar. I've never seen the joy that I saw on Ell's face the day he opened that gift.

Anyway, when David plays his guitar, this happens. And I die of pure happiness. Be forewarned: It's three minutes long, Elliott has no pants on, and he put his own underwear on, so of course it's on backwards.