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.

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. :)

This weekend- In pictures

We started out our Halloween weekend in festive (handmade) undies, since Elliott is currently learning how to use the potty. His preschool teacher is on board, we have an Elmo Potty DVD, and little potties scattered throughout the house. Also, when you let your kid play with water in the sink, it's pretty hard to tell if he's had an accident when he dribbles the water all over himself and the rest of the kitchen. Just in case you didn't know that already.

Then, after church this morning, we finally drug out the stuff to carve a pumpkin. Elliott helped, and he was really, really excited about it.

He danced, he jumped, and he used his little wooden spoon to scoop in the pumpkin. He would NOT touch the guts this year. Maybe I traumatized him by letting him eat all of those seeds last year.

This year Elliott was the Cat in the Hat. I made this costume, and I made it entirely too large. But it was cozy and fleece and he seemed to really dig it.

Well, he did like it- until it was time to leave and David and I were scrambling around like crazy people. Setting out candy, spray painting our hair blue (yes, blue), dressing Elliott up, then forgetting all the things we needed to leave the house, and finally just grabbing two to-go cups of spiked cider for Mommy and Daddy to warm up on this chilly Halloween. He lost it for just a little while.

Then he got over it. Maybe he understood that eventually we would take him to get lots and lots of candy.

See those tears? Halloween is hard on a little guy.

It took a couple of houses, but eventually we had established a rhythm. He wouldn't say trick-or-treat, but he did say thank you and "Haween!"

Thankfully, we managed to get a lady to take our picture while we were out and about. Our hair was a little dark to show off the blue all that well, but we had a good time taking Elliott around our little neighborhood. And we really like to "check all his candy", too. Hope you all had a fantastic weekend!

The many faces of 5pm

5pm, post preschool. Elliott has discovered this book recently, which he loves because it has BIG TRUCKS and QUACK QUACKS and Meow....'s in it, and thus he can read it to me.

I can't get enough of this face...

Or this one, which is usually given if I mention something he'd really like to have or do, like go outside or crackers.

He isn't shy in front of a camera, and likes to get up in the lens. I think he's trying to see what I'm looking at in there.

These blue eyes get him lots of attention, sweets, and balloons from the people at the grocery stores and banks.

And this is usually when 5pm becomes 5:30, and he get cranky and cantankerous.

This is what mischief looks like

I know better than to leave Elliott unattended. I know not to leave hot beverages within his reach or candles going. I know to keep the gates up and my laptop closed. And now, I know to put the lids on candles when I'm finished burning them, because he will pinch off the top of the burned wick and smear it all over the place, leaving him looking like he ate charcoal for dinner and the chair he was standing on smudged with carbon.

Doesn't he look guilty here? That's because he is.

Don't worry. It obviously didn't slow him down at all. I don't think anything could.

whoops.

Our bathtub has been giving me problems. Out of nowhere it stopped draining last week, leaving the bath water standing until the next morning. We keep a little catcher over the drain because my hair has a tendency to collect, but I think at some point David got tired of cleaning it out that he removed it.

I bought a bottle of Drano Pro and emptied it into the drain, and although it took a while, it seemed to eventually loosen whatever was stuck in there enough to let the bath water slowly drain out. But after a couple of days the water was still standing, so I bought another bottle of Drano, figuring that two bottles of harsh chemicals should surely work.

Yesterday after my shower there was still about three inches of water in the tub. My landlord was coming over to replace the air filter on our furnace, so I asked him if he could bring a snake or something to help me fix the blocked drain. I was pretty exasperated, because we have had a few issues with the apartment, like a dishwasher that doesn't do a great job on the dishes and a dryer that doesn't vent out properly, making our bottom level damp and sticky. After a little while though, his head popped up over the banister smiling, and he dangled a small baby washcloth in his hand.

"This was in your drain. I think that was the problem."

I feel dumb.

Round here

I'm home sick with a sick Elliott, so I figured I ought to put up some new videos and pictures while we're waiting for him to feel better.

Last night we read this picture book while waiting for Daddy to come home. I got it on camera, because he is trying hard to say all of these words. Watching it today, however, showed me that it may not be terribly clear to anyone else. The "Eat" at the end is as clear as a bell though.

Today we had to stay home from sch

ool because Elliott is running a fever, and he had a banana for his morning snack. I LOVE the way that he says "banana".

These were taken a few weeks ago when it was still sunny and hot here. I took Elliott to Fuller Park Pool, where he learned how to be brave enough to jump in the pool with no one to catch him. Luckily for everyone, he was only in the kiddie end, where the water was about 8 inches deep. Whew.