Elliott: Year 2, Week 30

Elliott: Year 2, Week 30

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This plow is talking to me! Wow!
Thank you for all the toys, Nana!
(they're actually from Ellen and crew)
MY hoe.

Mama eats me for breakfast!
Scoop?
Hmm, what should Puppy wear today?

Elliott's new do! No more curls! :-(
Elliott loves his new helmet

our little railroad engineer
There you go with that camera again!

Our most trusting feline
soaks up a few rays
Wow Dada, big tower!

Crown off..
Crown on!
Nah nah, I'll beat you down the mountain
in a few years!

Do not covet thy Dada's skiis...
Yay, I'm King Goober boy!
This is fun!

Skiing! Yay!
I'm one cool dude!

A few interesting things from this week (I'm going to start jotting things down for fun every week - this is my first try):
Elliott's continuing mastery of the Anatomy and Physiology of the Universe is going very well. He now says "bork" instead of "bort" for fork (he is obsessed with forks now - not so much with "poons" anymore). He's also learned "bumper" and a bunch of other words I can't think of right now.
He's REALLY into helmets, and many times a day will find a "mahn", and point out its "ehmet" (helmet), and then look at me and say "rock?" and I'll have to say, "yes, if a rock fell on this man's head, it would not give him a booboo, because he has a helmet". Then he'll ask the same question with spoon, crayon, book, snow, rain, bike and pig (long story..).
He's absolutely convinced that he needs soap at all times. The best part about his daily ritual of feeding the cats is that he gets to wash his hands with soap afterward. He points out soap in every room we go into and says, "getit!".
Fans are also high on his list. He can spot a fan a mile away, and will then say "round" (yes, it goes around and around). He wants the fans in our computer, which Mike was recently gutting.. he has a streetsweeper truck with a "fan", which he adores and uses every day. He decorates Elmo's hat with fans every time (a game on the web he loves to play). He's definitely fan boy.
We're continuing to have great fun playing with his magnadoodle - we draw pictures and he guesses what they are, or he draws and we guess (uh.. big black thing? yeah!). He knows many shapes and colors - he knows red, orange, yellow (his favorite), green, blue, purple, brown, black and white. He knows spots and stripes. He knows what a circle, triangle, square, and star are. He knows about cubes and cones. The rest of the shapes are too hard to pronounce (parallelogram is a bit out of his league, I'm afraid). He regularly counts to three, but he sort of knows there are other numbers up there.. sometimes he'll count to four, and although he always skips five and six, he'll say seven, eight and nine in a row. He really likes nine for some reason - easy to say, maybe. He sometimes tries to since the ABC song, but it usually goes A, B, dee hee eeedee oohh hoh .... and kinda goes downhill from there. He knows several letters (A, B, D, E, N, O, T, Z) and will gleefully point them out in the grocery store (the big ones on the walls) and in other places. Although he allegedly knows these things, he may or may not prove it at any given moment, especially when anyone else is watching or a camera is going. Oh well! When he's 10, it'll hardly be worth bragging about.
We gave him his first major haircut (other than quick bangs snips) this week. His hair kept getting caught in his bib, and covered in sticky food, and stuck in my hands when I scoop him up to nurse, and it was looking a little ratty anyway, so the curls finally came off. I am convinced that hair cutters should charge double, not half, for little kids. We set him up with Elmo games on the computer, sitting on Mike's lap, while I hastily snipped away. He knows scissors are big NO-NOs, so it really bothers him when I go at his head with big shiny pointy scissors. He would pull away and look at the scissors every time I tried to touch his head. I didn't get to do a very good job, but at least it looks half decent. Next time I'll know how little time I'll really get and plan my strategy wisely. It's surprising how dark his hair was when it wasn't on his head.. it doesn't look at blonde in a chunk.
He continues to love reading, but we hardly ever make it through any of his books. He seems to be ultra-observant lately, and will spend a LONG time on every page.. if something catches his eye, he'll analyze it to death, talking and talking about it and staring at the page. If I try to go on, he'll beg me to go back to that page every 30 seconds, to repeat all the words he knows about it until I sound like a broken record. I end up elaborating just to keep myself from being bored, and it backfires because I have to then repeat the whole elaborate thing every time we come to that page. Oh well! Patience. It is fun to see what he notices, in any case.
He can spot an airplane or helicopter (they're all aihhpains) anywhere. He loves to talk about them, play with them, throw them, etc. We started playing the airplane game with him to get him to eat his food. He never really took to it as a baby, but now he gets a big kick out of it. Sometimes his food is a fork rocket that blasts off. Whatever it takes - he's a pretty erratic eater. It's amazing the things they pick up on and remember. We went to a toy store and bought two little toy airplanes - one for Elliott, and one for Jasmine, his friend who was going to go on vacation on an airplane soon. Now, every time he sees that airplane we bought he says "Jahmin". Not much gets past this kid.
On the flip side of things, he can be stubborn as a stone mule sometimes. He is auditioning for Two these days, and teething, and sick with some sort of cough/gooey nose thing. The combo is turning him into a short-tempered moody little guy. He has reached new heights - we found him standing on the top edge of the futon sofa today, pulling things off of the top of the fish tank. He has climbed onto the rickety table (3 feet off the ground) that the cats get fed on, and stood on it to reach a fragile glass ball hanging on the wall. He regularly pushes his luck climbing onto the table, and made it onto the piano (all the way) at least once. He stands on chairs even though he knows he's only supposed to "dit" on them. He will climb onto a chair, sit, and then squat, staring at us. He'll pop up to standing when we aren't paying attention, and may even say "dit" and "no". He knows he's not supposed to do it, but just can't stand it. Then he'll touch the table, squatting or standing, and stare at us, slowly lifting up a knee and putting it on the table, ready to climb up. If we look at him, he'll say "no", and maybe back down or maybe not. When we finally stand up and go over there to get him down, he either hastily sits (squats), or lunges for the table top.. but in either case, he turns to spaghetti noodle arms, and sobs "dit! dit!" as if he's promising that he'll be good and sit if we'll just give him another chance. He's like a recalcitrant criminal though.. he doesn't mean it, but he just can't help himself. sometimes I think his legs have a separate brain from the rest of him. His head and arms are being good, and his legs just start climbing things without permission.
He's slowed down on the dough and drawing front a lot lately, concentrating on hats, climbing, water (many days he'll sit in the high chair with some bowls, spoons, scoops, ladles, etc. for 30 minutes or longer just playing in the water). I'd let him have a bath more often, but he has excema and his skin gets really itchy, so it's a once or twice a week treat.
ok, that's enough babbling for this week, I think. Overall, we oscillate between waves of absolute love and adoration, and this desperate "would you just chill out and tell me what's bothering you!?" kind of feeling. Ahh.

Back to Year 2, Week 29
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Go on to Year 2, Week 31

This plow is talking to me! Wow!	Thank you for all the toys, Nana! (they're actually from Ellen and crew)	MY hoe.
Mama eats me for breakfast!	Scoop?	Hmm, what should Puppy wear today?
Elliott's new do! No more curls! :-(	Elliott loves his new helmet
our little railroad engineer	There you go with that camera again!
Our most trusting feline soaks up a few rays	Wow Dada, big tower!
Crown off..	Crown on!	Nah nah, I'll beat you down the mountain in a few years!
Do not covet thy Dada's skiis...	Yay, I'm King Goober boy!	This is fun!
Skiing! Yay!	I'm one cool dude!
A few interesting things from this week (I'm going to start jotting things down for fun every week - this is my first try): Elliott's continuing mastery of the Anatomy and Physiology of the Universe is going very well. He now says "bork" instead of "bort" for fork (he is obsessed with forks now - not so much with "poons" anymore). He's also learned "bumper" and a bunch of other words I can't think of right now. He's REALLY into helmets, and many times a day will find a "mahn", and point out its "ehmet" (helmet), and then look at me and say "rock?" and I'll have to say, "yes, if a rock fell on this man's head, it would not give him a booboo, because he has a helmet". Then he'll ask the same question with spoon, crayon, book, snow, rain, bike and pig (long story..). He's absolutely convinced that he needs soap at all times. The best part about his daily ritual of feeding the cats is that he gets to wash his hands with soap afterward. He points out soap in every room we go into and says, "getit!". Fans are also high on his list. He can spot a fan a mile away, and will then say "round" (yes, it goes around and around). He wants the fans in our computer, which Mike was recently gutting.. he has a streetsweeper truck with a "fan", which he adores and uses every day. He decorates Elmo's hat with fans every time (a game on the web he loves to play). He's definitely fan boy. We're continuing to have great fun playing with his magnadoodle - we draw pictures and he guesses what they are, or he draws and we guess (uh.. big black thing? yeah!). He knows many shapes and colors - he knows red, orange, yellow (his favorite), green, blue, purple, brown, black and white. He knows spots and stripes. He knows what a circle, triangle, square, and star are. He knows about cubes and cones. The rest of the shapes are too hard to pronounce (parallelogram is a bit out of his league, I'm afraid). He regularly counts to three, but he sort of knows there are other numbers up there.. sometimes he'll count to four, and although he always skips five and six, he'll say seven, eight and nine in a row. He really likes nine for some reason - easy to say, maybe. He sometimes tries to since the ABC song, but it usually goes A, B, dee hee eeedee oohh hoh .... and kinda goes downhill from there. He knows several letters (A, B, D, E, N, O, T, Z) and will gleefully point them out in the grocery store (the big ones on the walls) and in other places. Although he allegedly knows these things, he may or may not prove it at any given moment, especially when anyone else is watching or a camera is going. Oh well! When he's 10, it'll hardly be worth bragging about. We gave him his first major haircut (other than quick bangs snips) this week. His hair kept getting caught in his bib, and covered in sticky food, and stuck in my hands when I scoop him up to nurse, and it was looking a little ratty anyway, so the curls finally came off. I am convinced that hair cutters should charge double, not half, for little kids. We set him up with Elmo games on the computer, sitting on Mike's lap, while I hastily snipped away. He knows scissors are big NO-NOs, so it really bothers him when I go at his head with big shiny pointy scissors. He would pull away and look at the scissors every time I tried to touch his head. I didn't get to do a very good job, but at least it looks half decent. Next time I'll know how little time I'll really get and plan my strategy wisely. It's surprising how dark his hair was when it wasn't on his head.. it doesn't look at blonde in a chunk. He continues to love reading, but we hardly ever make it through any of his books. He seems to be ultra-observant lately, and will spend a LONG time on every page.. if something catches his eye, he'll analyze it to death, talking and talking about it and staring at the page. If I try to go on, he'll beg me to go back to that page every 30 seconds, to repeat all the words he knows about it until I sound like a broken record. I end up elaborating just to keep myself from being bored, and it backfires because I have to then repeat the whole elaborate thing every time we come to that page. Oh well! Patience. It is fun to see what he notices, in any case. He can spot an airplane or helicopter (they're all aihhpains) anywhere. He loves to talk about them, play with them, throw them, etc. We started playing the airplane game with him to get him to eat his food. He never really took to it as a baby, but now he gets a big kick out of it. Sometimes his food is a fork rocket that blasts off. Whatever it takes - he's a pretty erratic eater. It's amazing the things they pick up on and remember. We went to a toy store and bought two little toy airplanes - one for Elliott, and one for Jasmine, his friend who was going to go on vacation on an airplane soon. Now, every time he sees that airplane we bought he says "Jahmin". Not much gets past this kid. On the flip side of things, he can be stubborn as a stone mule sometimes. He is auditioning for Two these days, and teething, and sick with some sort of cough/gooey nose thing. The combo is turning him into a short-tempered moody little guy. He has reached new heights - we found him standing on the top edge of the futon sofa today, pulling things off of the top of the fish tank. He has climbed onto the rickety table (3 feet off the ground) that the cats get fed on, and stood on it to reach a fragile glass ball hanging on the wall. He regularly pushes his luck climbing onto the table, and made it onto the piano (all the way) at least once. He stands on chairs even though he knows he's only supposed to "dit" on them. He will climb onto a chair, sit, and then squat, staring at us. He'll pop up to standing when we aren't paying attention, and may even say "dit" and "no". He knows he's not supposed to do it, but just can't stand it. Then he'll touch the table, squatting or standing, and stare at us, slowly lifting up a knee and putting it on the table, ready to climb up. If we look at him, he'll say "no", and maybe back down or maybe not. When we finally stand up and go over there to get him down, he either hastily sits (squats), or lunges for the table top.. but in either case, he turns to spaghetti noodle arms, and sobs "dit! dit!" as if he's promising that he'll be good and sit if we'll just give him another chance. He's like a recalcitrant criminal though.. he doesn't mean it, but he just can't help himself. sometimes I think his legs have a separate brain from the rest of him. His head and arms are being good, and his legs just start climbing things without permission. He's slowed down on the dough and drawing front a lot lately, concentrating on hats, climbing, water (many days he'll sit in the high chair with some bowls, spoons, scoops, ladles, etc. for 30 minutes or longer just playing in the water). I'd let him have a bath more often, but he has excema and his skin gets really itchy, so it's a once or twice a week treat. ok, that's enough babbling for this week, I think. Overall, we oscillate between waves of absolute love and adoration, and this desperate "would you just chill out and tell me what's bothering you!?" kind of feeling. Ahh.