Almost Three

Here are some stories for Papa's notebook:

Elijah keeps telling me that he is three.  I tell him, "no, you are two".  He says "Robin says I almost 3". Well, ok, but you are still 2.

The other day we were going to a play group and we were in the car.
Elijah: Dis not the way to the playground.
Me: We are going to a different playground tonight.
Elijah: I no wanna go to different playground. (repeated several times during the 5 minute drive)
Me: Well, that's where we are going.
We pull up to the playground.
Elijah: I love the new playground!!

We have been potty training and it's been going pretty well except for he seems to be holding in #2.  We've gotten it a few times on the potty and Elijah gets chocolate when he goes poo poo in the potty.  So as soon as he is done he says "I get chocolate".  Last night he went and then when I was tucking him into bed later he says, "Mama, say prouofyou"
??
"Mama, say proufyou. I go poo poo on the potty"
"oh! I'm proud of you for going poo poo on the potty".
Then he grinned.

Watch me!

Elijah: Mama! Mama! Mama!
Me: What?
Elijah: Mama! Mama!
Me (going to the hallway where he is yelling from): What?
Elijah: I go fast! (as he pushes his dump truck down the hall)

Before 9 am

Elijah slept until 8am this morning! Normally, he starts making noise between 7:15 and 7:30 while I'm taking a shower. I finally went in to his room, you know to make sure he was still breathing.  He was waking up and as soon as I got him out of bed, he wanted me to read him books.  Then I was changing his diaper and he was throwing away the wet diaper before I put his dry diaper on, which was dumb on my part.  Yep, you guessed it, pee all over the floor (but you gotta love the hardwood floor).  The walk to daycare was full of talking (about what I don't know). As soon as we get to daycare he kisses me and says b-bye before I even take off his jacket.  I kind of like being able to take our time in the morning and not feeling rushed, but if you are thinking about having kids, this is what a morning looks like.

These are the Days

Every parent I have met has a "favorite age" of their child. I never really understood it because very age, except for maybe the very newborn where they don't sleep, has been my favorite.  But now might be my favorite. He's silly, he's a little self-sufficient, he likes giving hugs and kisses and everything is new and amazing. This past weekend we drove down to southern Indiana to visit my brother and his family. It was a long drive and the way down was a little rough but the rest of the weekend was great. On the way back, we took a scenic route and passed through a wind farm. Elijah loves fans and he was mesmorized by the giant windmills. When we finished driving through, he made the sign for "more".

Brave Little Boy

The last week and a half has been rife with air conditioner drama. Working, not working, thought it was fixed, it wasn't, found a leak, needs to be replaced, need a permit to get a crane to put it on the roof, no we don't, found the broken part... Anyway, you get the point...drama.  Elijah has been extremely good during this whole sitting in a 90 degree apartment waiting for the repairmen to get there. He did get a heat rash that if my husband weren't a pediatrician, I would have taken him to the doctor for because it looked pretty nasty. But it didn't seem to bother him too much and he loves running around in just his diaper.

Aside from all that, Elijah has been demonstrating his bravery and independence.  On Thursday night, we went to Micah's boss' house for a little pitch-in.  His boss has two HUGE, sweet dogs.  Elijah loves dogs and goes "woo woo"(that's woof woof) everytime we pass a dog or hear a dog out the window.  But the back of these dogs were taller than Elijah standing up so we weren't sure how he would react to them.  Once I put him down, he ran right over to one of the dogs and started petting him and rubbing his head on him.  Towards the end of the night he tried to climb on top of one of them who was laying down on the floor. The only time he got a little scared is when the dog barked, but he didn't cry, he just wanted me to pick him up for a minute. He also didn't like it when the dog tried to take some food out of his hand.

Yesterday the heat broke a little so we went to the park.  Elijah played in the sandbox for a long time, he loves it! Then we played on the playground a little bit. When he gets to the top of the slide, he holds his arms out for me to help him down. I did the first time and then the second time I let go half way down.  Oh my, his face! It lit up like you would not believe. Then he wanted to go down over and over all by himself. He was so excited and having so much fun, I wish I had had my camera to capture that little face so full of excitment.

One year and one day

Here's the little man all grown up. A couple nights ago I was getting him ready for bed. We usually read a story in the rocking chair and then I sing him a song and put him in his crib. I finished reading him his story and I started singing and he reached his arms for the crib and goes "ehhh". So I put him in his bed and he laid down. I guess he is now too big for bedtime songs too, or my voice is really as bad as I have always suspected it is.

I love that he is growing up and he can kind of understand things. But I feel like now comes the hard part. For the first year, it is all about physical growth and accomplishments, for the most part. There's not a whole lot you have to do to teach him how to sit up, stand up, crawl, walk, they figure a lot of that out themselves and from watching others. Now comes the part where you teach him right and wrong and manners and how to be a good person. How do you even teach someone that stuff? Especially a toddler whose vocabulary consists of "uh-oh" and 5 or 6 ASL signs. It's a big step for him reaching 1 but I think it's not really going to get easier. It kind of freaks me out a bit. Then I think that I am in the same place I was one year ago, wondering what in the world to do with this little baby. We figured out how to get him this far so I guess we just do the same thing we've been doing for the last year; make it up as we go.

Bath time

The second week I was back at work, I had a very long day because I had a meeting after work until 8pm. I was exhausted and as I left the garage to walk up the three flights of stairs to our apartment, I heard screaming. Baby screaming. MY baby screaming. I did my best (ha!) to run up the three flights of stairs in my heels to find out what was going on. I shouldn't have been surprised at what I saw. Micah pulling Elijah out of the bathtub. For some reason that kid does not dig the baths.

So we decided to start a schedule of every other night baths, instead of just waiting until the stench of spoiled milk was too much to handle. On Thursday I gave him a bath and there was no crying and only one scrunchy face. And last night Micah gave him a bath and he laughed! In the water! He was smiling and kicking like this was the best time he'd ever had. I don't know what changed his mind, I'm just glad he did.

Once they were done, Micah said, "Maybe we should give him a bath every night." Let's not go overboard.