hot dogs

We have dutifully tried to feed Elijah only the healthiest foods available. While broccoli and green beans remained at the top of his gastronomic preference list for a long time, he never made any effort to say the words. Even the blueberries (to which he is still addicted) and peaches get requested by sign language. The only food exciting enough to try and say its name turned out to be a hot dog! We do only buy Hebrew Nationals and hold that they are the best tasting hot dogs in the whole wide world (well, maybe I should restate that: they are the best tasting hot dogs among those that are least bad for you; there are plenty of delicious varieties out there, but I shudder to think what kinds of mystery ingredients they are stuffed with). But still! Is a hot dog really that much more exciting than whole wheat pasta? Or a delicious beat? Or steamed mixed vegetables? Apparently so. :) At least every pot of boiling water in our kitchen, no matter what it is intended for, is likely to be greeted by a high pitched "huh-guh" these days.

extracurricular activities

Watching a child day after day can become challenging. I can't say Elijah is not a perfect little boy, but let's face it, perfect little boys whine, too. And they get bored. And they teethe. Their feet get stuck in the crib and they wake up from a nap early in a cranky mood. And they don't want hot cereal for breakfast because Mommy dumped too much salt into it. The list goes on. So it helps to have scheduled things to do to bring variety to our days. After all, there are only so many times a day you can put together the alphabet puzzle. Enter extracurricular activities.

Now, I am not sure if you can actually call them "extracurricular" since there's no real "curriculum" Elijah is following, so feel free to suggest another term. Meanwhile, we attend a gym class on Fridays and go to the pool about once every three weeks (that's how long it takes me to recover from each trip :)).

Turns out, Elijah doesn't really like crowds. Who is surprised? Raise your hand. I guess it only makes sense with two parents on the introverted side, with one of them way off the chart. When the pool got too crowded today, Elijah opted for a chair and a bag of gold fish. Once the fish were gone, we just went home. Neither is he interested in paying attention during the structured part of the gym class. While other toddlers (ok, they are mostly older than Elijah) are sitting in a circle singing songs and counting to ten, he is off doing his own thing.

Having something special to do every once in a while helps maintain my sanity and creates great memories (it also makes for great pictures!) Today at the pool, after taking the picture above, I sat down on the ground next to the chair from which Elijah was observing the chaos of the pool. Almost right away he got off the chair and wanted to nestle next to me. Now, how sweet is that? :)

plastic slides

This is what a plastic slide does to a perfectly good haircut. (All right, he hasn't had a hair cut yet, so how about a hair do?) The static on those things is incredible!

vacation

Daddy took a vacation a couple of weeks ago, and we spent part of it with Grandpa Gary and Grandma Rachel at their cabin. The cabin is located right by a lake, and having observed Elijah at a local pool, I didn't want to have to chase him around in the water. Instead, we brought an inflatable pool with us. We filled it up with well water (very cold!) and set it in the sun to warm up by the afternoon. Elijah, however, didn't want to wait that long, and was in the cold water way before lunch. We all sat around in chairs and watched him play, and he even posed for a couple nice pictures. My plan was working perfectly. The child was happily occupied in a safe environment, and we could relax and kick back.

Not for long. In the afternoon we went down to the lake having dressed appropriately for the occasion (see picture below). Elijah was fascinated with such a huge amount of water and kept signing water over and over again. Shy at first, he soon realized the fun potential of the place, but the life jacket was in his way. So we took it off. Contrary to my expectations, he didn't try to go deep. But he was rather unstable in the sand, so someone always had to be close by.

The result of this adventure was that the next day he refused to play in the pool. He wanted the lake, which meant one of us had to play the life guard. In the end, it worked out all right. Worn out by the sun and the water, he went to bed at a decent hour, so Ryan and I were able to enjoy the last Harry Potter book for a few hours before we crashed as well.

first trike

Here they are, grandma Shannon and Elijah on his first trike. No, he can't pedal yet. But he can sit on it. And he can fall off of it, which he's done a few times. Fortunately, the falls (more accurately called face plants) we softened by the carpet in our living room, but they nevertheless deterred Elijah from climbing onto his bike for a day or so. But if you put him on the bike, and set his feet on the pedals, and then push or pull the bike, he'll keep the feet on the pedals for a little bit. The idea is that one of these days he'll figure out how to go by himself. But our practices have been few and far between as it is incredibly hot outside and both of us (Mommy and baby) play better in an air-conditioned apartment.

close up

Grandma Shannon took this close up shot when she visited us about a week ago. I thought it was an excellent picture, so here it is for everyone to enjoy!

stars and flowers

I've been composing this post in my head for weeks, just didn't have the time to actually post it. Elijah's signing has really taken off. But you have to watch closely and pay attention to context a lot. For example, Daddy and horsey look the same. So do flower, cat and eat. This can sometime cause confusion. For example, one time Elijah was playing with his sorting bucket that had circle, square, triangle, and star shapes. He looked up at me and signed eat. When I asked if he was hungry, he shook his head. Then he signed eat again. What on earth? I put him in his high chair, but he wasn't interested in food. A few days later we were looking at a book about Christmas. On the last page, where there was a star over a stable, he got excited and signed eat. It was then that I realized he was signing flower! The shape sorting incident came back to me and I knew he thought the star shapes were actually flower shapes. Elijah does like flowers. We have some outside of our apartment building, and he always points them out to me. But I never thought of flowers as stars, or stars as flowers. Although I do like the idea. It intrigues me to think of the universe as a grand cosmic bouquet instead of it being a vast cold impersonal empty space with balls of burning gas separated by millions of light years.