birthday party (2 yrs old)

Elijah's official birthday party (theme: doggies) took place on Friday afternoon right after his nap. (It took an hour and a half to convince him to take a nap that day, and, fortunately for us all, he did, albeit a short one.) It was a small gathering: the two grandparents, aunt Chelsea, the three MI Tolls and the two parents. Oh, yes, we can't forget Allie the dog, especially since she too wore a party hat. Elijah, by the way, didn't care much for his, so we took it off as soon as the candle was blown out (by Daddy). But I am getting ahead of myself. It all started with opening the gifts.

One of the first gifts opened was a pair of Curious George slippers. Perhaps we should have waited to open that present, because from that point on we had a hard time keeping Elijah focused on the task at hand. He'd pull off a strip of paper, then turn around to hold his new slippers and make a monkey sound. We'd get his attention again, only to lose it once more to the slippers 10 seconds later. Finally we hid the slippers behind aunt Chelsea and got back to opening the rest of the presents. However, shortly afterwards he opened a stuffed puppy, and that proved as distracting, if not more, than the monkey slippers. There we were back to 10 second attention span periods punctuated by excited "Goggie!" exclamations and love expressing hugs (see below). The situation was exacerbated when Elijah opened a second identical stuffed puppy. Double joy! Double love! Double distraction.

It took us half an hour to open the presents. For the record, in addition to items mentioned above, Elijah's loot from the party included: a magic drawing board, Wedgits (played with mostly by Mom and Dad so far), Toysie Snappers, a couple books (a musical book and Spot's Magical Christmas), two CD's by Gemini, and a couple coloring books. I think I remembered it all.

Predictably, a doggie themed party had to include hot dogs for dinner, and hot dogs go well with fries. A Russian beet salad is an excellent, although not traditional, complement to them both. In honor of the occasion I baked a cake (my first one ever!) using a Jello Cake recipe. I am pleased to report that it turned out rather well, although Elijah refused to even try it. I don't take it personally. He refuses everything and anything that even remotely looks like bread.

Well, that's about it. Perhaps those who were present at the event can share their own accounts in the comments section. :)

french fries and ketchup

Elijah likes french fries (who doesn't?), but have recently discovered that he likes them with ketchup, too. Or, should I say, he likes ketchup.

Ryan, aunt Chelsea, Elijah and I went out to eat a couple of days ago. After Elijah ate his chicken and vegetables, we let him have his fries. He happily ate them for a few minutes before he noticed a small cup of ketchup sitting right there on the plate. He took his fork, dipped it into the ketchup, and tasted it. We didn't want him to eat the ketchup straight, so Daddy showed him how to dip fries into it. Elijah took to it right away. He'd dip the fry into the cup with ketchup, and then slowly and carefully suck the ketchup off of it. Then dip the same fry again. Suck the ketchup off. And again, over and over, the same fry, until it was soggy like a wet noodle, at which point we'd give him another fry and continue trying to teach him to bite the dipped end off. But our efforts didn't amount to much.

colors

Elijah knows his colors. We think he has known them for a long time, but couldn't say the names. It makes me wonder what else he knows but can't say yet. Anyway, here are the colors in Elijah-ese:

green - ghee (his favorite color)
blue - bhue
red - e ("red" minus the "r" and the "d")
yellow - ee-oo (once again, "yellow" minus the consonants)

second birthday

Elijah turned TWO on December 11th!

We started the day with a delicious Eggo waffle, followed by the first round of opening birthday presents, which included a toy telephone and a new outfit from Grandma and Grandpa Ferguson. Then we played together till lunch. While Elijah was napping, another set of presents, this time from Grandma Shannon, arrived at the door: cars, a spider man, blocks and more outfits. Of course, Elijah wanted to play with them all as soon as he got up. He knew what cars were and what to do with them, but he wasn't so sure about the spider man. The blocks looked neat, but when it came right down to it he didn't quite know how to build with them. But he happily set on my lap while I played. :) Afterwards, he selected several color cylinders from the set and carried them around for a while.

Later in the day we read his favorite book for a very long time, and practiced sounds for geese, donkeys and sheep (these are the animals in the baby-Jesus-in-the-manger picture). Exciting though it was to learn the goose and the donkey sounds, nothing compared with the joy on his face when he saw pictures of puppy dogs (see bottom left picture above where Ryan captured him in the middle of saying "goggie!")

After dinner Elijah took a long celebratory bath, and he got to open one more present before bed, this time from Mommy and Daddy: doggie pajamas (oh, the bliss!) Life could hardly get any better, and yet the official birthday party was still coming a few days later. But that will have to be a separate post.


P.S. I should mention one other birthday present that had to be given to Elijah about two weeks early because he accidentally saw it and wanted it immediately. It was a baby MP3 player (the only one of the kind I was able to find) sponsored by his Russian grandparents.

kid in a basket

Just chilling.

What is Christmas?

Elijah's favorite book of the season is, appropriately, a Christmas one, called What Is Christmas? He received it from Grandma Shannon last Christmas, but hasn't really gotten into it until now. He wants it read to him over and over and over and over (and over). I've been known to ready the book more than 10 times straight in one sitting (and then suppress an urge to destroy the book :)). We are not sure what attracts him so much, but our bet is that it's a picture of a puppy on every other page.

cookies

We held out from giving Elijah cookies for almost two years, but how can you resist the temptation to give your child a homemade oatmeal raisin cookie? Naturally, we gave in. Needless to say, he loved it. Mmmmmm, cookies and milk! He liked it so much that he said the word right away, "Cookie!" and asked for another one. (That is probably the only word he says that's absolutely right; "goggie", meaning "doggie", is a close second.) We said later.

We kept our word and offered another cookie the next day. He got all excited, but didn't finish it. Not sure if it was a big lunch or he got distracted by a toy, but he left a small piece on his tray and said "Ah-dah!"

The next (third) cookie got eaten only about half way. His eyes lit up at the sight of the fourth, but when it came right down to it, he pushed away my hand and shook his head. I guess two years of training in vegetable appreciation are paying off. ;)

rare specimen kept behind glass