pk no more

For those of you who may not know, PK stands for "pastor's kid" or "preacher's kid". Elijah officially qualifies to bear the title since his Dad is an associate pastor (and does preach about once a month). Elijah will maintain the title for a little longer (until the end of June), at which point he will have to lay it down, perhaps for good.

The reason is that Ryan has resigned his job as an Associate Pastor of Trinity Church in Livonia, MI effective the end of June in order to ... become Orthodox. And yes, that was a capital "O" - Orthodox as in Eastern Orthodox. As soon as we begin attending an Orthodox church in early July, he will be a layman like the rest of his family, and Elijah will no longer be a PK.

what's your name?

We were at an upholstery shop ordering new cushions for our glider (the old ones were ruined in storage). The lady at the counter made conversation with Elijah, "And what's your name?" "Elijah," replied Elijah, but it sounds more like "Eyidya" still. She tried to clarify, "What was that?" He looked at her very seriously and spelled, "E-L-I-J-A-H. Elijah!"

ducks in the pond

We have two small ponds in our back yard. Two ducks come to splash in them every day. Elijah checks up on them several times every day and lets me know if they are gone or if they are back. One morning I overhead the following conversation:
Elijah: "The ducks are back!"
Daddy: "Yes, there are two of them! A mommy duck and a daddy duck!"
Elijah: "Where is Elijah duck?"

countries

Many years ago, when I first came to the U.S., I bought a place mat with the map of the world, thinking it would be kind of fun to brush up on my political geography. My plans never materialized.

A couple months ago we dug out that place mat to use for Elijah. It's laminated and easy to clean. Daddy showed him a couple of countries and it was an immediate hit. He can't get enough of it! We learned the big ones first (he liked the big orange one - Russia!) and then moved on to smaller ones. We even made it a little more challenging by naming each country in two languages. The two videos below are both in Russian, but it shouldn't be too hard to figure out what's going on.

two grandmas

Two grandmas came to visit us in December '08 and January '09, one of state and one out of the country. Their visits overlapped for a few days in January, during which Elijah had no lack of attention. Here are a few videos from their visits.

three year old check up

Name: Elijah
Age: 3 years 1.5 months
Weight: 33.95 lbs (0.5 lb less than 6 months ago) - 69th percentile
Height: 39.75 inches - 82nd percentile
Favorite drink - Chocolate Milk, closely followed by Apple juice
Favorite food - Cheerios for breakfast, quesadilla (with guacamole and sour cream) for lunch, cheerios for dinner
Favorite dessert - ice cream
Favorite country - Russia
Favorite island - Madagascar
Favorite person - Mommy ("I just LOVE Mommy!")

love triangle

Elijah's latest discourse while sitting on the potty (in Russian): "Mommy loves Daddy. Elijah loves Mommy. Daddy loves Michael." (Michael is the senior pastor at the church where Ryan serves as an associate).

new house

As you have probably already figured out from a previous post, we moved. Ryan got a job at Trinity Church in Livonia, MI, and we moved into a rental house not far from the church and not far from the Grandparents with whom we spent the previous year. The house sits on a half an acre of land right next to a day care (which we are not using at the moment).

Elijah loves his new house. If a cashier at a store strikes a conversation with him, he immediately informs them that he lives in a new house and that he loves it. He also tells them that there are two fans in the house!

We (the parents) like the house, too. It has lots of natural light and is located in a quiet neighborhood. Most of the pictures below are from an online profile of the house when it was advertised for rent. The dining room picture is the only exception.

three years old

We were hoping to have a gathering of friends and family for Elijah's birthday, but schedules didn't quite line up this year. And even a small family celebration was thwarted by Elijah catching a stomach flu. He was just over his vomiting bouts by the time his birthday arrived, so we felt a cake was a bit of a risk still. Thus, the three candles went into his pancake. Below is a little clip.



Daddy ended up having to blow out the candles, although Elijah practiced on other candles earlier that week and was able to blow them out.

The breakfast was followed by opening of a new set of Lego's and spending the next 30 minutes building two construction vehicles with Daddy.

Aunt Chelsea came to visit the next day and we did have a small celebration with a cake. This time Elijah managed to blow out his own candles.

not quite a big boy yet

We haven't really started potty training yet. With our move and settling into a new house there were plenty of other things to keep us busy. Plus, we didn't want to introduce a new thing while everything else in Elijah's life was new as well (new house, new room, new bed, new fans). However, we have been preparing. First, we bought family toilet seats. Next, we bought a potty training book, since neither of us have any idea how to approach the project. Then we ordered some training pants from Amazon. And finally, the potty training date has been officially set for this coming Friday.

Meanwhile, we'd have Elijah sit on the toilet every once in a while before his bath. But nothing ever happened until two days ago, when all of a sudden he peed. Mommy was on the couch sick, but Daddy was present and made a huge deal out of the event. "What a big boy!" he said. "What a big boy!" echoed Elijah.

Two minutes later he was in the bath tub and... peed again. Noticing what he'd done, he looked up at Ryan and triumphantly exclaimed, "What a big boy!"

Well, not quite yet.

to Bethlehem!

Two wooden figures of Mary and Joseph from our nativity set are traveling from window sill to window sill of our living room. If you ask Elijah, "Where are Mary and Joseph going?" he will promptly inform you, "To Bethlehem!" (They will "arrive" to a stable on Christmas Eve, and Jesus will make an appearance in the crib on Christmas morning).

A couple days ago during bath time Elijah decided to stay in the tub until all the water ran out (he usually wants to get out as soon as we pull the plug). When all the water finally drained, Ryan asked him, "Where did all the water go?!" Elijah didn't hesitate for a moment, "To Bethlehem!"

Or should it be "Bathlehem"?

conversations in church nursery

It may be hard to see, but the little green thing on top of the rhino is a small turtle. Someone was talking to Elijah about this toy in our church nursery, and asked him, pointing to the turtle, "And what is this?" His quick reply was: "Guacamole!" (He usually pronounces it "guacakome").

After he played with a number of plastic animals and named all of them "mama," the woman in the nursery thought she noticed a pattern, and asked him, "Who is your most favorite person in the whole wide world?" My son's response? "Elijah!"

the Jesus song

sprinklers

Sprinklers are Elijah's new discovery this summer, and a new love as well. Here's a clip of him playing in the back yard. He says a couple things during the video. They are hard to understand, but the first one means "sprinklers", and the second one has something to do with "getting all wet".

reading Christmas books

Reading Christmas books in July may seem out of season to me, but not to Elijah. He has recently rediscovered this book that we must have read a million times over last Christmas season. This time he showed that all of those readings were not forgotten. He started quoting the book from memory right away. My camera can only record 30 seconds at a time, so here are three 30 second fragments.

want some tea?

Life is full or routine questions and often repeated statements. We don't even notice them, but Elijah does, and sometimes surprises us with an imitation. For example, almost every morning I ask Ryan, "Ryan, do you want some tea?" The answer is always yes, so I am not sure why I even ask.

The other day Elijah pulled out his toy tea cups, loaded them with corresponding color balls, and said, "Waya, wan' some tea?" Ryan doesn't really like being addressed as "Ryan" by his son, so he ignores the question for the first 10 times or so. Finally, when it doesn't seem to work, he goes up to Elijah, crouches down next to him, and says, "Elijah, who am I?"
Elijah: "My Daddy!!!"
Ryan: "That's right!"
Elijah (without skipping a beat): "Waya, wan' some tea?"

first ice cream

On July 20th (2008) Elijah had his first official ice cream. Nothing fancy, regular vanilla flavor. It's not that he'd never tasted ice cream before, but it was usually a spoonfull or two from Mommy's cup. This one was totally his own, and he even drank the melted remains before throwing out the cup. Ritter's Frozen Custard was the place.

ponchos

This is our family icon of Jesus. It is hand painted and we bought it in Russia at a monastery. Elijah knows exactly who it is: "Gheekah". In fact, seeing the icon often prompts him to request the Jesus song.

Before a fishing trip in Ludingon, MI, we were at a Walmart to pick up a couple ponchos. They promised rain the next day, and we wanted to be ready. Naturally, the poncho packages featured a person wearing one with the hood up. As we placed a couple in the cart, Elijah turned around to take a look, and exclaimed "Gheekah!" That seemed a bit out of context, so it took us a moment to figure out what he was talking about. I guess the halo does look a bit like a hood... I can't think of anything else that would have caused Elijah to think the guy on the package was Jesus.

In case you were wondering, the fishing trip was a success. Between the five of us on the boat, we caught 10 fish, including two 16 lbs salmon. Ryan's weighed a mere 0.5 lb more than mine, but was enough to earn him the "biggest fish of the trip" award. If you look at the picture below, the longer of the two largest fish is Ryan's, and mine is next to it, and it's fatter. I also caught a lake trout which turned out to have been hatched at a farm. They knew it from a missing fin near the tail. It's head contained a micro-chip, so I had to fill out a form and freeze the head so they could analyze which farm it came from. (For the record, it's the second fish from Ryan in the bottom row.)

counting to thirty

"... twenty six, twenty seven, twenty eight, twenty nine, twenty ten!" (in Russian)

plural

Last night marked another stage in Elijah's language development. He started using plurals! He was playing on his bed shortly before bed time, and somehow got a hold of both of his comfort sweatshirts. I don't know who started it, Daddy or Elijah, but at some point Elijah was clearly pluralizing his version of "sweatshirt" by saying "Two wha-hahs". He was so pleased with himself that he kept saying it over and over and over. This morning we heard him say "two cahs". He used the plural on some other word too, but I can't remember what it was.