counting

Elijah has recently learned to count, and now we count everything: fingers, toes, teddy grahams, number of spoonfuls of yogurt in a container, cheerios in a bowl (believe me, there are many!) , spoonfuls of rice on a plate, eyes, ears, rubber ducks (there are two), you name it.

Now when Elijah decides to be a picky eater, all we need to do is start counting whatever is on his plate, and he opens his mouth for spoonful after spoonful of the food he had nearly rejected. It's been a nice side effect of his counting obsession, although it is starting to wear out a little.

Another side effect is that he instantly falls in love with almost any counting book that he comes across.

The coolest thing is that he counts in both Russian and English, depending on who's currently interacting with him. And he doesn't mix the two languages. If he starts in Russian, he'll keep going in Russian till the end. But Russian numbers can be tricky. It's not just one word for one number like it is in English, but two: one for feminine objects and one for masculine (plus one for neuter, but I try not to complicate the issue too much.) To make matters worse, this only applies up to a certain number, after which the numbers are the same for all genders, but the case (i.e. the ending) of the object changes. For the longest time Elijah insisted on counting all objects using masculine form only, but we have finally had a breakthrough a couple days ago. He still prefers to say "odin" (meaning "one") instead of "odna," but every once in a while he'll use the correct gender with a little sly smile on his face, before reverting back to the masculine, "OK, odin!"

He can count solidly till 10, sometimes 12, and we are starting to introduce numbers up to 20.

first apology

Allie is not only famous for being the first living being to be called by her given name, she is also the first to receive an apology. Elijah likes to push his umbrella stroller around the driveway, and Allie likes to lie down wherever there are people. Unfortunately, Elijah also likes to make her move by pushing things into her. So yesterday he pushed his umbrella stroller right into Allie as she was lying there, minding her own business (which usually consists of licking herself). She jumped a little and moved out of the way. Elijah didn't hit her hard (he doesn't have the strength yet), but we still don't like it when he is mean to the dog. And now that he is willing to repeat things, we made him say "Sorry, doggie." Which he did quite readily ("Fahyee, goggie") and went on his way. He, of course, had no idea what he had just said or what it meant, but at least it's a start.

Arizona '08

We visited Grandma Shannon and Grandpa Mike in Arizona in early April. It was quite a change for us as far as the weather goes. It snowed in MI less than a week before our departure, and it was warm enough to play in an outdoor pool in Arizona. Which we did, as you can see. We only ventured into the pool once, but Elijah played in the water quite a few times.

At some point we went and bought bubbles, and it immediately became one of his favorite things to do outside. We had to have three adults involved in this play, however. One to blow bubbles, one to stand guard by the pool so he doesn't fall in, and one to follow him around to make sure he didn't run into any cacti (for his and the cacti sakes) in the excitement of chasing the bubbles, or "babu" as he called them.

We had some fun activities along the way, too. One morning we visited the desert museum. We saw all kinds of snakes, lizards, scorpions, and believe it or not, even fish (go figure!) The was a skunk sleeping behind glass.

Elijah looked at it and inquired, "Goggie?"
"No, baby, that's not a doggie."
"Wa-hoo?" (That's his word for "rabbit," one of his earliest.)
"No, not a rabbit, either. It's a skunk."
"Ka!" he said and walked away. If it's not a doggie or a rabbit, it's not worth his time and attention.

We also had a chance to visit grandma's Chipotle restaurant, of which she is a manager. Elijah usually gets a large quesadilla when we go to Chipotle, and eats every bite of it. Or at least every bite that is neatly cut. He rejects any that are not even or have cheese hanging out on the sides. Zealous workers of the restaurant loaded his quesadilla with almost double the cheese, and I didn't think he'd finish it. Amazingly enough, he did, thanks to grandma who cut it into perfect squares for him.

We found a great little park next to a school across the street, and spent an evening there, going down the slides (grandma got seriously zapped by static electricity!) and playing in the sand. When we were walking back to the car, I couldn't resist taking a picture of Ryan and Elijah walking hand in hand.

Travelling with a young child can be difficult, especially when it comes to sleeping. Once again, our super tent saved the day. I love that thing! We didn't skip a single nap and bed time was never a problem, and that's with a 3 hour difference between Tucson and Detroit. Even still, the trip wore Elijah out enough to take a two hour nap on the plane during our flight home.

Every trip has been marked by a noticeable jump in Elijah's development, and this one was not an exception. All of a sudden he finally started repeating words and even short sentences after us. Before, all our attempts to encourage him to speak were met with a stare. Not quite blank, not exactly defiant, but no words came out. Now he'll happily repeat anything we ask of him, or at least make an attempt, and sometimes he picks out random words from our conversations. One of the first was "metaphor" and "groggy," and the latter has evolved into "gwoggy goggie" (meaning "groggy doggie").

first hair cut

On April 16th, 2008, at the age of 2 years, 4 months and 5 days, Elijah had his very first haircut. It's not that he needed it badly, but there were a few stray hairs getting in his eyes and some others looking funny around his ears. So Daddy put him in his high chair on the deck, grabbed some scissors, and called Mommy for help. The final result was definitely not a designer hair cut, but it looked a little neater, and we can probably go another couple years till he needs his second one. :)

air plane

The other day Daddy pulled out a box of his old Legos and made an air plane. It was an instant hit with Elijah. He calls it "ee-pe" and carries it everywhere. He was so taken by the idea, that two days later he sat down with his own legos and made his own air plane, without anybody's help. The difference between Daddy's and his is that Daddy followed instructions, so it was easy. Elijah, on the other hand, had to invent his from scratch. :)

snowy spring

This picture was taken on March 2nd (I am playing catch up). I would normally not post such an old picture, but I think this one is pretty cool, so here it is.

"wa-ha"

Many kids have a blankie they are attached to. Elijah has a "wa-ha," which is his name for a sweatshirt. Actually, he has two. One for comfort during the day (blue with green stripes pictured above) and one for night time (gray with orange stripes - his favorite). He will not go to sleep without being able to suck his thumb, and he will not suck his thumb without holding a sweatchirt with his other hand.

names

The first living being to have ever been called by name by Elijah was Allie the dog. He calls her "Ah-yee." Seven months ago it sounded more like "Ai" and it took us a while to realize what it actually was. The next one was aunt Chelsea ("Ah-oo"), then uncle Tim ("ET"). The recent addition is pastor Michael ("Maku") to whom Elijah frequently talks on his toy phone, imitating Daddy. He starts with "E Maku" (translation: Hey, Michael!), followed by a long string of gibberish interrupted by an occasional forced laugh, and concludes with "Ah-ya-bah!" (translation: OK, bye!), after which he pushes one of the buttons to hang up (not necessarily the correct one).

18 five year olds

Read this first: http://wittingshire.blogspot.com/2008/04/friday-fun_18.html

18
All right, this doesn't have anything to do with Elijah, but every once in a while I want to post something unrelated, but there is as of now no other blog. So I hijacked Elijah's this time. After all, I am the blogger, so I can do whatever I want! Ah, is that freedom, or what? :)

bright future

When your future is so bright, you've got to wear shades!

family members

Over the last few months Elijah discovered that he has more family members than just Mom ("Mama") and Dad ("Dah-dy" or "Papa" depending on the context). Every once in a while we catch him reciting everybody's name to himself out loud. It usually starts with the two of us, and then moves on to "Pahkah" (Grandma) and "Pah-(long pause)-kah" (Grandpa), followed by "Ee-Tee" (Uncle Tim) and "Ah-Oo" (Aunt Chelsea). Then comes "Goggie" (Allie the dog), and the list invariably concludes with "Gee-ka" (Jesus).

old macdonald and his amazing farm

Every once in a while Ryan sings Old MacDonald with Elijah, who has by now figured out what's going on. He gets to choose the animals on the farm, and he invariably chooses "Goggie!" the first time. And the second time. And the third time. And so on. After a while, Ryan protests. After all, Old MacDonald has got to have more animals on the farm than just dogs. Elijah still can't say the names of most animals, so he designates them by the sounds they make. Turns out, Old MacDonald has quite an eclectic farm. Besides having a sheep (requested by "baaa"), he has a Russian goose ("ga-ga-ga"), a lion ("arrrrr"), and... a light ("tla"). Unfortunately, we are not quite sure what sound lights make, so the song usually stops at this point.

"professional" photos

We had to wait a few weeks for Elijah's cut to heal up a little bit. In the meantime, we decided not to go to a professional photographer after all. I personally don't like the fact that I have to buy paper copies of the pictures and then be forever limited by what I bought. Plus, the places I am willing to afford don't always produce amazing pictures, and the ones that do charge way too much. Thus, we grabbed a white sheet and set to work. Out of a couple dozen photos we took, only a small number turned out decently, but it's pretty good for our first time. If nothing else, we had a blast doing this, and the price was right. :)

P.S. For those interested in getting prints of these pictures, I posted the original high resolution photos on Picasa Web. Feel free to either download them to your computer or order straight from the website (look for a button saying "Order Prints").

harry potter

I was thinking it would be nice to have a professional picture of Elijah taken every year around his birthday. But he seems to have other plans. Last year he fell on the morning of his first birthday and got a nice red mark under his eye, which caused me to put off our trip to the portrait studio for a few weeks.

This year I've had a late start. He's been two for almost a month (minus a day), when I finally called and scheduled an appointment. A few minutes later Elijah tripped on something, fell, and hit his forehead on the corner of a piano bench (which has since been exiled to the storage room). I heard the sound of the fall, and then a scream. Blood was rushing out of his forehead down his nose, into his mouth, onto his shirt, and into my hair. I panicked. We were home alone. I ran into the bathroom and turned on the water, but wasn't sure quite what to do with it. Clean the wound? But it'll get all bloody again faster than I can wash the blood off. The simple solution of applying pressure to stench the blood flow did not occur to me. But it did occur to me to call Ryan. After all, I couldn't even take Elijah to the ER without a car. Plus, I figured since he wasn't there to see the blood and hold the screaming child, he'd be able to keep his cool and tell me what to do, or rush home. Ryan didn't pick up. Instead he walked into the door.

Elijah calmed down pretty quickly and was ready to play again after just a few minutes, but we felt like a half an inch cut in his forehead that kept opening up each time he'd screw up his face required medical attention.

After a few phone calls and a preliminary examination by Grandpa, we took Elijah to a pediatric urgent care facility. We figured it'd be faster (and cheaper). Turned out, it was an after hours only place, so we had to take our child with a head wound to a real ER. We were hoping they wouldn't have to stitch him up, and they didn't. They glued the cut instead. Of course, Elijah screamed each time a nurse or a doctor touched him, as he always does. It didn't matter if they were checking his pulse, taking his temperature or cleaning his wound. His response was the same: SCREAM. I have to say that it was the fastest ER trip I've ever had. We were out of there in little over an hour from the moment we walked in.

The best part is our insurance doesn't cover ER. Well, technically, it does, but after our $2,500 deductible, so this one's on us. We haven't gotten the bill yet, but Elijah's resemblance to Harry Potter will probably cost us over $1,000. If he had just told me he wanted to look like Harry, I would have bought him a costume at a party store or something, and it would have been cheaper. But he doesn't speak very clearly yet. Oh well, maybe he'll get the lead role in a school Harry Potter play because of his scar. :) Meanwhile, there may not be a professional photo of a two year old Elijah.

24 months check up

Weight: 33.3 lbs (93%)
Height: 36 in (83%)
Head Circum: 19.25 in (54%)

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.