booboo

Why does it always happen on the day before school pictures?

kids are quirky

* Eliot likes to do two things: sit in the laundry basket to watch TV and find all of the socks in the clean laundry and put them in a pile. The other night he put two and two together and said, "I want to find all the socks and then get IN THERE."

* He flat out refused to get school pictues made. As we walked by the library in the morning he spotted the portrait setup in there. He turned to me and said, "I don't yike that." I played it off, but sure enough, three different teachers tried to take him on three different occasions, and he cried and climbed off of the riser each time. When I picked him up he informed me, "I'm scared of the library."

* Daddy made banana pancakes last Saturday. Eliot and I loved them. I re-heated a few for breakfast on Sunday. This time, though, Eliot grimaced and spit them out. "What did you do that for?" I asked. "You loved them yesterday." Eliot explained with a frown, "It's got CHICKEN in it!"

Mother's Day 2006

For Mother's Day Eliot woke me up with a gift - two books and a card! They were great books that we could read together. But guess what Brian gave me. A VIDEO CAMERA! So, let's see how this will work. It's a total experiment. I'm not sure how it's going to go so I'd love some feedback on how easy/hard it is to view this file. So, without further delay, Eliot sings us a song.

Mother's Day Beach Trip

We went to the beach for Mother's Day. It was the three of us, Deenie, Aunt Gaines, Aunt Kate, Gaines' friend Gloria and Kate's boyfriend Jeremy. The weather could not have been more beautiful! It was not too hot, but warm enough to swim. There were few clouds and a pleasant breeze. Enough breeze, in fact, to fly kites. It wasn't long before the kite was high up in the sky. When it was not in the sky, Eliot enjoyed playing in the kite's tail. We celebrated Gaines' birthday on Friday night. We had a low county boil and key lime pie. Eliot asked, "But where's my plate, Mommy?!" We all shucked some corn for the boil - one of Eliot's favorite activities. In the evenings we relaxed on the deck, watching the sun set. We were all sad to say goodbye, but happy that Gloria rode home with us. She and Eliot sat in the back seat together. I think he's smitten. We can't wait to go back - it was a relaxing and fabulous time for all of us!

art and bellydancing

Last weekend Eliot and I went to the Art Show with Steph and Lauren. As we walked from booth to booth, Eliot endeared himself with the artist by admiring their work. He'd name colors and shapes that he recognized in their work. He would talk about what was going on in a mural, or point out items in a collage.
We spent most of our time, however, in the children's area. They had lots of activities set up for the young'uns. But what Eliot enjoyed the most was the music and dancing on the stage. First they had some African dancers with drums. He jumped around to the rhythm of the drums and followed along with the dancers' hand movements. Then, after the African dancers, the next act came on stage. Eliot froze and stared. It was the most amazing thing he'd ever seen - bellydancers. They were very brightly dressed and, apparently, moved in a way that mesmerized him. You could have thumped the back of his head and he would have fallen over. I tried to take him to the painting table, but he just kept looking over my shoulder, completely distracted by the bellydancers. He said, "wanna go see da bellies, mama." So we abandoned the paints for more bellies. The rest of the afternoon he asked me to sing "da belly song". I'm assuming he meant the Middle Eastern rhythmic beat, which is definitely un-singable.