putting two and two together

I love to observe the way Eliot puts new information together. He’s so logical and literal – some of the questions he asks are too funny. Like, when we went to see Vulcan and he asked, “Mommy? Statues don’t have pants?” Then there was the time I gave him turkey for dinner. He tasted it, but didn’t like it. So I ate it instead. He said, “No, Mommy! Don’t eat it! It’s yucky” I said, “well, I like it!” I would expect the conclusion to be that we have different tastes and that I don’t think the turkey is yucky. However, his conclusion: “You like yucky things?”

you gotta know your kid

You know what's weird? When your kid does something that other people would consider completely normal, but you know it's just a little off. I've seen it happen before with other parents. One mom will say, "did you see what [insert their child's name] just did? Wasn't that a little odd?" Then the other mom says, "Uhm. No. I didn't notice anything." The next thing you know, kid A (the one "acting a little odd") winds up sick as a dog.
Take last night for example. When we were getting ready for bed Eliot was just not quite as belligerent as he usually is. To the untrained eye he would have seemed sufficiently belligerent, but I knew there was something a tiny bit askew. Then he wanted cold water instead of his normal room temperature water. Also, he wanted his animals to be arranged on his side instead of around his head. You know, nothing too terribly strange for any other kid, but for him - weird. Sure enough, about 2:00 am he came running into our room crying. He had had a nightmare. When I picked him up he was blazing hot. I fed him some motrin, emailed work to tell them I wouldn't be in and snuggled up with him in his bed. He slept until almost 9:00 today.
I really knew the night before that he was going to be sick, when he was acting funny. It's like having ESP. It's not just when they are sick, either. I can tell if it's going to be a good day or a bad day by the way he looks at me first thing in the morning. Just one small glance and I can tell. It's kinda neat when you know your kid so well that you can pretty much predict the future.

new pics

I was doing a little photo clean up and found a few good ones that I put HERE. Go see!

Distraction 101

The big thing right now is sign language. Eliot wants to know what everything is in sign language, so I’m constantly looking up new words on the internet. He even loves this incredibly boring show on PBS called Signing Time. Sometimes when he’s angry at us he’ll only answer our questions by signing “yes” or “no”. One night he was particularly angry with me and I was getting some very snippy “NO” signs, complete with a giant scowl. Finally I said, “Eliot, you have GOT to tell me what’s the matter. I can’t keep guessing with yes and no.” Eliot said, “Hey Mommy? What’s the sign for MAD?” So together, with him sitting in my lap and smiling, we looked up the sign for mad. He practiced it a few times. Then he suddenly he hopped out of my lap, went back into his scowl, looked me in the eye and did the sign for MAD. I signed the word for GOOD and said, “that’s great, Eliot! Now I know how you’re feeling. You want to look up the word for happy?”

Nobody's Perfect

I know it's been a while since I've posted!! I'll try to get several out over the next couple of days...

Sometimes at night Eliot likes to sleep with these miniature glow-sticks. They are only about an inch long and maybe 1/8 inch in diameter. They serve as a night-light when he’s feeling uneasy. The other night I got a fresh one for him, even though the old one still had a tiny bit of glow left to it. He immediately handed the old one to me and said, “This one is old. It’s not as shiny. I don’t want it anymore.” Seeing an opportunity for a moral development discussion, I quickly answered. “Now wait a minute. Just because it’s older and not quite as shiny, that doesn’t mean that it’s not a good glow stick. You loved that glow stick last night, and it’s still the same glow stick. You should still love it, even though it’s not perfect.” I guess Eliot got the concept, judging from his answer: “Kinda like how I love you even though you’re old and not perfect?”