Beatin' the Heat

It's a good thing we have a fun kid to keep our moods light. Both of Elliott's parents have been grumpy of late - from feeling overworked and overweight to lamenting a sprained ankle that will keep this blogging mama out of her planned half-marathon race...It's been a good thing to have gatherings with friends to extricate our heads from our rears. Elliott enjoyed the birthday party of newly two Ava, one of the girls in our Friday playgroup. He especially liked playing with the microwave and baby bottles (the former he has no experience with, and the latter none recently as mama is done pumping. And who needs to pump when you're nursing a new walker/talker three times an hour as he takes check-in breaks after striking out into new territory without looking back until he does so with an eye for very close comfort?)

Then the next weekend we met some of our Bradley class friends at the park with the splashground Elliott loves. We've been there several times, so I thought I'd finally take and share some photos. He really likes to put his foot over the jet of water, just like he loves playing with the hose at home. This time he also fearlessly wandered all over the park without even glancing back to check and see if John and I were around. Though when we did spot him on the play structure he enjoyed the interaction . I think he only grabbed one kid's face, but then I wasn't on duty the whole time...

We inherited a slide from the neighbors, and Elliott is enjoying climbing up that and sliding down. It was clear he was really asking for help by sort of signing and saying "ha" when his feet were too slippery to walk up the slide or he didn't understand the steps on the regular way up. But it didn't take long until he' gotten comfortable with it all on his own, and he had no problem with falling backwards off the bottom of the slide today. He rolled over, took off his hat, handed it to me, and started climbing again. Elliott now asks for his hat before we get out of the car or leave the house, and he took it off today when we came inside. He seems to understand more every day, and though he's not breaking any records, I still get excited to see him point to a banana on a page with 20 other objects and identify it. He has started saying "nooo" with a drawn-out, low tone when I ask him if he wants something he really doesn't want. But when he likes something, he has the cutest "mo-mo?" high, rising-inflection request, complete with hands together signing. It's especially funny when he has been laughing hysterically at something - like getting raspberries blown on his belly -- and then, after the obliging parent stops, his face returns to that innocent "mo-mo?" plea. John and I can't stop imitating him. Elliott even said (and signed) more this morning at 5:40 a.m. when I was trying to call an end to our nursing session. For requests, he seems to like signing rubbing his chest and saying "pease?" in that same high tone for "please," but he isn't yet doing that without prompting.

We inherited a play camera from one of the girls I tutor. Elliott and John had a game in which John would take a photo, and the old-style plastic would flash and say "Smile" or "say cheese." Elliott would stand and pose until the photo was taken. Then John would put the camera on the ground for Elliott to pick up, walk over to John and hand back, asking and signing for more. Then Elliott walked back to where he had been standing next to the storage ottoman, rested one arm on it, and posed, saying "cheese." It was so funny I got out the video camera, but in that short time, Elliott figured out how to push the "shutter" button himself and promptly decided to start his own photography business.

And finally, Elliott gets a kick out of the newspaper.

Art, music, drama

This week Elliott hosted a toddler art party. He wasn't really the greatest host or participant, but after the fact, the main product was fun to walk on. Seriously, it was a fun trial, and some of the other kids really got into it. Elliott dislikes the sensation of gooey stuff on his hands - whether coconut milk, or hummus or any kind of oil. So the finger paints didn't go over so well. As for the brushes intended to be used for tempera paint? He liked his dry so he could brush his head, which he also likes to do with a regular hair brush these days. Elliott was more interested in playing with the garden hose than in painting. After the party the hose was still fun, and the group painting became his royal walkway.

Elliott is in the 20th percentile on height and weight (about 23 lbs. and something like 30 inches), and he's probably in the same percentile for language but is starting to make some progress. His current "vocabulary" (or list of understood concepts?) includes:
-"hi" (hand wave and "eye")
-"bu-bye!" with hand wave whenever something is finished or being turned off
-more (sign and "mo" with expectant look on face and question mark in tone)
-sleep (sign of hand on face and "seep")
-kiss hand for good night
-banana (sign and "nanana")
-cheese (sign and "jeese")
-peas (sign and "dees")
-hat (sign and "at")
-milk/nursing (sign and maybe he said "nus" today?)
-flower (modified sign of sniffing with hand to mouth)
-fish (modified sign of smacking lips)
-cow ("moo")
-dog (modified sign of panting, and if he sees a real one he full out barks at it)
-"mama" or "mom" and "da" for daddy
-maybe he knows and is trying to do a modified sign for cereal (as in crispy rice)
-he might be trying to do the sign for tomato that I just introduced the other day
-I think he's tried to do a modified sign for berries with something that sounds kind of like berries but I wouldn't know how to spell it
-I think he also recognizes and can sometimes say something like "bubble" and "duck," among other things I can't think of right now. He certainly knows what the phone is and likes to talk in it.
-He seems to recognize facial body parts and I think is trying to say "eyes" and "ears." He has known "nose" for a while but doesn't say it.
-He definitely knows what shoes are.
-He points often and says "dees" (and sometimes "da") for lots of things. In fact, he pointed toward the bathroom as he was pooping, and if I'd paid attention he probably would have gone on the potty (as he has a few times - once or twice after putting the little insert seat on the regular seat himself.

He continues to be happy a lot but is also having more neediness for contact with mama. However, he did great playing the whole hour during my last at-home tutoring session yesterday, especially after I gave him some snacks. He has been pretty hungry lately but unfortunately has started throwing food from his high chair, which we hadn't seen for a few months. He also occasionally throws things. If I try to take away one thing (like a real phone) and give him vastly inferior fake phone, he will either accept his lot and move on or throw a tantrum and chuck the phone. He continues to accost other children without apology - hitting them in the face, pulling their shirt (or in one case pulling and then trying to push Joey over in the toddler wading pool), even grabbing a chub of toddler skin if there is toy ownership at issue. We're trying to figure out the best way to handle this. He's certainly not the only one engaging in this behavior, but he makes bigger, tougher kids cry, and that's not really cool!

Elliott loves books these days - his board books and also whatever books he can pull off our shelves. Of special interest are the books he finds in my tutoring bag - The Great Gatsby and Life of Pi (which has a raised tiger on the front). He is happy to sit and look through books a lot. He also enjoys playing with blocks and wooden puzzles. I left him with a neighbor the other day and he had a great time playing with trains and Legos. Unfortunately, the previous day when the neighbor's 7-month-old son was awake and I babysat for her, Elliott spent a few cute minutes babbling at the baby and waving hi as the little guy sat in my lap, but then Elliott started trying to hit him in the head. This went on for most of the rest of the time, along with Elliott trying to climb into the baby's bouncy seat and exersaucer. Fortunately the baby only cried a tiny bit during Elliott's more lengthy tantrums. He just wanted to be held and wouldn't even let me put him in the sling. But the baby couldn't sit on his own, so it was a challenging hour and a half. I'm glad things went more smoothly when Elliott was alone with Alyssa. In fact, when I came home he just waved and said "hi" and kept walking around her living room - didn't run up to me or cling or anything. I hope eventually he will get along with her younger son. He hasn't given her 3-year-old too much trouble, though he has grabbed the boy's shirt a few times.

We didn't take music class this summer but we keep the Music Together CDs, Putumayo CDs and the fun El Doble De Amigos playing, sometimes throwing in Baby's First Steps in Spanish or French. Elliott "sings" along with the first song on the Dreamland CD ("Naima," I think) - hits the right note and vowel, claps when people clap in the music, hits some of the MT tonal patterns, sings "bob bob bob" during Red, Red Robin, points to or grabs a banana during "All the Nations Love Banana" and sings "nanana," sort of did a "meow meow" thing along with a meowing singer on "Pussycat, Pussycat Where Have You Been?" I haven't done a lot of singing regular songs with motions/finger plays/signs, but this week I started doing signs while singing "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" during diaper changes, and he LOVES it. It's the first thing that's not food that he asked for "more" with me, though neighbor Alyssa said he did it for playing trains with her. I think he will like preschool for having more interaction with other adults and exposure to different toys. I have to decide what else to do this fall to help me keep him stimulated at the right level for him. I am not interested in pushing him to "learn" stuff, but he's clearly hungry for knowledge to name his world and for predictable rituals in which he can participate. The last two days he's started to put his hand to his face and say "seep" toward the end of lunch and to wave and say bye-bye to the windows, which we usually close (or draw curtains) before we take a nap.

That's all our big news this week!

Maine in August

We had a great trip to visit Jerome, Charlotte and Lucy in Maine. Some of the highlights for Elliott were walking back and forth along the village green in Bar Harbor, splashing in the ocean (and in Long Pond and Lucy's baby pool), eating wild blueberries on the way up and down Kebo Mountain in Acadia National Park (carried on one parent's back while the other fed him), walking with just his mama (on my back) on the Great Meadow Loop, and eating all sorts of food at various restaurants, including Jordan Pond House in Acadia, and in the car. He also spent plenty of time flirting with everyone who would look at him as we roamed around town, though thankfully he also did a good bit of falling asleep in cousin Lucy's stroller and the rental car. Vacations pose nap challenges, so it's good when sleep happens on the go.

There were lots of fun times with cousin Lucy. She let him play with her toys, and on their last evening together, she taught him some fancy climbing moves. But a lot of the time we had to carefully watch our boy who, now in the phase of thinking things belong to him and only him, tends to swat at his "competitors" or, worse, bang them in the head with the object of adoration - a toy, a metal sippy cup, a plastic food container. Lucy put up with him well (as did her parents). Elliott now has 16 teeth and left a mark on both Lucy and on his own arm. I think the aunt and uncle and Grandpa Jim made it through unscathed, but Elliott does try biting with John and with me. It's pretty hard to escape when he's on my back in the Ergo and decides to gnaw on my shoulder blade!

With other people, Elliott is usually a charmer -- and still a shrieker if he's really happy (or sees a dog or child). However, if if something is taken away from him by an adult, he might throw a mini-tantrum, which is loads of fun at a restaurant. It usually doesn't last long, and he still can be distracted with something else if it's interesting enough, but the willfulness is certainly a challenge when it roars. Many times we had to just take him for a stroll outside.

He is just so pleased with himself and his ability to walk. He still ambles a little lock-kneed -- and he looks new at the sport to onlookers -- but he doesn't do much crawling at all anymore. Even if he's tired and falling a lot, he lopes along drunkenly, sometimes with equally amusing babbles. But this new walking has changed things with his need for comfort. Though he's having fun, I think the walking has left him feeling the need to touch back with the safe zone more often. In the past week, I've nursed this kid more often and in more public places that I have in months! (Side-note: Apparently we were in the Aug. 3 Washington Post in a photo from last November's nurse-in at Reagan National Airport, and I might have forgotten to mention a while back that we're pictured on p. 54 of the current issue of Mothering magazine for another nurse-in).

On the language front, Elliott is killing us with his desire for cheese and peas. He signs for both of them and asks for them out loud with this cute high-pitched question mark hanging in the air. He is clearly a fan of both foods (though the soft goat cheese we found in Maine was not what he meant - he's used to a raw goat cheddar). But he also just seems to like the sound of "dees" because that's become his "this"/"these" sort of "hey look at that/can I have some/gimme/tell me what it is" catch-all phrase he pairs with pointing. It sounds like he is catching on to "no" along with a head shake when he really doesn't want something we're offering. He clearly does pant as a sign for dogs and will mimic lots of other animal noises but doesn't do them on his own. I think sometimes he does say "mo" for "more" but doesn't consistently sign it. His babbling is still fun to listen to but the shrieks today in the airport had John asking, "Kid, do you see by echolocation?" These high-pitched barks are really ear-piercing and, though better than crying, not exactly people's favorite sound on an airplane. We think he's trying to communicate with dogs and is relating to everyone as though they speak dog language.