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.