Happy St. Patrick's Day!

A favorite past time-- looking out the windows.

One of my coworkers back when I worked in Ireland sent Elliot this beautiful Ireland sweatshirt for St. Patrick's Day. Pretty neat.

After I shared my iPod Shuffle with Elliot, I had a hard time getting it back. He loves using our earphones and listening to music. Too bad his little ears are so small-- the darn things keep falling out. What a hip toddler, eh!?

Crazy Dancing Time.

Elliot started this new thing tonight of going crazy dancing in the shower. We were dying laughing.

Learning to Eat.

This makes him look like a much better eater than he is. Remember, this was significant enough to grab the camera. After 5 or so bites like this, he was done. And pasta remains the diverse aspect of his diet. Cheerios and plum babyfood are still the staples. But, I must admit, the volume he is eating is has greatly improved.

Only Red Octagon Will Do.

Almost always pulls his socks off before sleeping.

Elliot has really taken to that shapes puzzle I think I have mentioned before. Now, on walks, every stop sign is pointed out and the only acceptable response to the urging is "red octagon," not stop sign, or road sign, or any other appropriate descriptions. I stopped counting at 12 signs on our walk to the lake this afternoon.

Words are slowly coming. There's a version of hot, hat, bus, bath, socks is pretty well taken care of, and there's a kind of shesh for yes. When I feed the cats, I call the one with "Bebe... Bebe..." Elliot now echoes me with his version, "Bay-ba... Bay-ba." Quite cute. Every day it seems we find ourselves saying, "Did he just say _______?"

Another cute little thing last night... we're planning to visit my parents soon so we've been talking a lot about Grandma and Grandpa, hoping the familiarity with the titles helps him to warm up to them faster as he gets older. Just before bed yesterday, he went into his room and got out a bag we usually use when we travel. I said, "Do you want to pack for Grandma and Grandpa's?" He got all excited, and proceeded to take all of his pjs out of his basket, stuffing them into the bag. I prompted him further, and we packed some diapers, books, his nose-sucker-thingy, and then he deposited the bag by the front door. I guess we're ready to go!

Then again tonight, when I was getting more bags out to pack-- I turned around and Elliot was stuffing dirty laundry into another bag. Few things we still need to work on, obviously.

A new favorite activity is to sprint all out to the window when we hear a siren coming. Sometimes we make it in time to see, sometimes we don't. There's a firehouse a few blocks away, so a lot of the vehicles come down Woodlawn. (I have a photo of Elliot, nude, on his toes watching for a firetruck to go by from tonight when we were getting dressed after his bath. We had to drop everything and run to the window. I want to post it, but it feels strange putting any nude photos out there in cyberspace of my baby.)

Good Times.

Let's see... we're forcing the playground issue, despite the mud and slush and Elliot seems to be loving it.

It's crazy to think back to my postings about a month ago, about how crazy it was with Elliot not sleeping well and having been sick, etc. He's been an absolute doll lately (eh, do I dare risk saying that, jinxing us?!). For the past 3 or 4 days, he's been in fabulous moods, talking and making noises all day, laughing at himself, doing things to get attention for being cute (like wrapping his blanket around his head like a hood or a cape). He's also been sleeping awesome-- long, over 3-hour naps, and going to bed really well without a peep for 11-12 hours. Funny, whenever a stint like this comes along, I anticipate when the next major upset will be. We haven't had this fun and entertaining of a stretch like this ever, I think.

He's done much less of pushing our buttons like he was last week and more about discovering and being silly. For example, I was on the phone with my brother for about 30 minutes the other night and Elliot kept himself busy with stepping in and out of the shower. He'd balance a little on the small step, let his feet slip off, giggle, scoot behind the shower curtain, and laugh like it was this neat discovery when he reappeared. Over and over and over.

I always thought I was more of an infant-lover, but when the toddlers are cute, they're really cute. It's also the exponential development that you can see, the interaction, and the joy of discovery that takes place on a daily basis. Super neat.

Really, truly, I have NO IDEA what's going on here. Do I dare ask? Or, was this almost one of those days where they played too hard to bother with getting dressed? (A few days ago, Elliot woke up at 3:30pm and Pat sheepishly said, "Eh, he's still in his pjs..." as if I wouldn't have noticed (or commented for that matter!).)

I just love this one-- having to include Teddy in the reading. Elliot has started pretending, too, when prompted, and will make sure Teddy gets some milk, Cheerios, whatever he might be enjoying. He'll also pretend to read to the bear, but usually it's more getting him to sit upright on the chair while Elliot proceeds to climb on top of him.

Bathtime Elevated to a New Level.

I hope he gets into cleaning as he gets older! Insisted on carrying these around for a while. Dad's hat with the bibs made me smile!

Wearing dad's jacket.
This is a little "bonding" thing Elliot and I do- he asks for his Thomas the Train dvd here and there, but we don't typically turn it on. However, about once a week, I will give in and turn it on just before bed as a wind-down. He gets really excited... we get his Cheerios (which he sits there and eats like popcorn), his milk, and his blanket, and nuzzle into the corner of the couch. He stays focused for about 15 minutes, then he's up playing again. It's fun.

We graduated Elliot from the baby tub to the normal bathtub-- mainly because Border's had paddling bath creatures for 25 cents and there just wasn't room to see them go in the little tub. Well, let me tell you, bathtime always was a fun part of the day, but it has now been elevated to new level. (Funny part was the first night I couldn't find the darn bath toy-- I had taken it away from Elliot for throwing it when he was mad and never thought to look in the laundry pile!)

It has gotten so that now, if I even mentioned bathtime, he runs giddily to the bathroom with his arms in the air, hikes his leg up on the edge of the tub, and tries to crawl in with all his clothes on, no water in the tub yet. This, obviously, takes some explaining and results in a disappointed, whining/crying toddler. So, b-a-t-h is not mentioned before 7pm.

The first time I put Elliot in the big tub, he sat in the water and just looked up at the walls of the tub in awe, like they were 10 ft tall. Then, he realized the new parts to explore and that needed naming-- the drain and the faucet, the sea horses on the rubber mat... over and over. "Heh, heh?" = his way of asking what the name of something is. Finally, he realized the vast amount of space he now has to explore and started crawling around. There were a few slips and mouthfuls of water, but he took it in stride. The actual timing of bathtime has doubled for entertainment value (for all parties).

Bathtime is now treated as "we have an indoor pool!" and he goes nuts. He prances around on his knees, literally dives into the water, lays on his belly and kicks his legs like he's swimming. Mind you, there is about 6" of water in there. The only real way of getting him out is strictly enforcing the no-standing rule by whisking him out the minute he stands to reach for something or to experiment more.

The big plus (well, beyond us sitting there cracking up at him) is that he seems to be wearing himself out sufficiently and crashing at bedtime well lately. Excellent!

Oh, and another first today! I looked in the tub after a big session of playing and said to Pat, "What's that dark in the water... OOOOHhhhhh...." Elliot was quickly shifted to the second bathroom's shower for a rewash.

Blizzard, 2011!

We had to get out in the snow once it was navigable, if you could call it that. We bundled Elliot and headed out for a short jaunt. Amazing.

This was around 2am-- it had been blowing for several hours by then, so nothing was staying on the cars, but it was really coming down. I don't think it stopped snowing and blowing for 8 hours or so?
Keep in mind, we have a deck above us!

Windows getting snowed over.

Pedestrians were forced to use the street as their sidewalk. Really surreal, since the city is always so busy, to see so few out and no traffic.

Our car is in the middle, not as bad as those across the street, but still bad.

So, look at the top/across the street-- those white mounds are cars.

Pat's handy work! He surely sweated... said he hadn't shoveled in over a decade, and I replied that he did a decade worth of shoveling!

Got Elliot out in the backpack once it wasn't blowing anymore-- had to stop to admire Pat's work!

We are lucky that we are on a somewhat major road that got plowed. The side streets-- they were full of 2+ft of snow, no plowing.


Someone was nice enough to do the sidewalks.


Spontaneous snowball fight in the middle of a street intersection.


These are those side streets. Really. At one spot, it was apparent that someone had tried to leave, got stuck with their car caddy-corner, and left it there. Some people were shoveling themselves out, but I'm not sure where they thought they'd be able to go.


More side streets.

I have no idea when these people expect to be able to get their cars out... spring?

Look-- they're as tall as the street sign!


Amazingly deep. Pretty cool to experience this, but super grateful for those people who were out first and trailblazed!