Governors' weekend

For those of you who are local, you know it was an absolutely gorgeous weekend.  It was peak color to the day in my yard, with temperatures in the 80s.  We took advantage of it.

 

Saturday morning Elias edulged in one of his favorite things:  watching videos of himself.  He just cracks himself up!  I finally decided, rather late, to bring Elias to the Fitchburg firestation open house then proceed on to some driving around to appreciate the scenery and season.  I threw in some snacks and off we went. 

The open house was a much bigger deal than I thought.  They had lots of vehicles to climb around in, "Sparky" the mascot, balloons, food, hands-on firehose demos, and firetruck rides.  The problem was, I unwittedly had WAY overdressed Elias for the hot weather, and it was naptime, so he was unusually cranky.  I tried to leave after making the rounds, but he insisted on riding the firetruck, then proceeded to cry continuously in the long, long line (Why, but whyyy do we have to wait?).  Fortunately for everyone, we got to skip ahead after ~15min (with ~15 more to go) because we were only 2, and they needed to fill up the trucks.  He loved it...then cried again when we left (Why, wwhhyyy do we have to leave?  Why can't I ride again?  WHY?).

My hope was that he'd nap in the car.  I found another shirt for him in his diaperbag from the day before--dirty, but at least cooler--then we hit the road.  I drove maybe 4o min to Governor Dodge State Park.  He mostly entertained himself, then fell asleep after ~25 min.  It was indeed beautiful.  He woke up also and I think enjoyed the drive.  We stopped at a lake to sit and snack.  He really wanted to swim, but I had no extra clothes and didn't think skinnydipping would be welcomed by the other familes there.  I said he couldn't get wet, so kept edging right up to and a little bit in the water.  The last straw was when he stepped back, put his head down on the wet sand between his legs, and summersaulted into the lake.  Sigh.  Maybe I was asking for it.  Well, at least I had plenty of pull-ups.

Sunday morning as usual we went to church and grocery shopping which included granting his weekly request for a "white, square" doughnut.  I made sure he napped, and in so doing blissfully fell asleep myself.  Then, largely because Saturday I'd said we could play in a lake that day, we packed up again (this time with lots of extra clothes) and went to Governor Nelson State Park, nearby:  a surprisingly lightly-used, beautiful park with views of the Capitol across Lake Mendota (or "Lake Minnesota" as Elias says).  He had a great time on the playground (with refreshingly steep slides and no annoying rubber safety stuff on the ground) before having a great time playing in the lake.  I waded in up to my waist, but he was all-out gung-ho, running in and out so that he fell & went under, practicing his backfloat, chasing ducks, and just showing lots of general exuberance.  I couldn't believe we were in the lake on the 10th of October.  I think my first year here it snowed on that date.  He did start to get cold though, so I wrapped him in a towel and we sat on the edge of the grass with feet in the sand, being quiet, cuddling and gazing out across the lake.  Then, in a clear, thoughtful voice he said simply, "It is beautiful."  So true.

preach it, Brother!

I finally posted a video of Elias "reading" a Bible story to me.  He's a very dynamic orator.  He loves these Bible stories...I just wish his favorites weren't the "bad" ones:  Adam & Eve eating fruit they know they shouldn't; Jesus getting mad at the temple merchants and throwing them out; Pharoah defying God; and, the arrogant, selfish rich man, here.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZCaAmBMqtSs
It's long, but just SOO Elias.
He's showing indications of a gifted, inspired preacher (or a raving charismatic crazyman--but let's just concentrate on that other path.)

Lame catch up intro

It’s been a long time but at last I have a good blogging opportunity.  I have the first fire of the year blazing away in the fireplace with Elias snuggled up besides me, excitedly watching a Thomas the Train DVD—a rare treat at night.

...

OK, now it's 3 days later.  Don't really recall what derailed me that night.  There's been so many instances over the last month or two where Elias did something sweet or surprising or spectacular that just needed to be shared with the world, or at least recorded for our own benefit, but the access wasn't there, and I soon forgot.  Living in the moment is good, but I do wish that my memory wasn't so poor.  I can barely remember any of my life before yesterday.  I'm left with vague and sometimes strong impressions, but little detail.  I guess I'd make a terrible courtroom witness!

Let's see, reviewing my pictures I can jog loose some of the things we've done over the last couple months.  I'll separate those out in the following "bloggettes" covering various September events, AfricaFest, and his birthday.

September days

September went by so quickly! Here are some snapshots:

Discovering worms!  (after so much handling I started to feel sorry for them, and switched them out occasionally as I was planting.)  Later he came up to me with a closed fist and said "Bug, Mommy!"  When I asked to see, well, there indeed was a huge live bug.  That's my boy!  He closed his hand again and said "Ukky!  I throw bug away." and led me over to the garbage can so I could open the lid for him, he threw it away, then returned to what he'd been doing.

Sept 02 is the anniversary of Elias U.S. adoption, and Sept 11 is Ethiopian New Year.  We made cupcakes with Ethiopian colors for daycare treats and Elias wore his special celebration clothes given to him by the orphanage (they were a bit large back then!)  Entukatash 2003, everyone!

Of course, there's Farmers' Market on the Square all summer...

 

...and we had a good time visiting the Vilas Zoo...

 

...and an even better time at the new Madison Childrens Museum.  Wow; amazing place.  Elias LOVES it, and we really haven't seen it all yet.  The first day he participated in a percussion "class" for kids <5.  I was very impressed the guy could keep a large group of little kids on task and even starting and stopping in unison (well, mostly).  This coincided with the week that Elias suddenly "got rhythm," or at least, I noticed him clapping his hands with the beat on Rich Mullins CDs.  He did pretty darn well with the drums at MCM, too!

We also fit in a trip to Cheese Days down in Monroe.  We got there a little too early for a lot of the events, but at least we didn't have to wait 2.5 hrs to get some of the best cheese curds on earth.  One of these pictures is of Elias licking his curd--he doesn't really have the proper technique down yet.

Race

Late August was AfricaFest, an annual event here in Madison.  It was larger this year, and for the first time preceded by a charity race/walk, to build wells in Ethiopia.  How could we pass that up?  I opted for the 5k walk; Elias opted for the 5k ride--he sat in his stroller virtually the entire time!  We proudly came in last.  He got a medal.

My favorite things at AfricaFest were the African dancing and having real Ethiopian food.  Elias liked the dancing but wasn't crazy about injera and wat this time.  He LOVED, however, being allowed to climb around in a real police car.  The officer assured me he couldn't hurt anything in there, but he did, to her surprise, find something that he was able to turn off or mess up somehow. 

He really likes police cars and police officers.  A Madison officer is usually there after church to direct traffic.  Upon sighting him every week Elias yells "It's a police man, Mommy!  He's helping all the cars!  He's helping, Mommy!"

Devil's Lake

Elias' 3rd birthday was pretty low-key.  It fell on a Monday.  Saturday was his daycare's picnic, so that sorta took the place of a party.  I brought a cake, but ended up bringing much of it home.  Elias enjoyed repeatedly blowing out candles over the next couple days. 

Monday I took off work and we went to Devil's Lake State Park.  It was a gorgeous day in a gorgeous place.  We had a blast swimming in a lake--one of the few times I've swum in a lake, and a first for him.  The north end has a wonderful wide, even, sandy, gradual dropoff that was perfect.  Elias is fearless in water, and has been taking swim lessons, but still hasn't mastered the backfloat.  He kept walking out deeper and deeper until it went over his head and he'd cling, sputtering, onto me...and ask me to go out further.  He loved being thrown high into the air and plunging down into the water, coming up laughing and yelling, "More, Mommy, more!  Higher, Mommy!"

We enjoyed a picnic lunch and several swimming sessions.  I got perhaps my most painful sunburn ever, my whole back, although I hardly peeled.  All in all, well worth it (although, yes, I should've put sunscreen on me, too).  Elias fell deeply asleep shortly after loading him into the car, giving me the chance to stop a few times on the way home to snap some pictures of the beautiful countryside.

 

Finding God

I was very tired after dinner last night, and just collapsed on the livingroom floor, allegedly to read Elias a book (he was begging for Bible stories, per usual).  Elias was running around and crawling on me and playing with various toys for 30-second stretches:  his hyper, happy usual self.  I'd made some flashcards with index cards with numbers and easy words on them, but hadn't really used them much.  In his survey of the messy pile of books interspersed with toy vehicles, a photo albumn, and a music player he spotted the stack of cards.  He grabbed the top one and immediately read "YES!  YES, Mommy!" proudly waving it around.  Hey, that was the "yes" card.  I made a big deal of it (it IS a big deal), with that warm mommy feeling of confirmation that he's so gifted, but also glad he was happy entertaining himself and not making me read a book to him right then.  His 30 seconds up, he lost interest in the "yes" card and sifted around for something else to catch his attention.  Then he stopped as if suddenly struck with an idea, turned and told me "I find God, Mommy."  Huh?  He dropped whatever he had and went back to the pile of flashcards and started sifted through them.  There's about 30 of them.  "Where's 'God', Mommy?  I find 'God'."  He paused when he came across "Dog," silently considered it and retained it in one hand, but with the other hand continued to search through the cards, now spread across a large area.  "God, Mommy, God!" so I got up and helped him look.  Finally he found the card he was looking for, the one with "GOD" written on it.  "'GOD,' Mommy!  I found 'God'!"

the hidden engineer

I realize I've fallen seriously behind in my blog updates, so I'll try to recapture a bit of EliasWorld over the last month or so.

Perhaps it reflects God's sense of humour that He's given a nerdy, reserved scientist/engineer this exerberant, outgoing son who's showing such a literary and musical bent at such a young age.  It's wonderful to discover bit by bit how God has blessed and endowed him with talents so unlike my own, and I strive to help him flower as the person God created him to be.  Still, I'm keen to notice his achievements that are a little more up my own alley.  Thus, last month I was happy to find him building with his letter blocks, not just reading them!

Now that's a tower!  And look at that straight, solid foundation:  creativity and structural soundness!

whoa; that is one high tower.

Of course the most fun part is knocking it down afterwards!  Just like a little boy!

The Voice

Two days ago when reading his SpongeBob book to me, Elias came up with a new voice for one of the characters, Moe Blowfish.  It is a distinctive, silly voice uttered deep in the back of his throat and said with his chin in his chest and a big smile with barred teeth and deep dimples in his cheeks.  It startled me, and was very funny...and of course my laughter ensured it become a regular feature in his speech.  He uses it all the time now to say something funny.  Most commonly in the evening, he'll tuck in that chin, give me that teasing look and say in his Moe voice "I watch TV?" (knowing we only watch in the morning), then "We go outside?" (even though it's getting dark)  and laugh at the ridiculousness of it. He'll also adopt the voice with his long-running joke "Is that Mommy?" (pointing to, for example, a picture of a hippopotomus) or "Is that Elias?" (pointing to me.)

Literary genius update

It's such a delight seeing Elias' language developing so rapidly and sometimes in unexpected ways.  He now talks a lot...but, really, mostly to himself.  Well, not really to himself, since he is seeking an audience, but it's largely one-sided.  He's not much for conversation, and often clams up if asked a question.  Rather, he either narrates what he's doing at the time and/or recites passages from his books, which he seems to delight in almost as much as me reading the story to him.  He wants me to confirm--and preferably continue--the select passages, though, so it's often a challenge for me to figure out what he's reciting and remember the story.  His memory is far, far superior to mine.  I'm astounded how he can find a book that he hasn't seen for months then rattle off each page of text from memory.

This week I'm happy to report that he read at least 3 new words:  CAT, POP and...and...well, shoot, there's my memory showing again.  Regardless, it was very exciting.  I catch him trying to sound out words to himself. 

Dear friends more literary than I got him a couple books of poetry, which I wasn't excited about, but soon discovered that he loves them.  He has a preference for "good" poetry, too, not just children's rhymes.

His favorite book now is his children's Bible.  Really!  I didn't push that at all--in fact, I find that version too preachy, confusing and awkward and would like to replace it, but he loves it to the point of obsession.  He gets distressed when he looses it, and most nights insists on taking it to bed with him.  That's really wonderful, although his focus isn't where I'd have it be. When he first read about the Fall, he laughed all-out that "Eve knew God didn't want them to eat from the tree," insisted I read that part over and over, then repeated the phrase himself constantly for a day or two.  Hmm.  A similar thing happened when we read about the Exodus, where he focused on Pharaoh saying "no" to God, which for some reason he finds funny and fascinating.  Other favorites are more to my liking: the entire creation story, and Abraham counting the stars and getting the son God promised.  Just tonight I think he got the concept that you don't have to read the stories from front to back like his other books, and was flipping through to have me read the "end ones."  That came with another instant "hit" he wanted repeated 20ish times:  " 'Come and fight me!' said Goliath."  I think why he found this so funny was that at first he thought I said "come and bite me" but even with that cleared up, Goliath's battle cry is now firmly installed in my son's working vocabulary.  I'm wondering how that phrase will play out in daycare tomorrow.

Although he likes quoting others, I just love some of his own phrases.  All berries have 2 "b"s in the middle:  Strawbaberry, raspbaberry.  Thomas (the train) is still always "Thomasum" and he carries "cold" not "coal" (I think he intentionally switches those because I've corrected him on it so many times before, and now he even emphasizes the "d" on the end and fake-shivers when saying it.)  He often refers to himself in the 3rd person, as in "please tickle Elias Cook!"  When he hurts himself he'll say in a sad, drawn-out voice "Pooooor Elias..."

His pronunciation is OK (his teacher says "I love his diction!") but often I need him to repeat things to me, and even then I'm sometimes left with a mystery.  I admire my friend Sarah for her detective efforts in deciphering her daughter's speech, but sometimes I rise to the occasion too.  It's a delight figuring it out.  One example is when we were on the couch reading a book and he said "Mommy, turn on outside."  Interpretation:  open the window to let the breeze in.  Sunday we met his adoption social worker and he climbed on her lap and started telling her all sorts of things, with me translating, but I got stuck on "shoes, kaffay."  You have comfy shoes?--no.  Shoes come off?--no.  OH!  Your shoes are "cafe":  brown!  His daycare has a Spanish tutor come in once a week.  Now I have to try to figure out what he's saying in 2 languages!

energy galore

Sunday marked our 2 year home-to-America anniversary.  We went to Capital Brewery for a fundraiser for Clinic At A Time, a local charity that brings health care to Ethiopia.  I had some injera and wat, but Elias opted for a hotdog and pretzels.  I won a silent auction for 5 ceramic chickens (actually they look more like guinea hens), a little bigger than the pair I got when I was there.  There were plenty of familiar faces, but I was distracted and tired out by trying to keep tabs on Elias, who was having a grand time.  It had rained heavily before we got there, and in short order Elias had found and stomped in the biggest, muddiest puddle, then slipped and fell into it.  Upon recovering from his surprise, he decided to get his hands involved too until I made my way to him.  He must have gotten me to accompany him to the bathroom 5 times (no easy task with wet, muddy cords).  The next fun thing was finding an older boy who wanted to chase him, and they ended up running around and through everything, sometimes picking up other kids, for about 45 minutes straight (Elias escaping several times, very briefly, into the women's restroom where the older boy wouldn't follow.)  People commented on how energetic he was, in a friendly, somewhat sympathetic manner.

The entire weekend Elias was so energetic that it seemed he was on some sort of hyperactivity drug.  Even his "standing still" is him jogging in place.  Even when inside he constantly dances, climbs, and runs, often giving a running commentary "I climbing."  "I run fast!"  When I read him a story, after several minutes he'll start twisting and squirming, falling off the couch and climbing over it, even though he's very engaged in the story.  It's like he just can't keep all that energy bottled up.  It's a little disconcerting, even--I can see why some parents might give kids ridilin or other drugs to bring them down to "normal." (I think that's horrible, BTW).  Alas, rather than being contagious, his hyperactivity just seems to sap my own limited energy supply.

Busy Madison weekend

Here's some pictures from Memorial Day weekend:  so "Madison-y"!  We kicked it off with a BBQ at some friends' house where he was a bit too wild for me to relax much.  On Saturday we went to Farmers' Market on the Square, the Capitol building, and Bratfest.  I don't remember Sunday, truthfully.  On Monday we went to Wingra park where we looked at the canoes, watched people catch lots of fish from the dock, played on the playground, and had lunch at Michael's Frozen Custard.  That night we went over other friends' house where he had two other kids to run off energy with.  Whew!

pictures

Since Elias has been home sick with strep throat, I found some time to download and post some new pictures from May.  (Oddly enough, I still haven't found time to do some major needed house cleaning...)

At the zoo.  We were supposed to meet other adoptive families from my church, but we couldn't find anyone.  Oh, well; a nice day at the zoo anyway.  Elias is decidedly unimpressed by "exotic" animals, having seen and read about them just as much or more than "normal" animals.  He liked the tiger, but by the time we got to the polar bear he decided to pull out his Thomas book to keep himself entertained.

Visiting the next-door neighbors' horses.  This was one of the very rare times I've gotten him to smile for the camera, although it doesn't look like it was easily done.

At M's birthay party.  Here he's eagerly waiting for a bucket of water to fill and spill on his head.  He loves the water and takes weekly swim lessons through his daycare.

My little evangelist

Last week as I dropped Elias off at daycare Ms. M. told me a funny tale.  The class was singing "When you're happy and you know it"...clap your hands (then they all clap.)  When they got to the verse "shout hooray" Elias stood up, threw his hands in the air, and enthusiastically shouted "hallelujah!"  The teachers started cracking up laughing, so now he's got the whole class shouting "hallelujah!" for that part of the song.  No, it's not a Christian daycare, but they've got a subversive in their midst!  I myself didn't "teach" that, per se; I think he got it from an Fernando Ortega CD.  Similarly, last year when we were back home visiting he pulled a line from one of my Rich Mullins CDs, when he came up to my father, thrust his finger at his face and told him authoritatively "Jesus is calling YOU, Pappa!"  So, I'm glad I generally listen to CDs and not pop radio or news in the car with him; it's amazing what he soaks up.

I tell you, there's nothing that warms my heart more than hearing my little son singing "My God is an Awesome God."  How can it get better than that?  Today he wasn't feeling well, and asked for me to cuddle on the couch with him and read his children's Bible to him. "Mommy, cuddle?  Mommy read Bible?  MY Bible, Mommy, MINE!"  Awww...

Just pictures

Did I do it?

Silence...really?  Did I really manage to out-stubborn him?  It's been several minutes in which I haven't had to retrieve him from running around the house and the banging, playing, and talking to himself have ceased.  Am I jinxing it by writing this?

Let me remind myself how adorable he really is by posting some pictures of last weekend.

UPDATE...OK, while that was uploading, obviously-still-not-asleep Elias came in and climbed into bed with me.  I gave up, we snuggled, and he was sound asleep in 5 minutes, followed shortly by me.  What a trying day.  It's so frustrating that the myriad of important things I had planned to catch up on over the weekend were completely neglected in favor of the "simple" task of putting a toddler down for a nap.

I can't do it

This is not a happy post.  We're going on over 2 hrs now of trying to get Elias to take a nap.  He really needs one and even complained that he was "so sleepy."  Yet he won't stay in bed.  His longest stint has been about 5 minutes, and that only at first.  Now he's up the second I'm out of sight.  I'm at the end of my rope trying everything I can think of.  For the first 1.5 hr or so it was just wordlessly, emotionlessly returning him to bed.  I've also tried just locking him in there and ignoring the banging, which then turned to playing w any noisy toy he could find.  Unfortunately, he can reach the light and doornob now.  One of the best ones is locking myself in my room and feigning sleep, but he can still break in and climb on me to tell me he's awake.  He's lost his toys and our planned cookie-making session--lots of tears, but still won't stay down.  I actually counted the tears as a minor victory for me, as most of this he just views as a huge fun game.  It's infuriating.  And now rather than accomplish lots of housework while he was in bed I'm too exhasted to do anything, and myself need a nap.  Help!

I can do it

Elias' abilities are starting to catch up with his desire for independence.  On Thursday I decided to cook out, and while I tended the hamburgers and hot dogs, Elias went inside (first he's handled the screen door), moved a chair to reach the top cabinents, and got a plate for himself.  Then he got a can of corn and brought it to me to open.  Then he scooted the chair over and got to his treat basket (oops), asking I help unwrap his single choice.  All this was without my direction and conducted with purpose and confidence.  We had a lovely dinner out on the deck.

Potty training is going well.  The last 3 weeks he's been dry at daycare with just two accidents, and Thursday night he pooped in the toilet for the first time.  Yesterday I was in my room and he ran to me with no pants on yelling "I pee-pee in toilet!" Great!  Yet, when I checked out the bathroom, everything was in order, with no water or toilet paper strewn about:  suspicious.  He still was proudly yelling "I pee-pee in toilet" and wanting to call "nanna and pappa and Uncle Ryan and Larkin and Clint and Evan and Kendra and Aunt Jennifer and..." so I followed him to the downstairs bathroom.  Sure enough, there were his pants.  He had pooped in that toilet and even wiped up afterwards by himself.  Worth calling everyone to brag, yes.

Big Boy

Yesterday it seemed my little boy was suddenly so big! After 2 weeks of keeping dry at daycare, he went off to school for the first time in underwear, not diapers or pull-ups.  He chatted all morning in complete sentences.  He politely asked for some of my protein shake and cleaned up after his breakfast without my asking.  It was hard to get him to slow down enough for a picture. 

At daycare they gave me the paperwork for him to finally move up to the next room, for 2.5-3 year olds (although he'll already be 33 months).  Even though it's more expensive, I haven't complained too much about his being in the 2-2.5yr old room because the staffing ratios are better, and I really like his current teachers.  However, I was disappointed in reading the extensive classroom goals sheet of this new room--he's already mastered virtually all of them, some as much as a year ago!  It's a shame having all those teaching resources, yet a overly slow curriculum.  Maybe he'll just spend a few months there then move up when he turns 3.  His teacher also made it a point of saying how good he was doing for potty training and other classroom activities, and being so "grown up."

Last night we stayed up late for a visit with family!  Cousin J and her 3 kids (5, 3, & 1yr) drove 12+ hrs for a weekend visit!  The kids immediately got along splendidly, and were at full tilt the next 3-some hours.  Elias, E. & L. are all about the same height (with Elias substantially outweighing them), so they're quite the playgroup.  It felt like an ocean of kids, constantly swirling and crashing around us.  When Elias gets excited he tends to either twirl around my legs or run into me from a full run, which he did pretty much the whole time.  We didn't get to bed til after 11pm, but of course Elias was up ready to go again before 5am (I was able to convince him to stay put for another 1.5 hr).

C A T

Now that we're well into spring, my rule of "no getting up until it's light" is no longer working so well.  This morning Elias tried to climb into bed with me at 5:43 am.  Sure enough:  it was getting light already, and some birds were singing. Gotta update that rule... Anyway, Elias wasn't about to return to his bed and instead proclaimed "I read book."  Fine.  I rolled over to go back to sleep...but of course it was a doomed attempt.  Elias returned in about a minute with his arms full of books which he unloaded onto my bed, clambering up after them.  He set up shop and proceeded to open the first one.  I feigned sleep.  He started turning pages and identifying letters.  Then he started saying the sounds of the letters:  "C"... "A"... "T"...  I peeked.  He was pointing to the word "cat."  He stayed on that word, pointing to each letter and saying the sounds, slowly, then in quicker sequence.  "C..A..T ....C..AT ...C.A.T ...CAT!...Frog!"  Wow!  He really was reading it!  His proclaimation of "frog" at the end wasn't the sounded-out word; it was a reference to his Leapfrog video, from which he learned the sounds of the letters.  He recognizes his written name, but this was the first I've witnessed him sounding out a word for himself.

So, that was worth waking up for after all...although I still wish I could sleep in.

obsessions

Like many toddlers, Elias gets swept away with various obsessions where he just seems never to get enough of something.  Some are relatively constant (Thomas the Train), whereas others seem to wax and wane.

He's actually lessened up quite a bit with his reading obsession.  Reading a book with me is not longer the very best thing he can think of doing, at any time and for unlimited times.  He still does it more than any other kid his age I know, and we still read several books every night, but now he'd rather watch TV and sometimes play outside or with his toys.

TV...ugh.  He'd watch all day if he could.  He watches in the morning as I get ready for work, and sometimes in the evening while I make dinner.  At other times he's prone to beg insessently for it, following me around trying to get me to accept the proferred remotes (which in his eyes constitutes a binding contract that he does indeed get to watch), but if I'm consistent with limiting it to those times he's pretty good at grudgingly accepting it.  Usually it's DVDs or PBS, with a strong preference for Thomas.  The best way to wean him away without too much trauma is to turn it to a cooking or travel show.

His love of music continues. For a while he spent much of his playtime operating the simple CD player I got him, carefully choosing, inserting and playing his own CDs, always at full volume whether he was dancing to it or simply using it as "background." It only had a lifespan of a couple months before he removed one of the operating components, and very sadly for him I haven't replaced or repaired it yet.  Just before going to sleep I sing him songs.  His favorite right now is Amazing Grace, and he knows all 5 stanzas--and immedately calls me on it if I transpose words or verses!  He also especially likes Old MacDonald, There's a Hole in My Bucket, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, and Joy to the World.

He (and I) love my iTouch because of the music, but mostly the games.  It's amazing how quickly he learned to navigate around on that thing.  Sadly, due to a leaky-sippycup-in-the-diaper-bag incident, the backlight stopped working, which pretty much renders it unusable.  When he asked for it ("game? game?") and I sadly reported it was broken, he immediately ran to the other room, opened up the high drawer of the sewing table (which I didn't know he was aware of), found the screwdriver in there, and ran back to me and tried to "unscrew" the iTouch.  After all, that's how Mommy fixes Thomas the Train when his batteries run out!