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.
Friday, April 23, 2010
Friday, April 16, 2010
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!
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.
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!
Catch up
Today is the 2 year anniversary of Elias' (or at that time, "Ashenafi Carrie Cook's") legal adoption in Ethiopia! I think "two years already?" but in another sense it seems an entire lifetime ago. I'm planning the April Ashenafi Adoption Anniversary BBQ tomorrow to commemmorate it.
Easter was fairly uneventful. It was nice that the daffodils and other early signs of spring coincided so well this year. Elias was not very enthusiastic about easter eggs. We dyed about 2 dozen the night before. At first it was hard to keep his attention, but he warmed up to it towards the end by firmly directing which dye an egg went into, and for how long. Easter morning he pointedly refused to find or even investigate all the plastic eggs filled with candy which I "hid" around the house, despite my urging ("No egg, no egg, Mommy"), although later in the day he did drum up some enthusiasm for finding real eggs outside. A highlight for him was after he'd found them all and I let him sit and smash a few.
It seems like Elias has grown up so much since my last blog. I often identify things I want to post, but when it comes down to actually doing it, I'm just to busy or tired. People often told me that having a child will make me feel young, but I've yet to experience that--just the opposite! Come to think of it, those people tend to be childless, or have older kids which they had when they were very young themselves. Anyway, he's grown a lot taller, to 38," although hasn't gained weight since perhaps November, so lost all remnants of babyfat. Suddenly he's in all 2 or 3T clothes, and keeps growing out of his shoes. It made a big difference in his appearance when I gave up on his beautiful curls and gave him his blisfully easy buzzcut. These mealtime pictures were taken just 2 months apart:
Easter was fairly uneventful. It was nice that the daffodils and other early signs of spring coincided so well this year. Elias was not very enthusiastic about easter eggs. We dyed about 2 dozen the night before. At first it was hard to keep his attention, but he warmed up to it towards the end by firmly directing which dye an egg went into, and for how long. Easter morning he pointedly refused to find or even investigate all the plastic eggs filled with candy which I "hid" around the house, despite my urging ("No egg, no egg, Mommy"), although later in the day he did drum up some enthusiasm for finding real eggs outside. A highlight for him was after he'd found them all and I let him sit and smash a few. The most lasting impression was Elias' new-found love of chocolate. The next morning he woke up, stumbled out of bed barely awake to meet me in the hallway, and rather than his normal "Good morning, Momma!" or "I awake now" he looked up at me with a hopeful "chocolate??" Every day since then he regularly asks for chocolate--and gets some, too. Seems we haven't even dented the original stash.
Pottytraining has been slow, mainly because I haven't been pushing it. I just discovered he much prefers using the "real" toilet rather than his expensive potty & baby urinal, so I predict more rapid progress now. Yesterday was his first day of staying dry all day at daycare--yeah!
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