Trip to Maine --- Apple Picking

Sh*t Elliot Says, Pt III

Updates:

***He loves lights.  Every time he sees a light bulb he says "light."  And you have to look at it and say "that's right, light."

The day we got back from Maine was the first time he used the plural.  Hannah said, "One light, two lights," and he said "two lights."  She noticed it --- I wouldn't have.

***He has started using "mama" and "dada"  a lot.  like A LOT.  Every time he wants something, it's "Mama do it" or "Dada do it."  A favorite of mine is "No, Dada."  This phrase, of course, can be applied in a multitude of situations --- I think toddlers have a knack for finding 12-in-1 tools to get around the fact that they don't know many words.

***He still loves the moon.  Today we went to the corner bodega (at Nostrand and Maple) to buy a few things, and Elliot spied the moon.  "Moon, moon" he jabbered at me, before we crossed the threshold and it was drowned out by a hard-pounding salsa beat.

We walked back to our home, which is four houses down from the bodega.  From our front stoop the moon was hidden by the apartment building across the street.  "Moon, moon," Elliot jabbered again.

"The moon went away," I said, rather disingenuously.

"Moon moon" he repeated.

"I don't see it.  I don't see the moon.  I think the moon went away."

I thought I had the upper hand in this argument, empirical facts being in my favor.

But Elliot was not disuadeable.   "Moon moon," he continued to chant, followed by "Come Dada."

He took me by the hand and led me down the sidewalk (did I forget to mention we were already out on the sidewalk?  A stray cat had drawn us there).  "Moon moon" he said as we walked down the sidewalk.

"No, Elliot, let's just go home.  Look, there's no moon."

"One more time.  One more time."

(This is one of his most adorable phrasings, accompanied as it is by a Clintonesque waggle of the index finger.  Or sometimes the middle finger.)

"Okay okay, we'll go down by the bodega one more time."

This was no small concession on my part, holding as I was an open can of Coors Light.

"Moon moon."

"Where?  I don't see the moon."

"Moon moon."

He stared up at the night sky.  We couldn't see the moon.

"Uppa."  This accompanied by both arms raised.

I picked him up and we strode onto the wide Nostrand Ave sidewalk.

"Moon!"

"There it is!  You were right!  Good job."

"Moon!  Moon!  Moon!"

And now he will know the importance of sticking to his guns, even when his own daddy is telling him to quit and give up.

Photo Booth!

Nov 2011

Poconos Photos

 Thanks to Anna Groth-Shive for capturing these lovely moments....

Anna's Farm Trip

The weekend of Sep 8-9 (I've decided to get more specific with dates, for the sake of posterity) we went up to Anna's farm in the Poconos.

Hannah and Anna went up Friday night, and Elliot and I joined them Saturday morning.  It was threatening to be a rainy weekend, and in fact it did rain.  But that did nothing to prevent us from having a lovely time --- we went swimming, we lay on the dock in the (occasional) sun, we walked in the woods, explored the barn.  We put Elliot down for a nap, and watched the storm push sheets of water across the sky.  And I crawled into bed for a late afternoon nap.  Heaven.

NOTE:  As you can tell from the many over- and under-exposed shots, all of these were taken by me (or Hannah) with my crappy MetroPCS camera-phone (or her semi-crappy Samsung).

Anna got some absolutely gorgeous shots with the big-girl camera, as she calls it, including perhaps my favorite photo ever.  I'll post them here eventually, but I want to give her a chance to put them up on her various websites first...

Sh*t Elliot Says, Pt II

I'm guessing that these types of posts are starting to recur a little too often for your taste.  It's adorable to hear him say these things --- reading my descriptions, not so much.

But I can't resist sharing a few of the latest:

Whoa:  I say this pretty frequently, and he has grabbed onto it with both hands.  If a garbage truck rumbles past, it's Whoa.  If a schoolbus honks its horn, Whoa.  The kettle starts to whistle, Whoa.   Any kind of surprising and unknown noise.

Oh man:  This is the phrase of choice when a fork clatters off the table during dinner.  Or a blueberry rolls out of his hand during a picnic in the park.  It's the expletive for dropping stuff.

Neat:  I first heard Elliot say this and wondering where he was getting it from.  Then I started listening to myself and realized he was getting it from me.  That was kind of a tough moment.  But hey, yes, when something is neat, I call it neat.  I have yet to use "neat-o" however.  Okay, maybe once.

As I look back across this list, it occurs to me that we are raising a combination of George McFly and Joey Buttafuoco.

The Benefit of Nagging

I picked up Elliot at daycare yesterday, and we walked home.  He was pretty good, actually --- some days he dawdles to the point of frustration.  Even when I’m not in a rush it gets irritating, he constantly turns around and goes back. 

For instance, he picked up a cracked half of an acorn. He showed it to me, we wowed about it.  I explained to him about how those fall from trees.  Then he saw a little crevice in the side of the oak tree and went to stick the half-acorn in the crevice.  Sure, I thought.  He went up, stick it in there, looked to me for approval, which I gave.  Okay, let’s keep walking.  But he wanted to go back and take it out of that crevice, and show it to me.  And then put it back in.  We did that a few times, and then I insisted we keep walking.  But he kept being drawn back to it --- he would walk a few steps and then look back.

Walking down a busy Brooklyn sidewalk with Elliot is a distraction-fest.  Yesterday he wanted to go into the Laundromat, then he saw some graffiti on the side of a building and wanted to touch that; then every lock on a set of mailboxes had to be touched; a gate opened and shut a few times; doggies pointed out and approached if possible; other kids his age waved to; oddly-colored stones embedded in the sidewalk bent down and examined; pieces of trash approached to be poked (I didn’t let him get that far); the tiny holes in the side of public trash cans examined. 

And of course, throughout this process, I was the nag:  Come on, let’s keep walking, hurry up, don’t poke that, don’t pick that up, let’s go, keep walking. 

Why?  Like most parents, I value my child’s curiosity.  I want Elliot to explore and learn and understand that world around him.  So why don’t I just relax and let him do it. 

I think one of reasons has to do with brain space.  Elliot, being a 2 year-old, does not know which aspects of his surroundings are valuable to learn, and which are useless.  Undestanding how a washing machine works: useful.  Poking at trash, maybe not so useful.

But he doesn’t know that.   So he just explores whatever falls into his frame of vision. 

And my nagging is a way of saying “That’s not useful.  Don’t waste brain space learning about that empty plastic bag soaked in beer.” 

Or maybe that’s just a handy way of reframing my nagging in a positive light.  

Off to Maine

We're going to visit old friends in Portland for a few days, so I'm going to take a blogging break.  See you next week!

House House House

A reminder that a portion of my blogger's heart is now dedicated to my home renovation blog, Nostrand South.  If I'm absent here for too long, go check there....

Sh*t Elliot Says

A couple of his favorites I'd like to record for posterity:

"This One" --- An all-purpose phrase, I now realize.  You can point to a salt shaker, a sun roof, Daddy, or the backyard, and say "this one" and have yourself understood.  I've been trying to get him to say the word for whatever he wants --- but he's no dummy.  Why learn all these different words when one simple phrase gets you what you're looking for?

"One More Time" --- This one is applied frequently in the course of physical games:  rough-housing, bouncing on Mommy's leg, playing superman, dangling upside-down.  It's always one more time, there will never be enough.

Interesting discovery: the other day Elliot came up to me, climbed on my leg, and said "one more time."  Which made me realize that the "more" aspect of the phrase is not totally clear here.   To him, it just means, "let's do that fun thing."

Things That Belong to Elliot (as told to Cameron)

Banana
Orange
Stroller
Bottle
Shoes
Elephant
Tree
Chair
Grandma
Easel
Helmet
Car seat
Lake Tahoe
Hot dog
Credit card
Pants
Shirt
Swings
Prospect Park
Bag of coffee beans
Mug of steaming hot coffee
Glass of red wine
Camera
Raisin toast
Daddy
Mommy

Learning to listen again

Elliot has made me appreciate how much passes me by.

A few nights ago we were having dinner, and Elliot suddenly turned to look at me.  He was excited, mouth wide open with a breathy nnnnngh coming out  (see photo below)

I was perplexed.  What was so exciting?

And then I heard the police siren.  It was going right past our house.  And I had simply ignored it, as many of us city-dwellers do.  But not Elliot.

The same thing happens with planes going overhead.  As far as Elliot is concerned, the sound of an airplane is a reason to stop dead in your tracks and search the sky.  I find myself standing on the sidewalk, looking back at him, saying "What are you doing?  Why are you staring at the sky?"

I've learned that when Elliot does something odd or out of character, and I don't know why, the first thing I should do is listen.

Our New House

More on our new house here.

Our Month at Eleni's

Since our closing was delayed, we had to get a month-long sublet.  Yes, miserable, you're right.

But we did find a lovely little three-story house with a backyard, for the same price we'd been paying for our apartment.

I didn't take many photos, but I'll share what I got:

Our Retirement Plan

Labor Day Beach Visit

I was working Saturday and Sunday, so there was only one day we could go to the beach.  Okay, it happened to be cloudy and even a tad rainy.  But we went to the beach!

Since it was windy, we started out on the playground next to the beach, and then worked our way onto the sand...

That's Audrey (remember our trip to upstate NY last year? featuring real live llamas?)

Waverly, Rob and Elaine's daughter.

Post Delay

Super busy with house stuff (which is here if you're into that), but I'll try to get a few posts online soon.