Making money

Eli likes to talk about working and making money. His job, if you ask him, is to make money out of leaves, trees and sticks.

He often can't take part in some other activity because of his work.

Earlier this month, I told him I was making a chore chart for him so he could do jobs around the house. He said, "Yeah, but I have an important job to do to make money out of trees, leaves and sticks and that is a lot of work, so I can't clean the house."

How do you argue with that?

He also uses that excuse even if the alternative is a fun activity. Today I told him that we might go to a friend's house and play in their sand box.

Eli: "OK, but when will I do my work?"

Mama: "Well, you can do it before we go or after you get back."

Eli: "Yeah but I have to work about 15 hours today and that's a lot of work. Maybe another day I can play, but today I have to get my work done."

Too bad his "work" doesn't include picking up his clothes or toys!

Conversations with Eli

One of my favorite things to do is figure out how Eli's mind works. If you have or had a 3-year-old, you know what I mean. 3-year-olds think about things very logically, carefully and literally. It is hysterical to watch that process. Here are some examples, but of course, there are thousands more that I can't remember:

Turning leaves into gold

Eli said he wanted to save his money so that he could go to Africa. This has been a theme for some time -- he wants to see lions, elephants, cheetahs and giraffes.

I told him he had to save a lot of money because it is very expensive to fly to Africa.

Eli: But how will I make money? Will I go to work with Dadda?

Mama: No. You could do things like mow people lawns or rake their leaves when you get bigger.

Eli: Yeah! I can do that!

Long pause.

Eli: Cuz why, we make money out of leaves?

Turning Ewan into a grown-up

Eli got a magnifying glass from his Grandma last month. In the bathroom one morning, he held it up to Ewan.

Mama: Oh, does Ewan look bigger?

Eli: Yes! He looks like a grownup!

A sheep joke

In the car, on our way up to the Oregon Zoo, Ewan is babbling loudly in the backseat: babababaabaababa.

Eli: We should leave baby at a farm.

Mama is about to say, "That's not very nice Eli!"

Instead Mama says: Why?

Eli: Cuz why, he is a sheep!

Animals for eating versus animals for everything else

For several weeks, Eli was very interested in categorizing animals into the ones we eat and the ones we don't eat.

Eli: Do we eat sea turtles?

Mama: No.

Eli: Oh right, cuz why we would break our teeth on their hard shells!

Shy

Eli has been going through a shy phase. When we meet new people he feels scared or nervous. Even when we are with people we know, he hides behind my legs and doesn't want to answer questions. We knew it would be hard on Eli to have so many family members in town in December because of this new phase (and we had several major tantrums as the result of overstimulation) but he seems to handle the situation pretty well, especially after a few days of adjustment. Case in point:

After feeling a little shy around his Aunt Jessica the first day, Eli and Daddy read books together upstairs. At one point, Eli stopped Daddy and said:

"Daddy?"

"Yes Eli."

"I'm getting used to shy."

Eli is 3!

I cannot believe Eli is 3.

He blows me away when he uses words like "unravel" (as in "I am unraveling these Christmas lights") and "pleased" (as in "Grandpoppins will be so pleased when they see their bed!" after helping to put on the sheets) and "recognize" (as in "Mama, help me turn my shirt around to see if Grandma can recognize what's on my shirt.)

He also tries to reason his way into anything he wants: like cookies, hot chocolate and playing during rest time. His reasoning is often very good but sometimes makes no sense at all.

He is very opinionated about what he likes and doesn't like: He told a friend's father that he didn't want to go play in the train room, he likes to build -- he is a building man!

He still has temper tantrums, sometimes very very long and raging temper tantrums.

He is sleeping in his crib-turned-toddler-bed right now but we are waiting for a twin mattress in the mail, and as soon as it comes, he will be in a big-boy bed. He still wakes up at night calling for Mama or Dadda or a glass of water but he'll go many nights without any wakings.

We had a birthday party for him earlier this month but he knew his birthday was on Dec. 22. When we went swimming at the Kroc Center in November, he saw the climbing wall. We found out that you had to be 3 to go on the climbing wall and Eli wanted to go as soon as he turned 3. We made a special trip on his birthday and he had a blast. He tells everyone how high he climbed (about as high as Mama!) and we went back to the wall 6 or 7 times to keep trying.