Nightmares

We think Eli has hit the stage where he has nightmares. He wakes in the night sometimes and yells, "No, No, No!"

Tonight, I asked him if he wanted to read the book, "There's a nightmare in my closet" by Mercer Mayer. Eli has always liked that book and thought it was funny. Tonight he said he didn't want to read it: "Too scary," he said. He also said that nightmares try to come in his room at night. I told him that only Mama, Dadda and Zula would go in his room at night. But he said, "Sometimes I hear noises and it's scary."

Eli getting bigger

Eli and I had a busy day today. We drove to Corvallis to get a few items for Baby Patxi and then we ended up at a park with a great playground. Eli loved playing in this big sandbox with his garbage truck and excavator. He was shirtless, with his cute sunhat and his baggy sweat pants on, and I thought he looked adorable -- except at the same time, I thought he looked so BIG! I wish I had a photo. But it is amazing to me how sometimes I look at him and it seems like he grew up while I blinked.

And he also said a pretty big-boy thing today. He told me he was "Daddy's son." We use the word "son" with him sometimes but he has never repeated it. Not sure if he knows what it means exactly but he still used it.

Another thing he has been saying lately is: "Daddy is my friend." When I ask him if I am is friend, he says, "NO! You are my mama!" I am kind of hurt by it, but Michael thinks it shows a lack of respect for Daddy to also be a friend. I think it means that Daddy is fun to play with!

Mowing the lawn

In keeping with Eli's desire to do everything we do, he has always wanted to help Dadda mow the lawn. That's hard because Michael is worried about Eli getting hurt. So usually Michael mows the lawn while Eli is asleep or while he sits on the steps and watches.

Today, I got Eli a little plastic lawnmower and he was SUPER excited to mow the lawn with Dadda when Dadda got home from work. Dadda made Eli stay far enough away from the big lawnmower while pushing his little one.

Eli just loved it. At dinner he told Mama, "We like to mow lawns Mama!"

Patxi and Zaza

About two weeks ago, Eli told me he had a baby in his tummy too. The baby's name? "Zaza," he answered definitively.

So today we took pictures of our babies in our tummies.

No time

Tonight, as we got our shoes on to go for a walk with Zula, Eli explained why he chose his brown slip-on shoes: "I put these on Mama. I don't have time for other shoes."

All by myself!

Eli wants to do everything by himself. I mean EVERYTHING. Sure, we want him to be a big boy and get his socks on himself, brush his teeth himself and get his shoes on before we walk out the door. But it gets a bit harder when he wants to open his car door himself (impossible, it's too heavy), buckle his own car seat (tricky maneuvers) and stir-fry bok choy in a wok splattering hot oil (obviously).

At the end of today -- a long day of "I'll do it all by myself!" -- I put him in his crib and sang him some songs. He asked for "Wheels on the Bus" and I told him I would sing him a few verses. After 3 verses, I told him goodnight.

Eli rolled over and patted my arm, "I'll sing the rest of it all by myself."

Baths

Eli and I usually take a bath together in the big bathtub upstairs. We play with his animals, boats and Playmobil people. He is usually very animated: splashing, pretending to be a whale (and squirting water from his mouth) or telling a story about what's going on with his animals in the tub. For Eli, getting clean is not the objective of his bath. And Mama has to clean him surreptitiously or I get yelled at: "Don't wash me!"

The past two baths he has been very interested in cleaning though. He wants full control of the soap and the sponge. He washes himself (or at least certain parts of himself) and wants to wash Mama's back. He scrubs and scrubs my back (it must get very dirty during the day!) and then says, "I'm washing the germs off, Mama!" I asked him how many germs there were. He said, definitively: "Five."

Getting older

Eli si very much obsessed with getting older and all of the things he will be able to do. Yesterday, he added to his list (which was "cook, drink beer, drink coffee") and he added, "Cut with sharp knife."

Hmmm.... he is definitely tallying up all of the things that he is not allowed/able to do right now :)

A special kind of fix-it man

Early this morning, Eli requested quesadillas for dinner. I love a good quesadilla as much as he does, so I obliged.

After naptime, Eli and I went downstairs to prepare dinner. He helped to grate the cheese, cut the onion and garlic, open the cans of beans, chiles and olives, and sprinkle some chili powder in our beef mixture.

When Dadda got home from work, Eli wanted to help him fry up the tortillas in the pan and add the cheese. Eli would pull a tortilla out of the bag, sprinkle cheese on it and then smash the cheese down into a flat hard surface.

Out of nowhere, Eli announced his role in the dinner-making process: "I'm the cheese fix-it man!"

He said it over and over again as he continued his job of smushing cheese into the tortillas.

Wheatland Ferry

This morning we went to Willamette Mission State Park, rode the ferry across the Willamette River, threw some sticks for Zula to chase in the river and went for a very short walk. Eli had a blast. It was his first time on the ferry. He needs to get out more.

Answer me!

Tonight at the dinner table, I was cutting strawberries and Eli was eating them as fast as I could cut them. At one point, he slowed down and asked Daddy if he wanted a strawberry. Michael was a bit overtired and didn't respond.

Eli: "Want a strawberry, Daddy?"

Michael, silent.

Eli: "Want a strawberry, Daddy?"

Michael, silent.

Eli: "ANSWER ME, Daddy!"

Extraordinary activities....

It continues to amaze me that the most mundane household chores are some of Eli's favorite things to do. He woke up this morning, saw his vacuum, and said, "Mama, let's vacuum."

Not to be one to miss an opportunity to get something done with Eli, I asked Michael if he could bring the vacuum upstairs for me. Eli and I cleaned up the bathroom. Thinking we were done with that activity, I went downstairs to make breakfast. Eli followed with his little vacuum cleaner and told Daddy, "We need to clean the living room."

When I got home from the farmer's market, the living room, dining room and kitchen were vacuumed and the kitchen floor was mopped! Now we need to get Eli his own (smaller sized) mop so he can really help. I guess mopping with an adult-sized mop was a bit of a disaster :)

When I get older

Eli likes to talk about getting older and all of the things he will be able to do when he gets older.

Today he said he wanted to drive the car home (from the store, where we got a bassinet). I told him he could drive as soon as he got a driver's license. Eli said when he got older he would drive. Then I asked him what else he would do when he got older.

He thought about it for a second, and said, "Cook. Drink beer. Drink coffee."

That's right, Eli!

While driving home from the Saturday Market yesterday, Eli pointed to the railroad crossing bars and said, "Those are for the trains."

Before Mama could say anything, Eli said, "That's right, Eli!"

Then he pointed to the street and said, "That's for cars and buses."

And again, before Mama could respond, Eli said, "That's right, Eli!"

It was funny to listen to him carry a conversation on his own, praise himself and say what Mama must say to him a lot (although Mama didn't realize it!)

What's the matter?

Sometimes the funniest things 2-year-olds say are statements adults say all the time.

Today, Eli was sitting on his chair putting his sock on. His toe got stuck and I tried to help him, but ended up pulling his entire sock off.

Mama: "Oh, I'm sorry Eli. I didn't mean to pull your sock off. I was just trying to help."

I gave him his sock back.

He looked at me, totally sweetly, and said: "What's the matter with you, Mama?"

A goat dairy

Eli went on a farm tour of Fairview Farm Dairy on Sunday. We fed baby goats, milked a mama goat and saw chickens, pigs and geese. Afterward, he was treated to two cones of goat-milk ice cream -- YUM! He loved it!

Learning to balance

This spring, Eli has been biking almost every day. He is very proud of his bike, and very interested in riding it everywhere. He puts on his helmet and rides to work (which is just around the house and back). He definitely is trying to be like his Dadda, who rides to work. A typical scenario goes like this:

Eli: "Need to ride to work Mama."

Mama: "OK honey."

Eli: "I'll come home for lunch/dinner. You make it."

We are working on having him see Michael make lunch and dinner so he doesn't grow up with gross stereotypes in his head :)

Accidents happen

When we started to seriously try to get Eli to sit on his potty, we offered him his portable DVD player and his Elmo Potty video. A big hit! He watched it multiple times and learned all the songs, including one called "Accidents Happen (and that's OK!)"

We use the phrase a lot -- for potty accidents, but also for other kinds of accidents. Like the one that happens weekly around here: spilling juice across the table.

But the other day, Eli pulled it out at exactly the right moment.

I was putting away the clean dishes from the dishwasher, Michael was at the stove finishing preparing a yummy omelet breakfast and Eli was eating some fruit in the dining room.

I put two large glass containers precariously on the top shelf of our cabinet and turned away. They (predictably) fell, landing on two glasses of orange juice on the counter. All four glass products shattered into billions of shards of glass — all over the clean dishes in the dishwasher, the sink, the omelet, the floor, the moon, etc etc.

Michael sent me in to the dining room to watch Eli, who was VERY curious about the whole event and wanted to wade barefoot through the wreakage. I sat down at the dining room table with him, and he asked me multiple times what happened.

Then he put his little hand on my arm and said, "Accidents happen, Mama. It's OK."

Instead of crying, I started laughing. Perfect timing, Eli!

Baby birds, nests and eggs

Eli is very interested in baby birds, nests and eggs right now. Michael found half of a robin's egg several days ago and gave it to Eli. Before Eli smashed it (I like to think accidentally) in his fingers, he asked all sorts of questions about it: Where is the baby bird? What kind of bird? What color is it? etc etc.

Last night in the bathtub, he told me that the loofa sponge in the bath was a bird's egg. We pretended a bird hatched from it.

Then this morning he put his blanket on my bed and said, "Look Mama. I made a nest! I'ma a baby bird." (that's the photo above!)

4 mommas and 4 (plus 1) boys!

It is getting harder and harder to get our four SJ boys to be still for a camera. Here is an attempt, and as you can tell, none of the boys are looking at the camera!