Elias the shepherd. Look at his big grin!
Elias has been so smiley lately. I love his big toothy grin. The other night he found some of Nathan’s pants and an empty wrapping paper roll. We played shepherds. He loves doing anything silly…so putting pants on his head was quite amusing. He was running around the house laughing. I’ve been able to catch his cute smile more and more lately. Maybe he’s finally understanding what the camera is all about.
Elias loves to do everything I’m doing. He loves helping with chores. He copies me when I play with his toys. He wants to eat what I eat for breakfast and lunch. He wants to carry in the groceries. I could go on and on.
Often I get worried by how long something will take. I want to finish unloading the dishwasher quickly so that we can go play or sing songs or head out on an errand. Sometimes I make the mistake of trying to do everything myself. But then I have to get it through my thick skull…once more….that Elias has just as much fun unloading the dishwasher as playing with his toys.
So this morning I let him unload each plate…one at a time. He passed each one to me, and I put it away in the cupboard. He was so proud. He was so happy. His little smile stretched from ear to ear each time I said, “Thank you! You’re so helpful!” Then we did the cups and other miscellaneous items. (I did the silverware because I didn’t want him touching knives yet). I thought to myself as we were finishing up that it didn’t actually take much longer. I included him, I gave his contribution value. He was learning and contributing and feeling important. He was interacting with me. I just need to slow down more often and let him try new things.
Today Nathan went with my brother, Greg, to the Evergreen Aviation Museum for some bro-time. Being a pilot, Greg naturally is interested in that kind of stuff. Nathan went once before with his dad, and has wanted to go again ever since.
I was left to play with Elias, but since it was such a beautiful morning, I decided we’d go to the zoo. We hadn’t been (except for our five zoo lights trips) since November. The zoo was a lot more crowded than I had anticipated. I guess a lot of people were itching to get out and enjoy the sunshine.
We got to see the leopards up really close as well as the cheetahs! Both cheetahs actually bared their teeth at us…I don’t know if it was supposed to be a warning or a greeting…The cheetahs actually have such large, friendly eyes that it’s hard to imagine them hunting and killing. Elias had a lot of fun on our morning zoo trip. Here are some pictures with details in the captions:
One of the leopards came right up to the window and sat there grooming for a long time. The other just layed around. I liked this one...such a regal pose.
Elias enjoyed the ape house. We got to watch an orangutan make a bed for itself with blankets, and lots of the other apes were looking out at us.
Elias had this look on his face a lot of the time we were in the ape exhibits. I kept laughing because it is so funny. He was either very amazed or very scared...he liked watching them swing and climb on the fence.
One of the cheetahs...such big eyes.
When we got home, Elias immediately ran into his room, opened his sock drawer, got out a pair of socks, and put this one in his mouth. He had it in there for a good 10 minutes or so. He thought he was so funny. He kept coming up to me and making sure that I saw it...then he laughed and laughed. What a silly boy.
Last year for Easter, we got Elias a cd called 102 Bible Songs. His grandma also got him a cd of Bible songs…so we were well set. Elias has loved listening to this music since he got it, but within in the last week or so, his interest has really picked up. Every morning at breakfast, he points to the computer (which is very near to the table in our house) and says “this, this.” He refuses to eat until I turn on the music. One morning I tried turning on a different cd, and he wouldn’t rest until I changed it to play the “Bible songs.”
It is pretty cute because he even gets distressed between the songs, wanting the music to come back on. He dances as well as he can in his high chair, and sways to the music as he pops little grape chunks or cheerios into his mouth. This
Elias clapping to the music
morning, I started us with “The B-I-B-L-E”, and he was saying “bye-boh” (Bible) for a long time after that.
I like this breakfast music phase. I wonder how long it will last.
Parenting is messy. It’s messy in the obvious ways and in some not so obvious ones. First the obvious:
Parenting is messy because children are messy. Exhibit A:
Tonight for dinner Elias ate some spaghetti. You can’t see the full extent of the mess in the pictures, but you can get a good idea. He was saucy from head to toe. And he loved it! We partly let him get so messy because we are just so relieved that he is eating normal food now instead of his picky yogurt – cheerio only diet of a couple months ago. It didn’t help that all of his bibs were dirty, and he refused the makeshift clip on dish towel that I tried…so we went into the spaghetti dinner unprotected. Our poor carpet will probably never be the same either.
Besides food being messy, children are messy in their play. This is where I’ve learned many lessons in parenting so far. For example, while painting with water colors, I realized how restrictive I was being with Elias. I wanted him to keep the water color set pristine. One color at a time. That way it will stay nice for next time…right? It only took me a minute or two of him fussing to realize how dumb I was being. There I was getting frustrated saying to myself, “Why is he fussing? Painting is supposed to be fun!” Then I realized that painting is supposed to be messy! So what if he mixes the colors? There will always be more water color sets. It’s about inspiring his creativity and letting him explore his world. By trying to keep things “clean,” I was taking away from his experience.
And that made me think of so many other things that I try to control in his life so needlessly. Like the time I had a plan for where I wanted to go on a walk…so I tried to make him follow me. He got upset and I wondered why he wasn’t having fun. Duh. I was hampering his independent spirit and his exploration. I wasn’t allowing him to be curious.
Or like the countless times I’ve closed and locked the tupperware door so that he can’t make a mess with all the containers and lids. I wondered why he got upset. Tupperware is boring compared to all his toys…right? Wrong. I wasn’t allowing myself to see things from his perspective. Babies do science experiments all the time. He likes to experiment with sounds and with stacking things. He tries to spin or bounce or turn things all the time. I was hampering his inquiring mind.
All these things in the name of not being messy. But parenting is messy. Children are messy. That is the way they should be.
There is another, less obvious way that parenting is messy…parents are messy. Or maybe it’s better to say that parents are a mess. We don’t get sauce all over our faces or get paint on the chairs and tables. We don’t take all the utensils out of the drawers. But parents are a mess because we fail to truly see our children day after day after day. We are a mess because we constantly let our desires come first. We are a mess because our children have to teach us new things every day about how to love and explore and wonder and live life.
I want things to be messy in our house. It means we’re having fun and learning. It means we’re living life rather than watching it pass by.
Elias' facial expressions are so cute these days. He has just thrown the ball into the kitchen, and is now acting like he doesn't know how it got there.
We had a great Saturday here in the Smith household. The calendar square was completely empty for today, and we were glad to keep it that way!
Our morning started out nice. Elias woke up at 6:30, so I went and got him and brought him to our room. He saw his Daddy sleeping, and promptly fell back asleep until 8:00! I repeat…8:00! It was crazy to not get out of bed until the daylight! Usually we have been up for a couple of hours by then. It was especially nice for Nathan since he has been working the early shift and waking up at 4:00 on weekdays.
So what do the Smiths do on a rainy Saturday at home?
1. Play with the cats. Elias loves to pet and play with our cat, Hermione, because she tolerates him. Sometimes he also tries to sit on her…but we put a stop to that quickly! You can see Elias petting Hermione as well as putting my hair ties on her back (he also put one on her ear off camera). You can see her face….a picture tells a thousand words.
2. Bake cookies. I baked both chocolate chip and butterscotch. Quite yummy.
3. Go on a walk. It was actually sunny for a little bit today. We put Elias in the stroller so we could walk farther and enjoyed the sunshine. I don’t have a picture of this…because despite what it may seem…I do not carry the camera with me everywhere.
4. Play with the fishing puzzle. We got Elias a magnetic fishing puzzle for Christmas. At first he got quite frustrated because it was too difficult for him. Now he has practiced so much that he is a little pro. It is the first thing he plays with every morning.
Well…we played with a lot more than just the fishing puzzle…but you get the picture. We enjoyed our time together as a family very much.
Elias has been picking up new sounds every day lately. His babble has really taken a step up. But just in the last two or three days he has had a small explosion of word usage as well. He says “Mama” and “Dada” often which has been super fun for Nathan and I. It seemed like everyone we knew had their kids say those words first…I guess we aren’t as interesting as burps, balls, and kitties.
Elias has now strung a few words together at the same time:
Today during lunch Elias burped. Then he looked at me and said, “I did it burped.” It figures that one of his first words was “burped,” and now his first sentence is also about burping.
Elias also now says “cheese” and “this.” He uses “this” to indicate when he wants something.
He is so cute.
It’s not like we actually need sunglasses much this time of year. But I still keep mine handy just in case there is a sun break while I am driving or outside walking or something.
Elias likes to play with my sunglasses when he finds them. This morning I was able to snap some pretty funny photos of him playing with them. Here is my short photo story:
“What are these things really for anyway?”
“Alright. I’m lookin’ good.”
“Wait! No one told me these were girl sunglasses. Get them off!”
Toilet training is one of those things that I know I’ll have to deal with eventually….but have kind of stayed in denial about up until a week or two ago. I’m sure it will be nice not to have to change the diapers…but Elias just seems so young still. And toilet training seems pretty tricky.
Our pediatrician explained to us some cues that we will start to see when Elias is ready to be potty trained. We’ve decided to wait until we see those cues to start anything.
So anyway….today when I was playing with Elias, I said to him, “Elias, Mommy has to go potty. I’ll be right back.”
Usually he just plays until I come back or ends up following me towards the bathroom. Today after I told him what I was doing, he popped up, and before I could even stand up, he ran into the bathroom, lifted the toilet seat, and then looked up at me and smiled.
After thinking it was very cute of him to do that for me, I thought to myself: “Wow! He knows that going potty means going to the toilet.” I don’t know if he associates the word “potty” with the sensation he feels when he has to go…but I figure that this is a start. We’ve got a long road ahead of us for potty training….we haven’t even started! But I figure I better count my wins when I have them.
Now if I could just teach him to put the seat down too….I’m sure I wouldn’t be the only one to be thankful for that in the future……
Elias is growing and changing every day. He has some new favorite things to do and play with.
1. Grandpa and Grandma Bartle got Elias a cars push along toy for Christmas. I’ve shown it on this blog before. He just loves taking it on walks. Every time we get ready to go somewhere, he brings it to the door and tries to bring it along. Once he even got it out the door before we could stop him. It is very cute. Here he is as we were getting ready to go to church yesterday:
2. Elias loves to be tossed up in the air. He does a rocket blast-off with his Daddy. Last night after we got home from the symphony, my parents and Uncle Greg stayed for dinner. While my dad was helping Nathan fix one of our electrical sockets, Uncle Greg kept Elias occupied:
3. Toilet Paper. What is the appeal? Elias has been loving the toilet paper roll recently. He likes to get a long string and drag it around. After awhile he enjoys tearing it into smaller pieces or teasing the cats with it.
4. Books and Kitties. Elias loves the kitties right now. He gets really excited when he sees them or hears them, and he loves petting them as well. Here he is reading to our cat, Olive.
5. Okay, so this last one is just Elias. I called his name, and then snapped the picture as fast as I could. Here is the way his face looks when he responds to my call. He is so cute.
The Library Basement The Attic