Bewildered

Many of you have probably seen me posting a bit about it on Facebook, but Elias' terrible twos are in full swing, and I am just fairly bewildered. He is just Mr. Meltdown now. All. The. Time. And the bewildering part is that I rarely know exactly why he's crying. We're playing together, and suddenly he's crying. What the heck? I know a lot of it has to do with the frustration of not being able to communicate. He just can't tell me what he didn't like about the way I was playing, and so he just cries to express himself. And the rest of it is that he just doesn't understand everything. He doesn't understand why it can't always be his way. And so he cries or whines. Oh, the whining! Sooooo, we're trying to figure out exactly how to deal with this. I mean, I know this is just part of growing up. And I have a very passionate and intelligent child that I want to encourage as he blossoms. Yet he still has to learn how to handle himself properly and be a productive member of society, not to mention of our family!

So our general approach is to tell him to use words to tell us what he wants. He's getting very VERY good at asking for something and saying "please." Today I was washing dishes and asked him if he wanted to call Grandma after I was done. He ran to the phone and said "Grandma, please!" How sweet is that?? Of course, he screamed through our entire phone conversation, and I have no idea why, but that's not the point. Often, though, what he wants is something that he can't express in words or something unreasonable, like he wants to break all the crayons. Well, I understand what you want, but I'm just telling you no. Hence, meltdown.

Then, our course of action is to tell him that it's ok to be sad/disappointed/frustrated, but it's not ok to scream and cry about it. Then we put him in his room until he calms down. The point we're trying to get across is that if you want to be with other people, you need to behave civilly. If you want to scream, you're going to have to do it by yourself. It's only been a couple days we've been trying this approach, and the jury's still out on how well that's going to work. But this isn't something I expect will be solved overnight, but hopefully at some point he'll learn self control!

Soooo, I'm just putting this out there so that you all know where we are, and because I know a lot of the mamas who read my blog can relate! Feel free to comment, but only encouraging or sympathetic comments please!

And to balance it all and keep me from going insane, my pumpkin muffin also is doing some really precious stuff, and I have several videos I need to get uploaded and posted. So stay tuned for that this week!

In the meantime, here's a reminder of what his meltdown face looks like. This is the only picture I have of it right now. (It's from his birthday party when he couldn't get the frosting off of Thomas.)Yep, that's looking REEEEEEALLY familiar these days... :)

Creative Genius in the Making

As you saw in our recent favorite books post, Daddy's iPod is a great source of entertainment for our little man. Elias has always loved music, and he has several toy pianos that he likes to play at home. So Daddy downloaded a piano app onto his iPod, and Elias LOVES to play that!

I love the open-mouthed look of intense concentration he gets on his face! Makes me laugh!

Daddy also downloaded a drumming app that Elias likes even better... He cracks up at the cymbals! Hopefully I'll get a video of that for you soon!

My Rescue Pack

If any of you are my friends on Facebook, you may have seen that we started watching the show Go, Diego, Go! this week. If any of you are unfamiliar with the show, the basic premise is that Diego is an animal rescuer. Every week there is a different wild animal in some kind of danger, and Diego rescues it while learning all about the animal. Cute show - educational, bilingual (Diego is Hispanic.), interactive, and fantastic Latin music. However, I don't want this post to be about my review of the show.

In the show, Diego wears his Rescue Pack on his back. This thing is stinkin' awesome. It can turn into anything Diego needs to get through a dangerous situation safely - a boat, a raft, a bike, a wagon, a phone, a hang glider, a rope, a kayak, a skateboard, or a hot air balloon, just to name a few. So whenever Diego gets into a situation, he just tells the Rescue Pack what he needs it to be, and it turns into that. Very cool.

So right now I'm in a season of learning how to overcome some past hurts and disappointments in my life so I can move on. I was talking to a friend about it today, and she asked me to imagine myself standing on the edge of a cliff. The cliff I am on is my past dreams and plans - the things that turned out to not work the way I thought they would. Those have crumbled out from underneath me, so now I'm at the edge looking out into the chasm. Out in front of me is Plan B. It's dark and hazy out there - I have no idea what awaits. But my two choices are to either stand paralyzed on the edge of the cliff, which is where I've been for the past 6+ years, or I can let go of Plan A and jump in faith out into the unknown. She told me then to ask God "If I jump, what will You do?" So I did. And can you guess what He answered??

With a clear mental image of Diego hang-gliding off a mountain waterfall, God said to me, "I'll be your Rescue Pack." I burst out laughing and crying at the same time! What a sense of humor God has! But also how precious and tender of Him to reveal His truth to me in a way that I perfectly understand. I don't have to be afraid to let go of my past and jump out in faith into whatever God has for me, because He promises to be my Rescue Pack. He will be for me everything I need to complete my mission and arrive safely at my destination.

So I don't know what the future holds - quite possibly more hurts and disappointments. But God promises to be a safety net when I fall, a parachute to ease the descent, or He may just be my wings so I can soar!

Couch Jumper

As you know from all the other videos I've posted, Elias has an excess of energy and is never still. Never. This wears us out sometimes, and so we found a great way for Elias to get his energy out on his own... Couch jumping!

He's a pretty heavy guy, so if we ever get new furniture, we'll have to nix the couch jumping thing. In the meantime, though, we're enjoying this means of expending the energy!

Side note: Did any of you think of the Tom Cruise/Oprah incident when you read the title of this post?? I had forgotten all about it until I saw all the "related" videos on youtube that were of Tom Cruise!

"Reading"

Continuing my books post from yesterday, I thought I'd post a video of Elias "reading" another of his favorite books. Since he can't read yet, he just has us read his favorite books over and over until he memorizes them, and then he can "read" them to us! This is Catch Me, Catch Me! A Thomas the Tank Engine Story. This was a hand-me-down from his cousins, who really enjoyed this book when they were Elias' age! I've put subtitles in the video so you can tell what Elias is saying. It's 3 1/2 minutes long, but I figure at least family might want to watch it all! Enjoy!

I left the last little tidbit on the end because this is how we end EVERY book - with "I read again?" He loves to read!

Favorite Books

I am thrilled to report that Elias LOVES to read, and he's already doing great with knowing his letters and phonics. (We have Super Why to thank for most of the phonics he knows!) He's at the stage now where he has a few favorite books that he wants to read over and over and OVER AND OVER... You get the idea. So I thought I'd post a few of his current favorites.

Llama Llama Red Pajama
This is also Mommy's favorite of his books. We actually got this free from the hospital when he was born, so it's one of the first books he ever owned! There is a whole series of Llama Llama books, but this is the only one we've read yet. I LOVE it, though, because it rhymes, has adorable illustrations, and tells a VERY appropriate story for my little man at the moment. The little llama goes to bed and then throws a tantrum because he misses his mom and she doesn't come right away when he calls. Elias likes to jump around when Baby Llama jumps, and Elias will run around the room when Mama Llama comes running to her baby. My favorite part of the book is when she bursts into the room afraid there's something terribly wrong, and finding that he's fine, says:

Baby llama, what a tizzy!
Sometimes Mama's very busy.
Please stop all this llama drama
And be patient for your mama!

Little llama, don't you know
Mama Llama loves you so?
Mama Llama's always near
Even when she's not right here.

I get a little emotional sometimes at the sentiment! I want my own little llama to know that I'm always going to love him and be there for him even he doesn't see me right in front of him.

Anyways, moving on.

Thomas and Friends Railway Book Box
This is actually four books, but he loves them all, so I'm counting it as one. It includes Go, Train, Go!; Stop, Train, Stop!; A Crack in the Track!; and Blue Train, Green Train. Hard to go wrong when it's got cute stories that rhyme, board books that little hands can't destroy, and a nifty box with velcro that it's fun to open and close! Not to mention that they're all about his hero, Thomas. This was a gift from his Nana, and he loves it!


Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?
He has this one memorized and can quote it without looking at the pictures at all. He does two cute things with this book. First, there is a place where it talks about a green frog. At that point, he'll run to his toy shelf and grab the green Build-A-Bear frog that his cousins stuffed for him for Christmas last year! His favorite part of the book, though, is the end where the children are looking at the teacher. He just loves the page with all the children's faces, and he'll stare at that page. He likes to count the children. (There are nine of them. I've counted them enough times, I can attest to that!) This was another gift from Nana and Granddad - they're good at picking the hits! :)


The Princess and the Pea StoryChimes
This one kind of cracks me up, but Elias loves it! This is a book that Justin has on his iPod, and Elias loves reading it! Last night it was time to go to bed, and Elias was just wailing "Princess and the Pea! Princess and the Pea!" because he wanted to read it again. I don't know if it has anything to do with the fact that he likes the Princess Pea character on Super Why or not...


Now, Louie!
This is another iPod story, and we all just love it! It's very short, but it's SO CUTE!!!!! It's about a disobedient kitty named Louie. There are a couple of very quotable lines that Elias will walk around saying all the time, including "Louie, you maniac!" and "Ay ay ay!"

So anyways, those are just a couple of our current favorites. Justin will probably comment with some that I've forgotten... I'm just so proud of my little reader, and I want to encourage his love of books as much as I can!

Oh No! Computer

Elias has a little toy laptop computer that has all sorts of spelling, math, and music games. He can't actually play any of them, but he loves to push the buttons, and he can identify letters. He discovered, though, that the math games on this computer were his very favorite. Now, he is a genius, but he can't quite do math yet. However, when he would get a question wrong, the computer would lament with something like "Oh no!" or "Uh oh!" Elias thought this was HILARIOUS!!! So he would turn on the math game over and over again and just hit the button so that the computer would grieve his wrong answer. Here's a video of it:

Unfortunately for all of us, Elias is really rough on toy laptops, and he broke this one not long after this video was taken. Sooooooo, this is no longer a source of joy at our house. This laptop was a 25-cent yard sale find, so I'm doubting we'll be able to replace it. I might do some searching online, though, and see what I can find! In the meantime, though, hopefully it'll entertain you all!

Pumpkin Muffin

I hadn't realized it had been so long since I've posted on here! Things are going well, and I'm just busy with other things. I'm enjoying the last couple weeks of summer before Justin goes back to work!!!! We've enjoyed so much having him home this summer that I am NOT looking forward to school starting!

In the meantime, though, Elias is doing so great and turning into such a precious little boy! He's definitely not a baby anymore, and he's growing up to be Mommy's sweetheart. He is turning into an affectionate little cuddlebug, and Mommy loves that! It may just be a phase, but he's really into Mommy these days - no one else will do! He loves hugs and kisses, sitting in Mommy's lap, holding Mommy's hand, and patting Mommy's knee! You may remember that one of my nicknames for him when he was a baby was Punkinhead... Well, that seems to have evolved into Pumpkin Muffin, and I'm not even sure how that happened. But often the first thing he'll say when he sees me in the morning is "Pumpkin Muffin!" with his arms outstreched, and that means he wants a hug and a kiss from Mommy for her little Pumpkin Muffin!

He's also a silly boy, though, and he likes to tease his Mommy. He'll grab my arm and pull me close making a kissy noise, like he wants a kiss. But then when I try to give him one, he'll shake his head so I can't give him one. He calls that "teasing Mommy" and he thinks it's hilarious. Here's a video of it, although the video is really bad - I didn't realize that his kicking the table was shaking the camera. Sorry about that!

My sweet little Pumpkin Muffin!

So I'll try to do better about posting pictures, videos, and stories of my precious boy for Grandma and Nana and other fans of my little buddy! :)