Blue = Thomas

I've posted many times here that Elias is completely obsessed with all things Thomas the Train, and now I have another example! He's recently started saying that everything blue is Thomas. Blue block? It's Thomas. Blue book? It's Thomas. Blue sippy? Duh, it's Thomas! And it isn't just Thomas, it's all his friends too. He'll line up 15 different blocks and assign them all names by color, corresponding to whatever color the engine is on the show! Here's an example:

Cracks me up! He came up with that all on his own, too! You may also note that after the James block, he says "Colin the Crane!" There are two crane characters on Thomas and Friends, and Elias loves building them with blocks. And in our house, they are differentiated by the fact that Cranky's top is yellow, while Colin's is purple. (Those are not their colors on the show, but that's just what Elias came up with.) So saying "Colin the Crane!" meant that he was looking for the purple block so we could build him. At least he's got a good imagination!

Parks & Recreation

We have had a great time over the summer going to the park and playing in the nice weather. I never take my camera with us, but I can take pictures on my phone. But I forgot that I've been taking pictures of Elias playing at the park this summer, and I recently just found them on my phone! So here's a random mix of Elias playing at two different parks here in our town. Now that the weather is cooling off a bit, it's perfect to go play at the park, so we're going to enjoy it while we can!!One morning when we went to the park, the playground equipment was still wet from the dew, and there were puddles on it. Elias had a great time splashing in them!

I left the end part of him walking away so you could see how wet his bottom was from sitting in the puddle before he went down the slide! Oh well. It didn't slow him down any! And what's a playground for if not to get messy and have fun?!?!

His hands-down favorite park activity is still swinging. However, this summer he also discovered the merry-go-round, which he also loves! I have tried and tried to get a good video of him laughing and enjoying it, but he always completely freezes up when he sees the camera. What a goof. This is the best I got. This was at the beginning of the summer before they oiled the merry-go-round, so try to ignore the squeaks!

You may also note that in both videos, the first thing he says when he realizes he's being filmed is "Good morning!" I have no idea why he does this. I think it must be something Justin taught him...Yeah, doesn't he look like he's having a great time on the merry-go-round. Woo hoo.

In August he got his first playground injury. Nothing major - just fell and scraped his knee on the rocks. But I had to document it for posterity's sake!

Thank You, Great-Grandma!

A couple weeks ago, we got a surprise package in the mail from my grandmother, who lives in the Chicago area. It was chock-full of clothes that are going to be great for the coming cold weather months, so I was extremely thankful! And there was one toy in it - a little flashlight shaped like a tiger... You squeeze its tail and its mouth opens, it growls, and the light comes on! Way cute, and Elias loves it! So we promptly colored a thank you card and got it in the mail, but we also made sure Elias knew who it was from, and we taught him how to say "Thank you, Great-Grandma!" Well, he apparently closely relates that phrase to the flashlight, because he often out of the blue just says "Thank you, Great-Grandma!" which means he's thinking about playing with his tiger flashlight! So we think about you a lot, Great-Grandma, and thank you continuously at our house for your generous gift! :) Here's a video of Elias playing with the flashlight and saying thank you.

Big Childhood Moment

Today Elias crossed a HUGE milestone in American childhood... He played at the McDonald's Play Place for the first time!! We had some time to kill while our car was getting an oil change, and it just so happens that our oil change place is right across the street from McDonald's! So Mommy got a Mocha Frappe and Elias played. It. Was. Great! You may remember that Elias (and the rest of us for that matter) doesn't care for McDonald's food (Frappes are excluded from this statement!!), but we certainly love the Play Place! I'm a fan because it's safe - I don't have to hover over him every minute like I do at the playground. So he can just climb around and play while I enjoy my frappe! Sweet. Literally. So here are a few pictures of my big guy having fun.When I was getting these pictures off the phone, I discovered some from earlier in the summer that I forgot to download, so I plan to get those posted this week. Stay tuned!

Tumbling

For a long time, Elias liked to bend over and put his head on the floor and look between his legs saying, "I'm upside down!" But then one day I picked up his feet and flipped him over, and he LOVED it! Upside down is no longer adequate entertainment for this guy. He wants to TUMBLE!

Now he'll often just run up and stand like that in front of us, shouting "Tumble!" between his legs. Hilarious! One problem is that he doesn't understand that you have to have adequate space to tumble... He'll run up and do that in tiny spaces where he would definitely injure himself or break something (or both) if we tried to tumble there. But we just move to a larger open area and tumble to our heart's content!

He also always likes to lay on the floor, flop his feet, and laugh after tumbling like he does in this video. I don't know why, but we always do! To me, it seems like he's going to hurt his feet kicking them on the floor that hard, but I guess if it hurt he wouldn't keep doing it!

Note: Sorry about the glare from the window in the video! I didn't realize that was there until after we already got the good shot!

Washing Hands

We have been trying for months to get Elias to learn how to wash his hands in the sink, but he had some sort of mental block with it... He was actually afraid of it! Months ago, I bought him a little step stool to be able to stand at the sink, and he screamed in terror the first few times I tried to get him to stand on it. Oooooooook, guess you're not ready. So I just put it away for a while. Then when we moved into our new house in June, I just put the stool out in his bathroom so he could get used to it being there, and eventually it just clicked. Now he suddenly loves the thing and can't get enough of standing at the sink and washing his hands!

He hasn't figured out how to actually wash them yet, but he can turn the water on and off, rub his hands together after I put soap on them, and dry them on a towel. Still struggling with getting soap and then rinsing it off. And he generally only wants to wash his right hand, so I have to force his left hand in there too. But we're definitely making progress!

We're kind of trying the same approach with the potty as with the stool. We just have his potty seat next to the toilet, and occasionally we look at it. He knows how to put it on the toilet and take it back off again. And once he even sat on it fully clothed! I was just excited he sat on it and wasn't freaked out! I'm not at all in a rush with the potty training process, so I figure slow and steady will win this race. :)

No Children Were Harmed...

... in the making of this photograph. I just thought I'd make that clear from the start because the picture below looks like something tragic might be happening! But no, it's just that I have a weird kid. And this is how he likes to nap:Doesn't that look terrible?? But about half the time that's how I'll see he has fallen asleep at naptime. He'll lay this way for about an hour, and then he usually rolls over and sleeps like a normal person. He doesn't do this at night... Maybe he puts the pillow over his face to make it dark? I just thought of that. Anyways, it was so funny I had to share!

I have a whole bunch of videos that I want to get edited to post on here, but I went ahead and posted this picture to tide you over while I try to get them done. Keep checking back, though!

St. Louis with Grandpa & Grandma

Last weekend we took a whirlwind trip to spend Labor Day weekend with Grandpa & Grandma. They drove in from Cincinnati, and we drove in from Bolivar, and we had a great time for a couple days together! We stayed in a 2-bedroom suite at a hotel, and it worked out great with our own bedrooms plus a full kitchen and living area. Elias did great, and I'm so thankful for that!

On Saturday we went to the St. Louis Children's Museum, the Magic House. It was really cool, although I think it would've been more fun if Elias was just a little bit older. We did have a good time, though, and it was fun to play together. Here is Elias going down the slide at the indoor playground:This was a set of pipes that you were supposed to flop the shoe over the mouth to hear the different tones that each one made. Elias didn't get it, but at least he tried!They had a neat water play section that Elias enjoyed. I thought it was so cool that they had the aprons you could put on to keep your kid from getting totally soaked. Of course, he got soaked anyway, but I only had to change his shirt instead of his entire outfit. Go apron!


Then on Sunday we went to the St. Louis Zoo, which is totally awesome! It's neat because it's free to get in, then you can pay extra for some special attractions. The general theme of that visit is that Elias had a lot of fun, but didn't give a hoot about the animals. Here he is playing in the toy Jeep in the middle of a huge display of reptiles and small mammals. (We said it was like Diego's Jeep that he rescues animals in, and he thought that was cool.)Here he is playing with the rocks on the ground instead of petting goats.(Note: When your child digs down below the rocks and starts playing with the "dirt" underneath, that's not dirt down there. Very glad for the hand-washing station they had outside!)
Here he is playing with his toy train instead of looking at the ring-tailed lemurs.Sigh. The one thing he, of course, really enjoyed was the zoo train. This train was really cool because there were 4 different stops around the zoo, and you could get off to look at the animals at each stop, and then get back on all for the price of one ticket. Very very cool. So here are Daddy and Elias with Grandma and Grandpa behind them. What a great picture!So I'm very thankful for the special time we were able to have with my parents. Thanks for the fun time, Mom and Dad!!! :) :) :)