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! :)

Small Town Saturday Night

We have a new special routine on Saturday nights this summer. Elias takes his bath, gets on his jammies, and then we all sit down and watch the Lawrence Welk Show on PBS. Justin and I have always enjoyed watching it, but we have been surprised that Elias really likes it too. He loves the music and the brightly colored outfits, and he really likes the dancing! There's always at least one song in the show when audience members get up and dance. So last week during that part, I asked Elias if he wanted to dance with Mommy. Then I picked him up and we danced together, and it was so cute! I thought we'd be done when that song was over, but when the next song came on, he came over to me and said "Dance with Mommy!" So here's a video of me and Elias dancing together to the Lawrence Welk Show.

I think it is so sweet when he walks over to me with his arms up and says "Dance with Mommy!" (A brief note in my defense, I did NOT know that Justin was filming me dancing too! I figured he was zoomed in on Elias the whole time! Not that I ever dance any better than that, but I wouldn't have happily submitted to having it captured for posterity.)

So then this week when we turned Lawrence Welk on, he remembered and right away ran to me and asked to dance. My sweetie boy! And for the record, this is exactly what we'd be doing on Saturday nights even if we didn't live in a small town. :)

Vacation, Part 6: Enjoying the Lake House

Besides going out on the boat, there were other fun things to do at Nana & Granddad's house too. I think Elias' favorite of them all was riding on the golf cart that they use to haul things up and down the hill to the dock! Check out this grin!He also really enjoyed the little inflatable swimming pool that Nana had for him.
He liked it so much that we were inspired to pull ours out and inflate it when we got home!

We had thought that Elias would enjoy doing some fishing, since he really got into it the first time we went. But he just wasn't interested this time. I guess there were just too many other cool things to look at! This is the closest thing we got to Elias fishing - standing next to Daddy while he was fishing. :)So that's finally the end of all the vacation pictures. We had a great time, and we are so thankful for all of our precious family! We love and miss you all already!!!

Vacation, Part 5: Boating with the Family

Our visit in Kentucky was nice and restful, with our days spent enjoying the family and the beautiful scenery at the lake. We went out for a family boat ride, and that was fun!

The three of us enjoying the water and sunCousin Joshua driving the boat with GranddadElias was still a little shy with Granddad at this point, so he didn't want to ride on his lap to drive. He was more than willing to drive with Daddy, though!And he remembered where the button for the horn was from when we were there last summer! What a stinker!

Vacation, Part 4: Cutie Cousins

I was really pleased with how much Elias enjoyed playing with his cousins, both in Ohio and Kentucky. They're all older than he is, but they did such a good job sharing their toys with him and joining him in the things he was interested in!

Elias sometimes watched some videos of things like Wiggles and Thomas before bed. So one night when we were watching them, Patriot and Azlan joined in. How cute are these three boys all watching The Wiggles together???And here are Elias and Azlan swinging together on the double swing in Patriot & Azlan's backyard. Elias had never swung on anything like this before, but he enjoyed it and Azlan was good to not go to high!

Then in Kentucky, Cousin Joshua is really into Bob the Builder, and Elias enjoyed watching some of that with him and learning about his diggers and dump trucks. Joshua also enjoyed playing Thomas with Elias, too. One morning, we were sitting together reading one of Elias' Thomas books, and both boys just loved it! I read it over and over to them!
I'm so thankful that Elias has such great cousins that he can grow up with on both sides of the family!

Vacation, Part 3: Aquarium

The Newport Aquarium is only a short drive from where my family lives, and that was the special event we chose to do on the day when Dad was off work, so even he could come! It was fun and special to be able to share it with the whole family! When you first go in, they take a group picture that you can then purchase, and ours were so good that Mom couldn't resist buying them! (Click to enlarge.)AAAAAAAUGH! SHARK!!!!!!! :)Elias liked the tunnels where you were walking underneath the aquariums and you could watch the fish swim over and around you. Those were COOL!He got a little fussy after a while because he wanted to be able to run amok, and I wanted him to stay with us! So then we got him settled in his stroller with Cheerios and Thomas, and all was well again.
Watching a shark swim byIn the jellyfish roomThey also had a children's activity room with hands-on activities and a playground. Here are Patriot, Azlan, and Elias all playing Frogger together!They also had a room where you could actually pet some small sharks! Elias was more interested in splashing the water that was on the ledge than trying to put his arm in and feel a shark. The water was too deep for the kids to be able to reach them anyway, but I was able to pet one! I thought they'd feel smooth and rubbery like a dolphin, so I was surprised when they were slimy and velvety feeling. Cool!

So this was a special and fun day together. Thanks, family!

Vacation, Part 2: King's Island

King's Island is an amusement park in the Cincinnati area that we went to often when I was growing up. I've only been there once since I graduated college, and it was weird this time to be going back and taking my kid to ride on the rides I can remember riding with my parents when I was small! We did go to King's Island last summer when we visited, but Elias was too small to ride much, and he spent most of the day in his stroller. This year, though, he had fun and we were able to ride more.

The biggest hit, of course, was the big park train. It was a blue "steam" engine just like Thomas! We rode this first, and of course Elias loved it!

Then we went to the kiddie land and rode a helicopter ride, which he also loved. We couldn't BELIEVE how long the wait was for this ride - 30 minutes! That was rough trying to explain to a 2-year-old that the bajillion other kids in line in front of us have to ride before it's our turn. He enjoyed it, though, and I'm glad we did it. Once.

Then we met up with my sister's family, and they rode the kiddie train together. Elias loved this one so much we rode it twice! Speaking of trauma with waiting in line, though, the line wasn't long for this one - only about 5 minutes. But Elias SCREAMED in line for this one because you had to walk through a little "station" that blocked his view of the trains. He was ok as long as he could watch the train, although he was still pretty impatient to ride it, but if the trains left his line of sight, it was major trauma. What a silly boy!!!

Then it was almost time for lunch, so we went to my sister's house to eat, and Elias laid down for his nap. Justin was kind enough to volunteer to stay with Elias, and I went back to the park and met up with my mom, and we spent the afternoon together riding grown-up rides! That was fun, too! Special times with family!

Vacation, Part 1: Blueberry Picking

There is a blueberry farm (grove? patch? field? What's the right word for a place where they grow blueberries??) just down the street from my parents' house, so on Saturday morning we all went out and picked some! It was a beautiful day, and picking was fun! (It was really inexpensive, too... I would do this all the time if I lived near one!) I was blown away at how MANY blueberry bushes they had. This is only one small section where we were picking - there were at least 4 more sections of the same size.

Here is Elias watching Daddy pick.And then trying his hand with Cousin Azlan. These two were great at picking berries, but only about 1/4 of Azlan's made it into the bucket, and absolutely NONE of Elias' made it into the bucket... They all went straight into his mouth!
So as fun and tasty as that was, we weren't paying for those blueberries, so I decided it would be better for Elias to just run around while the others enjoyed picking.So we came home with lots of DELICIOUS blueberries, and we enjoyed them thoroughly! We actually only ate the last of them yesterday. YUM! What we didn't eat in Ohio we took with us when we went to Kentucky. My father-in-law used some of them to make homemade blueberry ice cream. Oh. My. Stars. It was SOOOO GOOOOOOOOOD!!!!! We sprinkled chocolate chips on top, and it was amazing. Definitely going to get that recipe!

*Side note: Instead of pointing out to you ALL the pictures where Elias is holding a Thomas toy in this vacation series, I'm going to challenge you to see if you can find any where he's NOT holding Thomas. I don't think there are going to be any, but pay attention and you might find one...*

Vacation Teaser

We just got back from a great vacation, and I'm working on getting all the pictures ready to post. In the meantime, though, I thought I'd post a little teaser. We did a family tour where we drove to Ohio and spent a week with my family, and then drove to Kentucky where we spent a few days with Justin's family. The drive from our house to my parents' house was 11 hours and Elias didn't nap at all. However, he was GREAT in the car - no meltdowns at all! He just played with his toys and read his books - I'm so thankful for such a happy child and good traveler! Here's a picture of him wearing Daddy's hat:My sweetie boy! Stay tuned for more pics of our trip...

Father's Day

For Father's Day this year, we decided to make our zoo trip an annual event, because our zoo lets in fathers free on that day! (You can click here to remember last year's trip.) It's funny because we think that Elias was even LESS interested in the animals this year than he was last year. The bongos got a slight grin out of him:And he liked the elephants:Other than that, he didn't give a hoot. He did love the misters that sprayed water to help keep us cool:And the hit of the century was the zoo TRAIN! There was a conductor who said "All aboard!" and Elias was just thrilled!He heard the whistle blow from across the zoo and had no interest in anything but finding the train. So we took a ride on the train, and he LOVED it! His eyes were wide in awe.

He looks more scared than anything in the video, but I think he was just so overwhelmed with wonder! He was clutching his Thomas toy, and he had the sweetest smile when he said "Choo, choo!" This is the closest I got to capturing it:Precious!

So we had a really special day celebrating Daddy. I am so thankful that my son has such a great Daddy, and I look forward to seeing their relationship blossom as Elias grows. I love you, babe!

New House

I finished taking pictures of everything in our new house, and I've posted them for your viewing pleasure. I made it pretty detailed for my family who might not be able to make it for a visit soon. Now you'll see everything! Just click here to go to the album where the pictures are. Click on the first picture, which will bring up a large picture of the front of the house, and you'll be able to read my caption beneath it. Then just click the "Next" button above the picture, and you'll move to the next picture in the album. I have them in order like a tour through the house. (All of the pictures have titles and captions, but sometimes they don't load, so you may need to refresh the page to see the caption...) Feel free to make comments here or in photobucket where the pictures are. :)

2-Year and Family Portraits

The moment you've all been waiting for! Here are my favorites from our recent photo shoot for Elias' 2-year pics and some new family portraits. If you're family, you can expect to be receiving a couple in the mail (or hand delivered in person!) in the next couple of weeks. :) Enjoy! You can click them to see a larger photo.