{at any rate...}

That'll learn me!

Today, I fell into the trap of "Make stuff up to quiet the kid and have it come back to bite me in the rear." It was bound to happen sooner or later.

We were out in the backyard (or the "backyarg" in Elliott-speak) wiling away the hour until dinner. Elliott was following us around, begging us to find him sticks that he could toss over the fence, one of his favorite games. Then suddenly, he remembered the feather--the grubby little, mite-infested bluejay feather he'd locked his first around last week. He played with that feather for the better part of an hour, trying to push it down the slide, throwing it into the air and watching it spin, throwing it on the ground and making Mommy and Daddy search frantically for it before heart-rending screaming ensued.

Fast-forward a few days to today. Suddenly, Elliott looks up and me and asks, "Feather?"

"I don't know, Elliott."

"FEATHER?" (Blue eyes start filling with tears.) "FEATHER?"

Crap.

"Well, Elliott," I say brightly. "I bet the bird who lost that feather came back looking for it."

(Wait, look, oh, yeah, he's buying it. Uh, huh. Go mommy! Go mommy!)

Elliott seemed satisfied. 4:45 p.m. Witching Hour meltdown neatly averted.

But as I patted myself on the back, I felt a tiny pang of guilt for, well, basically, lying to the little guy. But I shook it away, thinking, "No, no...I was just anthropomorphizing. Really, it's an art form. A way to describe and explain things mysterious. Giving human qualities to non-human things. Your toys don't WANT to go with us in the car. I was using my poetic license. My English degree is not for naught.

We carried on and had dinner. The usual minor tantrum-ing ensued that involved the expected table-banging, food-scattering, and, ultimately, fork-flinging.

"Elliott!" I shrieked. "Why would you do that?? Why would you throw your fork on the floor??"

"Floor wanted it," he says, with total wide-eyed innocence.

"What?" I ask. (Nuh-uh. He did NOT just say that.)

"Floor wanted it."

I honestly didn't know how to react to that one. My first reaction was to swell with pride at his incredible creativity. Then I wondered if he could actually have been manipulating me right back by calling my bluff on that whole "bird-came-back-for-feather" thing. Or maybe I should be worried that he might actually think the floor has feelings?

I couldn't ponder for long. Elliott decided that he wanted the fork much more acutely than the floor ever could. I didn't want to completely cede control (ha!) so I bribed him to eat a couple more bites of hamburger in exchange for said fork. (And a couple more bites in exchange for a one-inch wide strip of organic ice cream sandwich.)

So, I'm not going to win any Mother of the Year Awards tonight. Ah, well. My kid can anthropomorphize and he ate more bites of red meat tonight than he has in the last six months put together. So there.

Nieka

Mama Eat Leafs?

Ken wasn't around for dinner tonight, so I "celebrated" by enjoying a huge salad. See, Ken isn't one of those salad-as-a-meal kinds of guys. Of course, he'd never complain if I served him one, but I know that no matter how much chicken and cheese and croutons I pile on, I'd still see that look that says, "Okay, that was lovely, now where's the main course??"

After serving Elliott his trayful of avocado, Banilla yogurt, and Moosewood frozen beef with macaroni, I dug into my big bowl of spicy spring greens (from a bag) and roasted chicken (Perdue Quick Cuts).

Then I noticed that I was being watched.

Elliott was watching each forkful of salad from my bowl to my mouth.

"Mama eat leafs?" he asked. "LEAFS?"

He kept repeating it, over and over, seeming more incredulous each time.

Now, this question was coming from the kid who derives great pleasure from stretching out his little arms to defoliate the leaves off every tree, flower, bush, and moss-encrusted stone wall he passes by. On buggy rides, I find myself practically sprinting past bush-lined lawns just to give the plants a fighting chance and to spare myself the joy of fishing half-chewed leaves out of Elliott's mouth. The kid seems to think the world is his personal salad bar.

And now, it seems, Elliott has discovered the bitterness of double standards.

Yes, Elliott, Mama eat leafs.

Unless it's the one you insisted on trying, dipped in Banilla yogurt, then in ketchup, masticated briefly, then held out to me, insisting, "Mama eat leaf!!"

Nope. Sorry. No can-do.

I can't wait until the next time Elliott tries to sample some fresh-caught wild leaves. I can already hear him screaming, "MAMA EAT LEAFS!!" as I try to rationalize with an almost-two-year-old.

Maybe Ken had the right idea about eschewing salad.

Nieka

Random Cutenesses

Just a couple things that have made me smile during the past couple of days...

Our other car is a Jag...
Yesterday Elliott and I took a walk up to the new condo complex to check out the progress and ogle the diggers and dumpers. Lately, whenever Elliott sees any car that looks even remotely like one of our cars, he points and says, "DADDY!" over and over until I validate that yes, in fact, that could be Daddy's car. We passed a somewhat-greenish, vaguely sedan-shaped car and Elliott started in with "Daddy." I looked at the vehicle, smirked, and said something like, "Sure, Elliott, that's Daddy's car, except Daddy drives a Ford Taurus, not a great big JAG."

The guy standing in the yard of the house in front of which said Jag was parked laughed out loud.

What a well-mannered young man you have!"
Continuing on our walk, we ended up behind a couple of slow-moving women, possibly an older lady and her grown-up daughter. After a few seconds, they must have heard the stroller wheels, and they moved aside to let us pass. They both bent down toward Elliott and said how cute he is, what beautiful eyes, etc. As if on cue, Elliott reached up and grabbed his baseball cap off his head, sort of tipped it, and placed it in his lap. The older lady--in total seriousness--exclaimed, "What a well-mannered son you have! He knows to remove his hat in the presence of a lady!"

I laughed and told her he was most likely just trying to ditch his hat on the ground.

How to win friends and influence people
We escaped the house again this morning and walked up toward Brooks Pharmacy to check out the life-sized stuffed dogs (so that Elliott can bark at them and try to feed them Cheerios) and the larger-than-life inflatable bunny decoration that pops in and out of a giant egg. As we went in, Elliott saw a nicely-dressed middle-aged man step onto the sidewalk and drop a piece of a candy wrapper. Elliott loves to drop his milk cup and food off his high chair as he smiles and proclaims "UH-OH!" As soon as that candy wrapper hit the ground, the boysie started in with "Uh-oh, uh-oh!" then added, "Trash!" one of his brand-new words. The guy looked totally embarrased and chased his wrapper a few feet up the street. Heh.

As we were leaving the store, we crossed paths with several folks wearing hats. Elliott, of course, had to let each of them know that he was wearing a "HAT!" and to point it out to them. Luckily, they were friendly folks and didn't mind being singled-out for their hattedness.

I can only imagine what will happen when Elliott learns to say "zit" or "fat" or "bald" or something equally-potentially-discomfort-making and proceeds to matter-of-factly announce his observations.

Nieka

Can ya dig it?

Elliott is obsessed with trucks.

There, I said it. My raised-by-liberal-arts-nutty-crunchy-uncalloused-handed parents has got it bad for anything that digs, mixes, dumps, chugs, hauls, or motors. Back in my knee-jerk idealist days (say, about 18 months ago), I would have fought to the death anyone who dared suggest that there's something genetic that makes boys go loco for locomotives. Now, I just take for granted that must be part of the Human Genome for approximately 50 percent of the world's population, because this obsession must be hard-wired.

How can I possibly forgive myself for espousing such blatantly rigid gender stereotypes? Simple. Ken and I couldn't care less about trucks. We're more the animal-noise type of parents. And while Elliott has a decent repertoire of quacks and snorts, his truck vocabulary is truly impressive. Elliott says, maybe, 40 words. Among them are dig, dump, wheel, mix, rock, hay, tractor, plow, trash, choo-choo, truck, car, bus, taxi, and van. And he makes one mean firetruck noise.

(Here's Elliott announcing that he's just spied a TRUCK!)

So, today Elliott and I sally forth on another great truck hunt. It's what we do here in the urban jungle. I get outside, he sees some trucks, we both survive another day of winter in New England. I knew where we were headed: there's an old, run-down brick elementary school (that borders the huge town cemetery) that's being converted into condos that start at $500k. Egads. Anyway, they've had an impressive collection of diggers, dumpers, mixers, etc. for the past couple of weeks. Plus, if I time it right, I can catch either the Downeaster train or the commuter rail. Big stuff for the Baby Bug.

We set off as usual, took a left and started to stroll on past the cemetery toward our Holy Grail, when all of a sudden, Elliott starts shrieking, DIG! DIG! DIG!

"Yes, my dear, we're going to see diggers," I said absent-mindedly.

"DIG! DIG! DIG!! DUMP-DUMP!"

I look over in the direction Elliott is frantically waving. There, in the cemetery, right in the front, is a little tiny backhoe and a pick-up-truck-sized dumper, working away digging a new grave.

I stood there for a moment, trying to figure out what to do. I mean, I've taken Elliott for walks in the cemetery plenty of times. It's quiet, peaceful, and blessedly free from the damn traffic that plagues this place. But, somehow, this seemed different. Creepy.

"DIG, MAMA!"

I looked into his pleading blue eyes and relented. We went in and sat on a little stone bench not far from the action and watched. Elliott was transfixed, watching the little digger scoop up the dirt and transfer it into the dump truck. At one point, one of the workers looked over at me and sort of shook his head, as if to ask, "Ma, what are you, nuts? Don't you people have a playdate or Gymboree or Itsy Bitsy Yoga or something wholesome and appropriate to get to?"

I just shrugged my shoulders and smiled. Watching the grave diggers was weird, yes, and I probably won't be able to get away with giving the boy that particular kind of truck fix for much longer, but it did the trick for today.

Nieka

A pig by any other color would smell as sweet...

We all want to think our kids are shining lights, right? Right. So, the other day, I sat Elliott down at his new little desk, spread out his extra-fat, guaranteed-to-be-washable crayons, and asked, "Elliott, could you draw a duck for Mommy?"

Almost without hesitation, Elliott snatched up the yellow crayon and began furiously scrubbing on the paper. My heart sang! My child knows what color a duck is! He's drawing me a duck! I conjured images of art lessons and exhibits and maybe even selling his "primitive" works to pay for his college education.

My exhaltation was fleeting, of course. A heartbeat later, Elliott picked up his rubber duck (you can see his green and yellow duckies in the corner of the picture below) and began rubbing the poor duck's bum across the paper. Color a duck for Mommy, indeed!

I decided to try a different tactic. "Elliott," I asked, "What color is a pig?"

Obligingly, Elliott hesitantly picked up the pink crayon.

"Yes, my son, YES! A pig is PINK."

A look of confusion clouded Elliott's face and he furrowed his brow. He let the pink crayon drop on the desktop and he grabbed the fat little brown crayon and held it up for my approval.

[I suppose this part of the story would be funnier if you knew that "pigs" has become our family slang for "poop," wouldn't it?]

Nieka

So, Elliott, how was your day?

I figure since no one comments, no one reads, and then people ask me (read: accuse me)WHY HAVEN'T YOU BLOGGED LATELY? So, here ya go. Are you out there? Bueller? Bueller? Throw a girl a bone. Show me some love. Pour some sugar on me. Uh, or just comment. Yeah, comment.

I've had some debates and discussions recently about whether or not kids Elliott's age (17ish months) have much in the way of memory. On the one hand, it doesn't seem like even fairly memorable events are fleeting. Take, for example, this Valentine's Day altercation with Java:

Bloody bite on his hand and not five minutes later, Elliott was shrieking "VAH-vuh," and trying to tree her on the couch. No short-term memory. None.

In a way, that was a comforting thought. I try to be The World's Best Mother 24/7, but I have my slips...the extra 15 minutes he spends sitting in a poopy diaper while I finish something, the fact that he eats a turkey and cheese sandwich for lunch six days out of seven because I just can't muster up the energy to be more creative (or to scrape it off the kitchen cabinets if he doesn't like it). It's okay, I tell myself. He won't remember.

Wrong-o.

Yesterday, the three of us were sitting around the dinner table and talking about what we'd done that day. Here's Elliott's contribution:

"Dada."
"Boop-boop."
"OFF! OFF!" [Said while touching his nose]

"Um, Nieka, is the sleep deprivation getting to you?" you might ask. Not at all. Here's what Elliott told us:

"Dada came home."
"He honked the car's horn for me."
"Then he rescued The Nose Book that had fallen off the windowsill and was stuck behind the couch."

The boy's got a memory. Three separate events, told in order, at least a half hour after they'd occurred.

Let a whole new level of anxiety commence!

Nieka

"Give a little bit..."

"Give a little bit
Give a little bit of your love to me
Give a little bit
I'll give a little bit of my love to you
There's so much that we need to share
Send a smile and show you care..."

Sing it, Supertramp!

This little ditty has been going through my head a lot lately. Elliott, it seems, is desperately in love with our tortie cat, Java. As soon as he sees her, his eyes light up and he yells, "VAH-vah" (or sometimes "BAH-vah"). Then he scans the floor for a toy or book or cracker or sippy cup or whatever object he currently holds most dear and toddles it over to thrust in the poor cat's face.

"VAH-vah, VAH-vah!" he shrieks as he foists it upon her, usually sending her springing away in a fit of fear and irritation.

Here he is presenting a cracker:

And after a singularly unsuccessful attempt at winning her love with a dump truck:

Mealtime has also become an unrequited Elliott-to-Java lovefest. Java is no dummy. She's learned that mealtime holds a major benefit for her. My lap is much scarcer these days than it used to be. When Elliott is five-point-harnessed in his highchair, it's open season on lap warming. She twizzles and twirls her way around my lap, matting down the fuzz on my pants until it's suitable for nesting. All the while, Elliott watches, fascinated. Then he picks up his sippy cup or a bite of chicken or a morsel of pear and waves in it her face, making the little "pwuh-pwuh" kissy-face noises I use to attract our cats' attention. She ignores him and he looks distraught. We try to explain to him that Java eats CAT food (or the African violets, plastic grocery bags, etc.) and not his pears, but he doesn't seem to care. He keeps offering the olive branch and she keeps rejecting him.

It's a cute but sad little tango, and there are days during which it feels as if I spend way too much time trying to keep Elliott's fingers safe from Java's fangs. This morning was no exception, but after several attempts at refereeing, I got fed up and decided it was time to let the two duke it out. Java headed for the kitchen with Elliott--truck in tow--toddling along behind her. I assume he cornered her on top of one of the kitchen chairs, but I can't be sure. All I know is that I heard a sudden and insistant, "KKKHHHHHHHH!"

I anticipated screaming, bloodletting, a panicky call to the pediatrician, a week spent in the hospital while intravenous antibiotics course through my baby's body.

But, no. Not a heartbeat later, I heard a softer, "kkkhhhhhhh." It came from Elliott. He didn't realize Java was upset, so he just talked back to her, in her language.

Awwwwww.....

So now, when we ask Elliott, "What does Java say?" he responds, "KHHHHHH," and smiles. He'll do all he can to learn to communicate with her, anything to win her heart.

[Cue guitar]

"Give a little bit
I'll give a little bit of my love to you..."

Nieka

But does he know his ass from his Elmo!

Elliott's Grandparents Varnum joined us for Christmas Eve. They hadn't seen Elliott for a couple of months, and Ken and I relished playing the proud parents, treating our son like a little trained monkey and prompting him to show off everything he's learned.

After we'd coaxed him to quack like a duck, "give us five," etc., we moved on to identifying body parts. Elliott happily obliged, demonstrating nose, eyes, mouth, hands, fingers, ears, hair, teeth, and toes with aplomb. I thought I would burst with pride. Then one of us made the fateful pronouncement, "Elliott, show us your elbow."

Without hesitation, Elliott pointed here:

Ken and I exchanged confused looks. We weren't necessarily surprised that Elliott doesn't know "elbow," but why had he so decisively pointed to his balloon?

But, of course!

Elliott was showing us his ELMO!

Somehow, without having watched a single minute of Sesame Street, Elliott has begun his slow slide down the slippery slope of cartoons and characters and seductive little critters that crawl into little kids' brains and refuse to be evicted. Elmo, you raggedy little red ball of kiddie crack, how do you do it?

Merry Christmas from Nieka, Ken, Elliott, and the other really important guy dressed in red!

Desperately seeking Santa...

The reconnaissance missions begin the day after Thanksgiving, with findings exchanged in cryptic e-mails and furtive conversations.

"Checked out Meadow Glen. Good classic outfit. Backdrop's a little cheesy, though. They do some kind of superimposed digital thing. The elf-helper guy was nice...very patient. No line at all before noon."

"Snuck by Burlington Mall. More of an old-world European sort of Santa. Nice Christmas village set-up, nothing too commercial. The line was wicked long, though. Could try getting there before the mall opens or maybe try doing lunch in the stroller while you wait..."

"Stone Zoo...sweet set-up. The nicest guy you'd ever hope to find with a gorgeous real beard. Problem is, you've got to pay to get in and schlep through the cold to get to Santa's Village in the back of the zoo...."

"Don't forget the Yankee Candle Store! Yeah, so, it's a two-hour drive one way. They have the best workshop set-up around. Totally cool display. Try to work it around naptime so the kid sleeps at least part-way there??"

I'm almost dead serious, folks.

We mommies are weird. I have a theory about our insatiable desire to track down the perfect Santa portrait. I believe that our brains have a desire to continue to be utilized to the greatest extent we've ever regularly utilized them. For me, that was in grad school, when I wrote papers about the difference betwen the "production of national identity" and the "creation of national identity" and had barstool conversations about how to reconcile cultural relativism and female genital mutilation. (Yeah, I eventually ran screaming from that path.) Anyway, now that I'm a stay-at-home mommy, my brain sometimes feels rather, well, flaccid. Underutilized. Void. So, I find myself filling up the empty spaces by memorizing the nutritional content of various child-friendly breakfast cereals, analyzing the debate about the effects of bovine growth hormone on premature sexual maturity, and conducting an almost scientific study of the very best New England has to offer in terms of The Man in Red.

The scary thing is, I'm not alone. My mommy friends are doing it, too.

Here are my two attempts at a perfect capture...

First, here's Meadow Glen Mall. Elliott screamed holy hell for a few minutes, but then calmed down enough to snap this one after Santa showed him the blinking light on Rudolph's nose:

And then there's the fateful Stone Zoo attempt. Elliott just wasn't having any of it. Screaming, real tears rolling the second I set him down. Good Ole St. Nick just smiled and said, "How 'bout a family portrait?" He asked how old Elliott was and when we said 15 months he just nodded and said, "Kids hate Santa from about a year until they're around 3."

I have to ask myself why in the heck we mommies are so hell bent on having our babies' pictures taken with Santa to begin with. They're too young to know who Santa is...they just know that they are scared to death at being handed over to a stranger. It's kind of cruel, really, intentionally frightening our children just to get a snap to present to the grandparents. We same mommies who are so hip on choosing the very best in developmentally-appropriate Melissa and Doug all-wood-from-renewable-trees purposely torment our children with something they are developmentally ill-equipped to cope with.

I'd like to think that next year I'll be a better mom, that I'll put Elliott's feelings first and won't put him through the trauma of stranger anxiety. But, I know I'll do it again next year, though. Honestly, thank goodness Santa's headed back up to the North Pole or I'd probably try for a better shot this year.

Happy Christmas to all and to all a good night!
Nieka

Out of the Mouths of Babes

(I'm back! Did you miss me?)

Take a look at this for a moment, and tell me what you see:

A pink witch's hat? A pointy, poorly-manicured fingernail? A pop-artsy pink mountaintop covered in pigeon droppings?

Of course not! As any self-respecting parent of a toddler-to-teen knows, it's Eric Carle's masterful rendering of a watermelon slice, taken from the pages of his classic The Very Hungry Caterpillar.

[Doh! Slaps forehead!] Now really, the hole should have been a dead giveaway. What else could it be besides a delectable, juicy piece of, uh, melon?

Weeellllll, come talk with Elliott about that one. Elliott is, shall we say, obsessed with The Very Hungry Caterpillar. He anticipates the moment when the caterpillar bursts from the egg and makes a great "POP!" noise to demonstrate. He loves showing off his knowledge of the caterpillar's gastronomic adventures, shrieking "APPP!" when the caterpillar eats his way through the apple, and "CHZZZZ!" when the caterpillar indulges in a bit of Swiss.

The other day, after the fourth or sixteenth, or twenty-third romp through the caterpillar's life cycle, Ken came to me and asked, "Do you have any idea why Elliott yells 'MAMA!' when we get to the part about the watermelon?"

Weird. I'd noticed the same thing the day before. I understood "AP" and "CHZZZ," but the "MAMA" thing had me baffled. I mean, when Elliott yells "DADA" when he sees a picture of a garbage truck, I can make some sense of it. After all, Daddy does drive a truck. But even when I stretched my imagination, I couldn't figure out any possible connection between Mommy and the melon.

Soooo....I sat Elliott down and read the story again. As I'd hoped, he started in with "MAMA!" as soon as he spied the bright pink triangle.

[Can anyone see where this is going yet? Can you?]

"Elliott," I said. "I don't understand. Why is that 'Mama'? Why is Mama a watermelon?"

Elliott took no time at all to answer. He reached out, yanked up my sweatshirt, and gave me a cross between a quick kiss and a little bite square on my bra-encased breast. Then he looked a bit sheepish and confused and seemed somewhat anxious to get back to the story.

I immediately e-mailed Ken a note announcing that the mystery had been solved. Our dear boy knew exactly what he was talking about. Mommy's got melons. And he remembers, more than three months after he abruptly decided that he was no longer a breast man.

I'm amused, impressed at the Boysie's ability to see creatively, and utterly, completely unnerved all at the same time.

Out of (and into?) the mouths of babes.

Cheers!
Nieka