{at any rate...}

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