Tickles

At what age does tickling become unfun? Elias giggles and smiles when I tickle him. He loves it. Me, not so much.

Hindman Family Folk Week

When we got back from our trip, everyone at work asked me where we went for vacation. When I told them Kentucky, they asked if we have family there. That's when it started to get hard to explain. We went to a family folk week in a podunk town (Hindman) in the Appalachian mountains. We have no relatives there per se, but we saw quite of few old friends. It was a music heavy camp where people took lessons in the afternoon and everyone did quite a bit of jamming and singing. Once I mentioned that Matt carved a spoon and there were quite a few banjos, people tended to nod and walk away singing, "Dueling Banjos" figuring they knew as much as they cared to. How do you describe the lone mandolin set up among tons of music cases?


We started our days with breakfast in a dinning hall followed by group singing. Then some days I went to a lecture, and other days I took Elias to the kids' program. The kids' program was for kids about 4 and up and would have been great if Elias had been a little older.

One lecture I heard was about a fiddle tune that has made its way into many different genres. It is the tune to the old commercials, "Beef, it's what's for dinner" (I bet some of you know it). The second lecture was about the childhoods' of some wonderful musicians, Al and Alice White. What an interesting story about a family band making it big.

The kids' program was equally fun. We played a lot of play party games, heard stories, and
sang songs. The kids also danced and played play party games for about 30 minutes just before lunch. I put Elias in his sling, and we danced too. Some of the games were a little loud, so this was not his favorite class. Most of the kids were super cute. This is Mason.


After lunch, Elias had nap time while most people took instrument lessons. The beginning guitar class was just outside our window with our good friend Elwood as the teacher. We got to hear some great music and singing. We spent most of that time on the couch in our cabin. We had a room in a 10 room cabin and shared three bathrooms with the other folks in the cabin. It was a little noisy, but relatively close to the classes. This was helpful because we had to go back to get Elias' food about every three hours and to put Elias down for naps.

At 3:00, Matt went to work on his spoon while Elias and I went to shape note singing. The teacher was this great guy named Ron (see photo below). The last class was either traditional singing (what I took) or a music jam. After dinner, there was an evening concert (about 2 hours of music) and then an hour dance. Matt and I traded off since Elias went to bed before the festivities began. The concerts were amazing. I thought I saw the best ones (Al and Alice White, Aubrey Atwater and Elwood Donnelly and the class performances) and Matt thought he saw the best ones (Brett Ratliff, Debra Thompson, Paul David Smith, Jean Ritchie, Sonny Houston, and Rich Kirby), so it all worked out. I even had a great idea to set up the baby monitor base down at the concerts, so the person at the cabin with Elias could listen to the evening performances. The reception wasn't great, but it was better than missing out entirely. Two nights I stayed up super late and went to the woodshed party for conversation and singing.


The dancing was mostly circle mixers, squares and big set. The band was outstanding although not the most organized.


There was a silent auction where we scored an awesome Thomas the Train set for only $55 (plus the $33 it cost me to have it shipped home). We got a big box of track, plus probably 15 trains. Score!

On three of the four airplane flights of the trip, we got an extra seat for Elias, so that worked out well. That last leg was a little dicey since he was worn out. Too bad we couldn't put him in the overhead bin. He fit!



All in all, we had a nice time. It was a little hard because Elias was so young. Not super relaxing, but we enjoyed some wonderful music. Now all we need is for Elias to learn to play the banjo..."neer, neer neer neer neer neer neer neer neer." Maybe next year.

Toddlers

In May, we had our yearly parent/teacher conference at the day care. Elias' teacher mentioned that they were hoping Elias would move up to Toddlers starting at the beginning of June (I think they want to free up a spot in the infant class). We were very surprised. These are the requirements to move to the next class:

Must be walking
Must take one nap a day 12-2 ish
Must nap on a mat (no cribs)
Must drink milk from an opened cup (no bottles)
Must be able to feed himself (no baby food)

In May, Elias was doing none of these. I hate to say it, but he hasn't made much progress. He walks a little bit, but prefers to crawl. They have him napping once a day on a mat, but this makes him very tired when we get home (Elias likes to sleep...takes after his Mommy). He can drink some milk from a cup. He really doesn't like much food that he can feed himself.

We are trying to teach him to use a spoon to eat baby food by himself, hoping that will do. It sure seems like mastering the spoon will take him a long while. One of the other girl's in his class (same age) already moved up. I'm wondering if another girl about 3 months younger is going to beat him too. Matt and I are feeling a bit stressed about it. The pressure is on.

Words

It seems like Elias is pretty interested in learning to talk...at least much more interested than in walking. Some words that we think he says:

bye bye
quack
whee
quilt
uh oh

The Peanut Butter Incident

About 4 or 5 weeks ago (I am a little behind with my posts), Elias started wheezing. He gets a lot of colds from the daycare and only once before had it turned into wheezing. This time just so happened to coincide with me giving him peanut butter for the first time. Matt took him to the doctor, and while she didn't think the wheezing was related to the peanut butter, she put some peanut butter on his cheek for a little test. After about 5 minutes, when she came to wipe it off, he had some hives on his cheek. That can only mean one thing, a trip to the allergist. Ughhhh.

A week or so later, I took him to see the allergist. He was still wheezing a little but at the time, so I got a lesson in the nebulizer which we continued to do at home until the wheezing cleared up (see photo). Then they pricked him to test for possible allergies (not pleasant). Turns out he is allergic to peanut butter, eggs, and dogs. Let me say that again; Elias is allergic to peanut butter, eggs and dogs. Hmmmm...this is not good for us. We are vegetarians, so eggs and peanut butter are great way to get protein, and we aren't planning on getting rid of our 11-year-old dog Sumo anytime soon. When I asked if Elias could have cooked eggs, the PA said it was probably not a good idea. I'm thinking we are going to try it anyway. Only one way to find out for sure.

On the bright side, he isn't allergic to milk or soy...two things he probably was allergic to as an infant. Let's hope he grows out of these just as quickly. Also, we got a notice from the daycare that a child had been diagnosed with bronchiolitis some weeks ago. Symptoms are...you guessed it...wheezing.

Just in case you didn't know

Grandpa Don

We had a great time with Grandpa Don! Let's start with the chores. We got the front and backyard all fixed up. He helped us put in more edging, fix the fabric in the backyard, add more wood chips, weed, fix the gutters...I highly recommend him if you need any work done.

We headed up to Breckenridge since Dad was staying there for a nice relaxing week's vacation. We went on a very snowy hike and got to try out the backpack for Elias again. He seemed to really like it and even fell asleep on the way out.


Then we went to the Country Boy Gold Mine and had a very interesting tour. We were all glad we weren't miners back in the day.

They even had a big slide that Elias and I went down. It was pretty fast. I think I liked it more than Elias did.


We had a great visit. I wonder what fun we will have next time? I've already got a list of work we can do around the house.