Christmas Wish List

A few people have asked me what Elias might like for Christmas. My ideas are pretty limited, so if you have some of your own that is probably your best bet. What I do know is that Elias definitely needs some new toys.

Games - He has Memory, and he seems to like looking at the cards, etc. I got him Candyland for Christmas this year, but I know there are tons more. I thought Cooties or Elefun he might really enjoy. At Target they have these plastic boxes that look like books. I've decided this is the way to go so the boxes don't get crushed. I'm certainly ready for him to be able to play some games.

Colorforms - These are those plasticy stickers that only stick to shiny surfaces. If you could find some with a neat theme, I think he would like them. I got him a puzzle that has some of those with it, and he likes it. He still LOVES stickers.

Puzzles - I got him one of these for Christmas this year too, but he seemed to like the puzzle I got him back in October a lot, so I am hoping new ones will spark his interest again.

Teacher Books - This is what Elias calls books with real pages (not board books). We have a few (Ex. Hop on Pop), but not too many of those. They would still need to be pretty short and easy to read with not a lot of words on each page. Most of the "teacher books" we have now are too long, and he gets bored.

Name Problem Solved

Matt and I still haven't decided on a name for the new baby...until today, that is. We have a list, but don't just love anything on it. I asked Elias what we should name his new baby brother. He said, "Boy." Practical, easy to spell, pronounce and remember. Perfect!

How Rude

"Excuse me. Can I get by you?" Sounds polite and nice enough right?

Well, let me explain the situation. Elias and I went to the grocery store today, and Elias wasn't really into it. We had to get one of those gigantic carts with the cars on the front (I mean, we just HAVE to have one) which Elias gets in and out of as we stop to get things off of the shelf. Those things are enormous, have a huge turning radius, and are next to impossible to steer. The aisles are jam packed with display cases on the floor and one of those kid carts barely fits down the aisle by itself. Elias is out of the cart and not excited about getting back in. More than once people ask me, the obviously really pregnant lady, if they can squeeze by. Are you kidding me? Where am I supposed to go? I can't get Elias to get back in the cart and you trying to shove your cart past us isn't really helping. Can you give me second please?

If you get annoyed with people bringing their kids to the store, you try shopping with one of those car carts. It will give you a whole new perspective.

Holy Blog Posts, Batman!

Sorry about that.

Who is Coming Over Tonight?

I have decided that Elias doesn't really like us that much. He would much rather be at school and loves it when people come over. On the way home from school, he asked, "Who is coming over tonight?" I told him, "Sorry, no one was coming." He asked, "Is baby brother coming over tonight?" I said, "No" (and sure hoped I was right). I asked him, "When is baby brother coming?" He said, "Not until January." He assures me he is going to play with him when he arrives.

Silly Parents

The things we parents worry about. We decided we better move Elias to the guest room sooner rather than later. We wanted to give enough time between moving him out of his old room and getting that room ready for the new baby...didn't want him to feel like he got displaced by his baby brother. Well, we were a bit apprehensive about this move. Would Elias have trouble sleeping?

We had planned on doing it last weekend and did follow through even though Elias was sick. Things have gone off without a hitch (knock on wood). In fact, from the moment I mentioned Elias getting his own "Big Boy" room (a week prior to the move), he wanted to know if that night he would be in his new room. Doh. "No, not until next weekend." Needless to say, I decided I better not mention it again until we were ready to actually move his bed.

It has gone so well, I have even started setting up his old room with the baby stuff. When I asked him if baby brother could have his old room, he said yes. Now, he points to it and says, "That is baby brother's room." Now if only baby brother can get such a nice reception when he actually arrives. One can dream.

My Brave Little Man

Many weeks ago I took Elias in to get the dreaded flu shot. I explained that Elias was going to get an owie, but he would get a band-aid and a sticker. He was mostly excited to play in the room with the toys (which we didn't get to do since the nurse is the one who give out the shots). He recovered from that blow pretty well (and still asks to go to the doctor almost every time we are in the car). He sat on my lap, got big eyes when he got stuck with the needle, but was pretty excited about his band-aid. I swear that kid feels no pain.

Pretzels

Even though Elias wasn't feeling great, he and Matt made homemade pretzels last weekend. Yummy! We gobbled them up; Matt and me that is. Elias didn't want any. That kid just won't try anything new. Sigh. Maybe next time.

My Wonderful Birthday

This past Wednesday was my 34th Birthday. I got so many wonderful gifts: A body pillow to help my aching hips when I sleep, a nightgown, a folk CD, a handmade Christmas tree skirt, an excuse (and some money) to go out with Matt, and some really great cards. The best present of all was that Elias started feeling better that morning. Couldn't ask for anything more.

A Brand New Project!

During all this chaos: Jury duty on Monday, Elias being sick, waking up in the middle of the night to take care of him - I started on my new project at work. The timing really couldn't have been much worse. I survived my first week, and I feel like I'm really going to like it. I wish I was going to have a little more time to get settled in before my maternity leave, but beggars can't be choosers. I should be getting my old salary and benefits back, the people seem nice, and the work looks interesting. That is pretty good during these rough times.

Sick Again

Last weekend Elias had another cold. Unfortunately, our wonder medicine didn't work so well this time. He was pretty wheezy and super duper crabby. This is not a good combination. On Sunday afternoon he started complaining that his ear hurt. Great. Now we have to decide to either wait and get in with the doctor on Monday or go to an after hours clinic. Well, I had jury duty on Monday, so we decided to take him in on Sunday afternoon.

Normally, I suppose, this isn't a big deal. The last time we took Elias to one of these places though, we were there for hours because his oxygen level was too low. We went in for an ear infection, but had to stay for forever because of his breathing. This time we dreaded the same. Luckily we got a doctor with some experience in the matter. He admitted that they were most concerned about Elias' breathing (that the ear infection was really secondary), but he promised we wouldn't be there for hours upon hours. He pumped Elias full of medicines (tylenol for a slight fever, a steroid to help with breathing, and a double dose of nebulizer treatment, back-to-back). Once that was done, the reading of his oxygen level dropped. What?? We were worried about a repeat from last time, but luckily the doctor knew his stuff. He said that sometimes it takes the body a while to process the new oxygen that it is getting, so there is a slight drop. Not to worry. Elias looked much better and seemed to be having little to no wheezing. We went home, got more steroids to give him over the next 4 days for his breathing, more medicine for the nebulizer, and, oh yeah, some antibiotics for that ear infection. Ugh.

It was a hard few days for Elias. He was crabby, but we sent him to school anyway. He likes being at school better than at home, so we figured we might as well send him. We are paying for it either way. Each morning they said he was OK, but the afternoons were rough (one day he cried for an hour). He didn't feel like eating, and he just wasn't himself. He was waking up at night, sometimes 2 or 3 times. Double Ugh.

By this past weekend, he was pretty much back to his old self. I'm giving this medicine one more cold, and then it may be back to the specialist. Current score: New medicine = 2, Cold = 1.

Not a Budding Artist Yet

I do realize Elias is a bit young to be making predictions, but he certainly doesn't seem to possess the artist's touch when tackling art projects. He seems to prefer to color with pen (or pencil) instead of markers. He also doesn't seem to spend much time with his artwork. He does, however, seem to have an amazing vocabulary. Today he drew a curved line on a piece of paper and said it was a crescent roll. A crescent roll? When has Elias ever had a crescent roll?

Why Don't You Just Go Up to Your Room if You Want?

As a follow up to the last post, one of the other behavior problems Elias has, I also don't really understand. When he gets mad (or wants attention), he hits..don't worry, that's not the part I don't understand. Sometimes I think he hits just so he will get a time out. I'm pretty certain that he knows that if he hits, he goes into time out. Also (just to make it clear), we remind him that if he hits again, he will get a time out. It seems to me we give him plenty of attention when this is occurring as well.

So then he seems to purposefully hit, just so he can be sent to his room. What? He is in there for 2 minutes (crying for Mommy the entire time), and then when it is over he wants to be cuddled and is over the hitting. Does he just want some time alone? I keep trying to tell him if he wants to go to his room, to just go up there and please, skip the hitting part. On this issue, I guess his 2-year-old mind just doesn't get mine, and I certainly don't get his.

Do Your Kids Do This?

Elias is generally a happy guy...unless he gets downright mad, or if he is sick (which unfortunately is happening more and more these days). When this happens it has become almost comical to me because he insists on doing things, but then refuses to do them. So conversations go something like this:

Elias: "I want to unlock the car!"
Me: "OK, here are the keys."
Elias: "No, I don't want to unlock the car!"
Me: "OK, Mommy will do it."
Elias: "I want to unlock the car!"
Me: "OK, go ahead."
Elias: "No, I don't want to unlock the car!"
Repeat, over and over again (I think it could go on indefinitely)
Me: "This is your last chance if you want to unlock the car, go ahead."
Elias: "No, I don't want to unlock the car!"
Me: I unlock the car
Elias: "Waaaaaaaaaa, I wanted to unlock the car!", and he throws a giant fit until he decides to calm down (sometimes an hour later).

Knowing this is how it goes every time, we get to the giant fit much sooner since I know it is the only way to make progress. And sometimes I think it is kind of funny. I must say this is not at all what I expected Elias to do when he was upset. I guess I thought he would just demand unreasonable things, or hit (which he does do when he is mad sometimes) or something. What do your kids do when they are super crabby? Is it hard to keep a straight face?

Why?

One can ask, "Why?" pretty much forever. You learn that once you have kids. Conversations between Elias and me go something like this:

Elias: Where is the fountain? (It is a fountain that is just a stream of water that sprays out of the ground)
Me: It's not on anymore.
Elias: Why?
Me: They turned it off for the winter.
Elias: Why?
Me: So the water wouldn't freeze in it and break it.
Elias: Why?
Me: So that it can be on again next year.
Elias: Why?
Me: Because people like to see the fountain.
Elias: Why?
Me: Because fountains are nice.
Elias: Why?
Me: I don't know.

This conversation repeats again the next day when we pass the place where the fountain used to run. A little tip for those of you visiting, the only real way to get out of these never-ending conversations is to say, "I don't know."

What's That Say?

One of Elias' favorite questions: What's that say? Soon he will be able to read the blog. Hmmm...that might become problematic.

My Little Clown

We spread Halloween out this year. Mom made this great clown costume which got nothing but wonderful comments from everyone. One woman said her Mom made her a costume just like it when she was a kid. Elias wore it to music class, Target, and school. We also went trick-or-treating up in Fraser at an outdoor mall. Elias got lots of little toys and candy. Turns out he is uber addicted to candy. He started throw gigantic tantrums about it, so now the candy is "all gone". Wonder what we will do next year when he's on to us?

Pen Pals

A very special package unexpectedly arrived for Elias a few weeks back. It was from Kyra, one of the friends Elias made this year at Cumberland Folk Week in Kentucky. She "wrote" a wonderful note, drew a few pictures and sent these two cars. Elias knew who she was right when he saw her picture. We sent a package back just the other day. What fun!

The Squirrels Eat it Mommy?

One of Elias' highlights of our MT vacation was going potty on the side of the road. We put him in a pull-up for the long car rides, but he would often say he had to go potty. We certainly wanted to encourage that, so we had him go outside a handful of times. He was successful at both peeing and pooping (I think he prefers outside to most public restrooms), but wanted to know if the squirrels were going to eat his poop. Where does the kid come up with these things?

Montana

It was a trip of hiking. It wasn't ideal timing being 6 months pregnant, but luckily Matt had Elias to carry around, so we were close (or closer) to an even match. And when I say hiking, I mean hiking...and right from the start. We left a little less than 2 hours to get from the airport parking lot to our gate, and it wasn't really enough time. The security line was over 45 minutes long (my theory is the new whole body imaging machines they have), so we had to run to the gate. The doors were closed, but luckily we weren't the only ones, and they opened them up and let us on-board. Also, the flight was nearly empty, so finding seats was not an issue.

Elias got a new (used) toy flip phone from Aunt Stephanie for the trip, and he must have made at least 100 calls. I sure hope he didn't go over his minutes. I'm not sure we would have survived the trip out there without it (as the trip home was not quite as nice...the newness had work off). We flew to Spokane and drove over 3 hours to get to Lakeside, MT. Our condo was right on the lake. What a beautiful view!

The day after we arrived, we visited a local State Park and did some hiking. Elias threw rocks into the lake, one of his favorite past-times.
The following day, we made the hour drive to Glacier National Park's West side. The park was virtually empty, so we hit the hikes recommended by the Park Ranger (as did everyone else in the park that day). We started with a 2 mile hike up to Hidden Lake.

We followed a waterfall up and into the very lush, green forest. It was a nice trail.

At the lake, we ate lunch. It was a bit chilly, but overall the weather for the trip was unbelievably warm.


After our hike in the forest, we decided to walk along Going-to-the-Sun road (part of it closed to vehicles for road work) to see the Garden Wall. Along the way was this amazingly blue water surrounded by purple rocks.


Since it was a road, it was easier than our previous hike to look at the surroundings while walking. Plus, Elias could ride in the stroller. I think both Matt and I enjoyed this road "hike" the most.


A bit to our disappointment, the only wildlife we saw was on roads. We saw these calivators (their name according to Elias) while doing our road hike. We had to stop for some big horned sheep on our drive to Lakeside, deer while in Lakeside, and cows on our way to Glacier.


After probably a mile too long (we had to walk back too), we saw the Garden Wall. I think we were glad we made it that far, and the park was breathtaking all along the way.

It was a long, but rewarding day. The following day we found some playgrounds in a nearby town and took it fairly easy. We had to rest up for our next big Glacier adventure.

Since we had decided we saw as much of the West side that we could see, we headed to the East side (a much, much longer drive) on Wednesday. It was a bit of a rough trip for Elias, but we made it, and saw most of the places on our list. We walked around the Sunrift Gorge (forever known as the George by Elias), hiked to a small waterfall, and did a short jaunt to Sun Point (although it was shady and very windy).


We didn't make it to Many Glacier (where we supposedly could see bears from our car) because Elias was ready to head home. We did stop at Two Medicine on the trip back to our vacation home (Elias keeps asking, "When are we going back to vacation home?"). We had time to throw a few rocks into the Two Medicine Lake.

Glacier National Park is a beautiful place to visit, and even thought the main road was closed in the middle, we went at a great time. I can't imagine how many people would have been there during the summer.

For the rest of our trip, we found more playgrounds, visited Dairy Queen, had breakfast at a great bakery (learning that Elias likes ketchup on his pancakes...Heck, I think it is safe to say he loves ketchup, as he dipped his banana in it tonight), hiked at Bigfork, and relaxed at the condo.

Montana gets two thumbs up!