Eli Lately

Eli's surprising us a lot too these days. Mostly because his speech is improving and he's finally saying those crazy things that little kids say. Like "Me yes want to go temple and marry Kitty," or just when I thought he'd be bothered by a lumpy batch of cream of wheat he said "mmm, squishy rocks" but these things don't happen too often because he's still a quiet, almost serious kid, with occasional goofiness. He loves to take care of his sister, although when she's "on the crawl" he always closes the door to his room so she doesn't wreck anything. If I need to get something done I'll have him "watch" her in her room with the door closed to keep her away from the stairs. Her room is usually a disaster when I return, but the other day it wasn't. I was so appreciative. I kept saying "Eli, thanks you so much for watching Esme and not making messes so I could clean the kitchen" and he looked down at it and said "thanks for cleaning your kitchen mom." His manners are amazing these days. After two years of training he consistently says thanks for whatever meal he just ate and puts his dishes by the sink. I love it! Finally some appreciation, forced or sincere I'm not sure, after 4 years of doing everything for this kid, not that I need it, it just feels nice. His sweet words are often melting us.

His toys of choice lately? Trains, as always, and a trio of stuffed animals-rat, cat, and dog. Of course his absolute favorite "toy" is a fish his dad caught that he can splash around with in the sink. I wonder if he even sees his kitchen and play food as a toy or if he really thinks he's cooking. He loves to play lions with his dad, where they reinact some sort of Simba/Scar battle. A real treat is to do Soo Bahk (martial arts) with Brian. He takes his turn telling his dad which stretch or kick to do. He just finished a tumbling tots class that I hoped would get him ready to begin martial arts in January. Change is hard for him and I thought the class structure and physical activity would be a good warm up for the timid boy about to start Brian's loud/serious martial arts class. We better talk it up. Brian will be so sad if he refuses to do it.

And Christmas, I must talk about it. He must've inherited his excitement for Christmas from his dad who loves all the decorating and movies and songs. He's waiting patiently for the day, reminding us each day to open that day's drawer in the advent calendar. And it's not just the candy or toy that he wants, he loves the song and scripture too. Also, he's very consistent, having us sing the same two songs for nap and bed time for the past year and he just recently wished for Jingle Bells to join the mix. The other night Brian was noisily wrapping some presents and the boy came in to say we were being too loud when he spied a book. I stopped him, saying it was his Christmas present and so he chewed Brian out for leaving the presents out and ran to the closet to hide it. He's very excited for Grandma and Grandpa to come and sleep at our house for Christmas.

Learning. He has a better memory than me. I will only tell him something once or twice and its in there.  We're working on the alphabet, how to write it and the sounds the letters make and it's really teaching me patience.  For some reason the second I start he gets hyper and starts bouncing all over. I have to get him to focus, stay positive and make it fun.  So far he loves stars as a reward next to a nicely-written letter.  And I started closing my eyes while he wrote the letter because it was just too painful to watch, but turned out to be another way to make his writing lessons fun, he likes surprising me with his creation. Wish us luck. Tomorrow is D.

I imagine he will be a good student since he's very thorough with whatever he does and is reserved in his class at church. Hopefully he inherits homework habits from his dad who used to start an assignment as soon as he got it, where as I would wait until midnight the night before it was due.

Tonight we realized he's growing up when he insisted on sitting away from us with his friend Curt and got mad at Brian for kissing him in front of his friend. It better not get much worse than that.  We're pretty attached.