Big Stinker

Last night, after Eli was all dressed in his jammies, we sat down together in the recliner to read a story before bed. Eli grabbed his blankie and climbed up onto my (constantly shrinking) lap...but before we even opened the book, the baby was kick-kick-kicking away at Eli, who was apparently cramping her style, or at least her legs.

Whenever Eli sits on my lap, or even right up against me, this baby seems bound and determined to make him MOVE away from me!

Eli stared down at my rapidly moving tummy, and with a bit of disdain in his voice, said, "I've been thinking. Mommy, I sure hope this baby isn't a big stinker."

I had to admit that I have been having the same thoughts. Eli's been such a good rule follower, and has really grown into a pretty responsible little 4-year old. Is there ANY chance that this next one will be the same way?

It turns out that Eli is just as fearful of finding himself stuck with a rebellious hellion of a baby sister as I am!

So I told him, "No matter what kind of person she is, she's going to change our lives..."

Luckily, Eli's headstrong and determined enough that he stuck it out and listened to the whole story...WHILE being kicked and punched the ENTIRE TIME by his "big stinker" of a (yet to be born) baby sister.

Math or Science?

Since Eli was 2 years old, he's been interested in maps and learning about where different countries are located on the globe in my classroom. Yep, he's quickly becoming my little nerd, and I love it! :) He's always asking questions about the world around him. A few months ago, he compared himself to Curious George.

"Mommy, I'm a lot like Curious George, because he wants to know all about how things work. Is that why they call him 'curious?'"

So at Christmastime I spotted a huge interactive wall map in one of the toy store ads...and decided to buy it for Eli. My husband and I decided to wait until his "new and improved big boy room" was painted and ready for him to move into before we hung up the map. (It includes country names, animals, and other landmarks that actually attach to the map...pretty cool.)

Just this past weekend, I just couldn't help but mention to Eli that we had a surprise for him once he's moved into his new room...and he seemed pretty excited, to say the least. His face lit up, and the first words out of his mouth were...(wait for it)

"Is it something Math or Science?!"

He just turned 4 in December, and he's ecstatic, just hoping that his surprise has SOMETHING to do with Math or Science. Yep, that's my boy.

This is SO Good!

So yesterday I popped Eli's wretched, stinky blankie into the washer...and forgot to put it in the dryer until it was nearly bedtime. (Yeah, that's what happens when you're pregnant, spacey, and working more than 40 hours per week.)

Thankfully, we have a "speed dry" setting on our dryer, so there was no need to despair. Eli, however, went to look at the digital timer on the dryer several times, just to see how much longer it would be before he would be reunited with his beloved blankie.

Finally, only 10 minutes past his usual bedtime, the dryer stopped and Eli ran to the laundry room alone to rescue it. My husband and I could hear him open the dryer door, rifle through the clothes, and inhale deeply the sweet smell of a freshly washed and dryed blankie. Then we hear a loud, "Ohhhh!!! This is SOOOOO good!!!" (And I am NOT someone to overuse exclamation marks. This is seriously the way he said it. No exaggeration.)

He tore out of the laundry room and ran back to me, shoving blankie into my face. "Smell it, Mommy! Oh, it's so good..." I had to try pretty hard to sound just as ecstatic as he was about that clean blankie. But I had to admit, it DID smell pretty damn good.

Sometimes it Doesn't Take Much...

In order to say thank you to my husband, who has spent several hours stripping wall paper from Eli's soon-to-be new room, we went to Red Lobster for dinner. If you know me, you KNOW that Red Lobster is one of my least favorite places to eat...so you see, this was a BIG thank you.

At the restaurant Eli devoured an entire caesar salad on his own, and then proceeded to eat a whole biscuit, 3 orange wedges, and a whole chicken tender (NOTE: he was ready for a snack when we got home). When we were getting our coats on after dinner, Eli exclaimed loudly, for all diners to hear, "I love eating at Red Lobster! That was great food that I ate!"

Sometimes it doesn't take much to make him happy...

The "Perfect Kind" of Purple

So we're expecting our second child at the end of April. The ultrasound "detected" a girl this time, and I'm pretty excited...except when I'm hungry, or exhausted, or vomiting, or crying for no reason. Yeah, that's pretty much how it is right now.

The upcoming arrival of "Zucchini," as Eli sincerely hopes to name her, is bringing about some room changes at our house. Eli will be moving out of his small/nursery-ish room and into the much larger guest room. So we're in the middle of stripping off tons of nasty wallpaper in the guest room to accomodate Eli and his strong opinions on design. In addition to this, we need to repaint Eli's current, VERY red accent wall.

I was picturing something like a soft green color for the baby's room...but Eli had other ideas. I took him with me to the paint store, since his sense of design and color is FAR more advanced than my own. Pretty sad, but seriously, he knows his stuff. The kid walked into Sherwinn-Williams, walked to the paint samples, and exclaims, "This is it! This is what I was thinking of. It's the perfect kind of purple!"

It looked REALLY purple to me...so I tried to affirm his choice while also trying to change his mind completely. I should have known better. He stuck with his choice.

I have since painted the accent wall in the nursery, where Eli still resides, since he said he didn't mind being in a room with one purple wall, as it was indeed "the perfect kind of purple." I must admit, it looks fantastic.

Now to decide on the paint color for HIS new room! Here we go again...

Bad Dream

My 4-year old kept me and my husband up pretty much ALL night last night, due to his bad dream. Yes, I understand that this is a normal part of parenthood. But I don't think he understands that it makes Mommy and Daddy complete zombies for the 24 hours following a sleepless night.

So this evening we're getting ready to head upstairs to get ready for bed, and I realize he's following me...like seriously less than 2 steps behind me, to the point that I actually stepped on the little guy when I turned around!

He finally let loose and told me that his bad dream involved the "Big Bad Wolf" saying "really horrible things that he was going to do to us." Luckily, I was ready with a (hopefully) fool-proof plan.

I had painted the first coat of paint in my son's room earlier today, as we're getting it ready to become the nursery for our next kid, due in April. So...thinking on my toes, I told him that animals, ESPECIALLY wolves, HATE the smell of fresh paint, and they will run howling the other way if they even catch a WHIFF of paint.

...And he was asleep 5 minutes later. Sometimes my level of Mommy genius surprises even myself.

Apple Corn

Ok, so first off, I have to let it be known that Eli is sleeping in his "big boy bed" for the first time tonight. Thanks to the video monitor, I can tell you that he is sleeping peacefully (so far), with his hands stretched out far above his head.

And now for the official "slice."

This morning Eli was eating an apple, just crunching off hearty bites while holding the apple in a death grip with not one but two hands. He loves it that I don't always have to slice his apple up for him anymore...and I like the fact that he's eating the skin, since it's good for him, UNLESS you read health articles that are now warning parents against allowing kids of any age to eat unpeeled fruits, since they may still contain a large amount of fertilizers, etc. But that's ANOTHER story!

So this evening, as Eli's playing a counting game on the laptop, he starts mumbling something about "apple corn." So I asked him what he was talking about, and he asked me, "What's apple corn?"

Huh???

"Um, show me what you mean, Eli."
"Mommy, sometimes this monkey (on the computer game) throws an apple corn instead of an apple. What's apple corn?"

Yep. He was talking about the CORE of an apple. That stupid computer monkey was trying to trick him into counting the core as a whole apple, which threw off his total apple count (as they dropped from the trees and into his basket). Monkeys are nothing but trouble, I tell ya. At least he was only throwing apple cores, and not poo.

So any-hoo, one more misconception has been cleared up in the life of my (almost) 3 and a 1/2 year old sweetie. It's nice that I can still teach him something...every once in a while.