kind of like the virgin appearing on toast

In the past few weeks, something pretty miraculous has happened around our house...

Ellis is going to sleep on his own

I'm sure many of you probably think this is about 18 months overdue, but I'm just happy that we didn't "spoil" him into never being able to settle himself down with all those nights of pacing, rocking, nursing, lying down with him feigning/actually sleeping, singing, reading story after story, etc, etc.

Now we do the normal bedtime routine of PJs, tooth brushing, and a few books. Then we leave him with a couple board books to peruse in his own little bed. It's really sweet to listen to him telling himself the stories or whatever is he's doing in there. Eventually he just drifts off to sleep. Trey used to include an extra phase of lullabies in the routine, but Ellis now usually just requests to go straight to books in bed. If you've heard Trey's singing voice, you'd understand the wisdom of this choice. My only concern now is that Eli will take after his father and become physically unable, regardless of inconvenience or exhaustion, to fall asleep without reading first. Is it possible that he is genetically predisposed to this type of addiction?

A Small Manner of Future Tense

There are a wealth of Ellis tails to spin for you internet. I plan to dribble them out over the next few days along with pictures of the weekend romp with his grandparents who were in from the home office in Indiana.

Your drop of cuteness for tonight....

The scene: Ellis standing on his bench, naked in only his socks, about to get diapered and put in his pajamas.

Me: Ellis do you want to go pee in the potty?
Ellis: No (giggles)
Me: Aw, c'mon, are you sure you don't wanna go pee in the potty?
Ellis: No
(I turn to grab a diaper and turn back to see him hosing down the top of his bench, and one of his socks with urine. I grab him and take him into the bathroom and place him in his preferred potty stance: standing on the seat facing out, knees slightly bent, feet full seat width apart.)
Me: Ellis, don't you want to put a little more pee in the potty?
Ellis: No Daddy. (Smile forming on his face.) I farked.

...and then Ellis passed gas, loudly and prolifically and giggled monstrously. I will forgive his trouble with the future tense, but if a kid can tell you he is about to fart (and derive what appeared to be joy from it), he damn well ought to be ready to pee in the potty.

progress report

We're still working out the kinks on this two working parents arrangement. Thank goodness we both have jobs with loads of flexibility. I'm hoping to look back on this time in a few months and think that we've come a long way in managing it, so here's how things are so far.

• Childcare: Great, but still in flux. Ellis is spending his days with Trey's cousin and her two little sweetie pies until he starts as the daycare center next month. Ellis seems to be really thriving there. I am really happy that he's getting to spend some time with his second-cousins but otherwise feeling guilty that I don't miss him more during the day.
  
• Physical health: Not good. Trey is on his third cold, Ellis and I have both had ear infections, I had to go to the urgent care doctor for my first migraine in 3 years, and Ellis is currently finishing up treatment for pink eye. Yikes. Come on immune systems- kick in already!
• Mental health: Trey is doing well and, happily, did not (as I oh-so-helpfully predicted) develop PTSD from working for a sociopath in Boston. I, on the other hand, am inexplicably much, much more irritable than I should be.
  
• Household: This is a mixed bag. We're still managing to cook dinner at home every night and even pack lunches most days. There are enough clean clothes to wear and we can usually find what we need. And yet, things are pretty messy; in fact, I must confess some things are even dirty. Ewww.
  
• General stress level: Medium. But things at work are probably still ramping up for both of us. So, we can't get too comfortable.
  

pink blog!

In celebration of :

• Lindsey's birthday and the party we're having tonight, despite the disheveled stated of our home and lawn.
  

• Ellis's first bout of conjunctivitis! Today served with a side of asymptomatic ear infection. Because, really, nothing says "come on over to our house" like pus-filled eyes.
  

12 Hour Service

I expect many of you have been thinking what Lise was so bold as to say in her most recent comment, so here are some pictures. This is what I call service.Here we have three generations together, fighting over the controller to a 10 inch remote control car. At this moment grandpa and Ellis are thinking, "give me that damn thing so I can show you how to do it right."
Scout struggles to maintain her dignity, "Scout, if you would just trust me and try the x-ray glasses, we would be unstoppable. Don't you want to take. over. the. world!?" (Ellis has tried on three occasions to actually get the dog to use the binoculars, despite the fact that he himself has yet to look through them. Maybe he figures Scout can explain, since she has a couple of years on him.)
This is a snapshot of an approximately 20 minute ordeal. Ellis so darn cute "helping" that I had to post this picture despite the way it accentuates my pipe cleaner arms, skinny-man potbelly, poor posture, lack of any ass and widow's peak.
Mowing in this fashion was primarily difficult, because, with a reel mower, keeping a certain momentum makes it work a whole lot better. Ellis actually was able to contribute to the pushing, but he couldn't go very fast and push, which meant we both went excruciatingly slow. I proposed to Rachel that I should just take off the man-height handle and leave the kid height handle for E. Since he likes it so much, perhaps he could just randomly criss-cross the lawn by himself and after 7 hours or so it would result in a complete cutting of the lawn.

Midweek Review

We are in our first full week as a family with both parents working outside of the home. Already, I have missed a day of work due to illness, but if there was a lesson in it, it is that actually laying in bed for a day does make you get better much faster. Rachel and Ellis have also been sick unfortunately making for a long week. Ellis seems to be having a really fantastic time with his second cousins and comes home tired (and apparently takes a hell of a long nap as well).

Our immaculately clean, 1992 Chevy Blazer with 208k miles died on us before the check cleared for our other car. We were very thankful to have the option of grabbing a zip car and grateful that the insurance of Rachel's parents covered the tow back to our house. The jury is still out on whether having it returned here to be repaired by me instead of taking it to a repair shop was a sound decision. I plan to start dropping screws into the engine compartment tomorrow and hopefully be done recovering them, fixing the new problems I caused and hopefully the main problem by Sunday.

The check did clear today for the Volvo which we picked up, registered and Rachel finally got to ride in it. For the most part, the car is better than I remember it and it seems the gas mileage is as good as promised. The cost to register it wasn't too bad all in all and neither was the sales tax.
Maybe if I get around to putting up pictures of the house and Ellis "helping" me mow the lawn, I will put up a picture of the Volvo as well.

I took Ellis out in the woods with my dad and Scout tonight after work. We came on a pretty good lean-to put together by some kids. Ellis drug his grandpa inside and cackled before I convinced him that he was a baby bear in his den and he started to growl and pretend-scratch his grandpa. This is one hilariously cute game to play with him, as his tiny growls are more reminiscent of a juvenile bobcat than a Kodiak. He also imitated me calling Scout "pooch", which comes out more like, "Poooooo", but Scout doesn't seem to mind.

Right now, Ellis is getting his teeth brushed, which means his mother is describing each food that she is scrubbing from his teeth. As always, Ellis has stopped her to remind her, "En bee-uh, tooo."

Hey, a guinah in da low-der, ok

This weekend at the farm saw Ellis add some really important vocab. First, he added "hey" to his lexicon. Unfortunately, he doesn't use it in the friendly, "Hey, what's goin' on?" or "Just callin' to say 'hey'" kind of way. It is more like the "hey" in, "Hey, did I tell you that you could touch that car?" And, if you don't respond to the first "hey" a second and a third follow propelled from the depths of his gut by his tiny diaphragm and arching back.

Since he still hasn't picked up "yes" or "yeah" and usually cackles when he wishes to indicate agreement with a suggestion, we were relieved that he finally picked up "okay" which sometimes come out "o-hay" but that is ohay.

He may also be the only 2 year old outside of Africa that can identify a guinea fowl on site or by its call. These roam the farm free cleaning up insects and generally making a hell of a racket. Ellis can clearly differentiate them from chickens and points to them and calls out "guinah" on a regular basis.

Finally, while sitting on the lawn mower at the farm, which has a little loader bucket on the front, Ellis tried very hard to get my attention and then pointed right at it and said several times, "low-der", with a pretty good "L" sound at the front. This might really be his first "L" word. For those of you who are skeptical of my claim that he now recognizes specific tractor parts, he was able to transfer this knowledge and identify a loader in a picture in a book.