Brag Rag

I think I am starting to consider 3 as one of my favorite ages for kids. Right now, Eli is 3-1/2 and he is delightful. I'm not saying that he is the perfect child, often he is far from it, but so much of what he does is entertaining to me. He is constantly saying something that I find remarkable or ridiculous. I can't wait for Marina to get to this age. I know everyone says enjoy your baby and all, which I do, but I love when they get to be more interactive. She is just starting to pick up a little personality which makes every day a little better (when her personality isn't throwing a fit because of a change she can't seem to adjust to).

Because of Eli's various skills, I often think he is a genius, until someone tells me of a skill that their child has that trumps the one mine has. For instance, he has learned to distinguish his right from his left. When my sister was bragging about this skill recently to some friends, she was told that was great but that at 3, her child was adding by 99s. Eli has been trumped. My poor kid has barely even heard of addition (this could be the fault of his remedial math mother).

Eli is also fiercely protective of his mother. I didn't show him how to be this way, it just developed. If someone is wearing an article of my clothing, he freaks out because it belongs to his mommy. I have to give him the "OK" to make him relent from his attack on them. Recently, I took a bottle of pumped breast milk over to my mom's house and left it in the fridge. A few days later, my mom, thinking it was old, threw the milk out. When I asked about the milk later, she told me she threw it out and I brow beat her since I hate pumping. Eli witnessed the exchange and was very impacted by the fact that someone would throw my milk away. He could not let the issue go. He unleashed a verbal attack on grandma several times, asking her why she threw away "Mommy's boobie milk". He still brings it up all the time, and it has been more than a month or two. If I am having a discussion with someone else, he will also agree with me, no matter what I say. He is my little teammate.

I have related to you in the past some of the funny things that Eli is always saying. He has a quotable sentence just about every day. One thing he has been doing for about 6 months is hitting things with his toy hammer and saying "Damn". Now I don't mean he says it in the way most people use it, instead he says it to describe the sound that the hammer makes as it hits something; much like "Bam". So he will walk around hitting things and saying, "I'm going to damn this nail down. Damn. Damn." I have often tried to correct him without making a big deal out of it, so he won't start using it for the attention. But alas, the word has stuck. Damn.

So while my little boy is extremely resistant to change (he can't even accept a pair of black socks when he has been wearing white for years) and has recently started to talk using a very nasally inflection, I am very much enjoying who he is. And once Marina starts rolling over and crawling (and not waking me up at night!), I will start telling you how advanced she is, and better than all the other babies.

Yes, I have issues. I blindly believe the people I love are better than everyone else... Sorry about your kid, I'm sure he/she is very nice.

Here is a picture of Eli being advanced and hoarding all the cars at the Children's Museum. He can box another kid out very nicely if he or she tries to play with him. He will play at this table for 2 hours if I let him.

And here is Marina looking very advanced in her Bumbo chair. This is a rare moment when she is not arching her back and trying to catapult herself out of the chair and face first onto the floor. Yes, she does have a neck, it is just not visible in this picture. It is probably the best neck of any child's her age (: