What Happened?

What a goof ball.
Originally uploaded by pure_h2o.

This is a little embarassing for me, but I guess I should explain. Blogger/Flickr changed their format, and things got all weird, and then I couldn't post. That's it. Franz spent about fifteen minutes on the problem, and it was all better. I guess I should have told him earlier. Sorry.

Ok, so since its been a billion years, I'll do some more Eli-isms.

1. Whenever things aren't going his way, Eli gets super frustrated and yelps, "What happened?" over and over again, with each "What happened" getting more terse, with the last "What happened" sounding like a sixty five year old life long smoker on fast forward. We all realize that we created this, as every time Eli expresses dismay, we ask him, "What happened?". We are trying to replace this with something else. I am thinking something like, "My mom is the best mom ever."

2. Eli wants to do everything himself. He gets really frustrated when people try to help him when he wants to do it. For example, last Saturday during swim class, he wanted to do "run, run, jump" (which is where he holds the swim teacher's hand and Franz or my hand while running over a foam mat and jumping into the water.) without holding anyone's hand. He made this desire very clear, as he screamed, "Eli do it! Eli do it!" at the top of his lungs. He managed to break free from the teacher and myself, and he bolted across the mat. However, about a half a foot before the edge, the teacher grabbed his hand again. He still jumped off, but I could tell he was pissed. And to prove his point, at the end of class, he wouldn't give the teacher a high-five. He refused. He's never refused a high-five before. I have to say, I admire his follow through with that. You have to respect a good grudge.

3. I never thought I'd ever say this, but he likes going to bed. Sometimes, he asks to go "night night". And our little bedtime routine has gotten longer, as Franz now reads him "Harry the Bear Rips Austraila", a story about surfing, which Eli loves because there's the ocean, surf boards, and a shark. But sometimes, we can't even get through half of the story without Eli asking to go to bed. I love it. Every time he does this, I think to myself, "Could this really be Eli? Did someone brainwash him? Is he sick?". But it is Eli, and he loves going to bed. Its the best thing ever.

4. Eli finally gets the park now. His favorite thing at the park is the slide, which he goes down by himself. And I've posed about the park that has the wheels, right? He still plays with the wheels first thing, but he eventually is released from their magical powers, and sees the swings and the slide.

5. For those of you who don't see Eli all the time, he talks a lot. But really, a lot. He shocks us all the time with the stuff he says. Like yesterday, we were driving over the San Mateo bridge, and Eli pointed at the bay and asked Franz, "What's that?" and Franz told him it was the ocean. Eli then asked, "Where's the waves?" which knocked our socks off.

6. Ok, I'll admit, now I'm bragging, but I get to do that because I'm his mom. So there. Eli knows his left from his right. I must have been like fifteen before I could tell the difference, and even then, I had to pretend to write my name to distinguish the two. If we ask Eli which is his right hand, he'll hold it up. And he does the same with his feet. I'll put on his shoes, and he'll tell me which shoe I'm putting on. Its amazing.

7. And just to offset the last one, I'll tell you something that will probably be a source of embarassment for him later. For some reason, he's really into purses. He wants to hold them all the time. Sona has this tiny little thing that is the perfect size for Eli, and he asks for it constantly. When we're out and he sees a woman with a purse, he always points it out, and then asks to touch it. I think if I wanted to, I could pull off the greatest pick-pocketing scam ever.

8. Eli is also fascinated with garage doors. He loves to push the garage door opener at our house, but it doesn't stop there. Whenever we're on a walk, he points out all the garage doors on all the houses, like they're huge chocolate cakes. "That's a garage! That's a garage!". He says it over and over again until someone says, "Yes, that's a garage."