abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz

The week is going well for us. Elijah's cough is much better finally. I recently read through some of the posts I've written in the past few months and I was reminded how much sickness this kid has endured this winter. Actually, it started way back in August. I have been praying so hard for a break for him this spring and summer. His poor little body certainly deserves it.

Elijah has started saying "uh oh!" this week. It's really cute. I first noticed it when Larry the Cucumber ran into a wall (on tv, he wasn't in our living room) and Elijah let out a string of concerned uh-ohs.

He is still calling everyone and everything "Dada." Last weekend he called the nice young man behind the counter at the grocery store "Dada" and sufficiently freaked the poor guy out. He looked at me with wide eyes like, I don't know what he's talking about!

He is consistently making the sounds for all of the letters of the alphabet. It seems like that's all he does, which is great! We have two sets of alphabet books, an alphabet toy with letter magnets, different letter magnets on the fridge, letters in the tub, and the alphabet/sound song that we listen to constantly. I think we've got the alphabet covered in our house! Right now his favorite letter is S. The other night in the tub, he frantically searched through all of the toys and letters until he found it, and then he held onto it tightly for the remainder of bath time as he said, "Ssssssssssss." Last week he had this same relationship with the letter R. OOooo, I just realized that S comes after R! If next week's letter is T..

Dan and I continue to listen to a lot of whining and yelling and fake crying. It's sooo hard to ignore this behavior after hours of listening to it, but asking him to stop sends him into even bigger fits of whining. It's tough for me because I don't get a whole lot of time with him during the week, and most of the time he just wants for me to be near him. I started a new thing last week where I go straight to Elijah when I get home from work (after kissing gorgeous hubby, of course). I play with him and give him my full attention for a minimum of 30 minutes before I start making dinner. This has maybe helped to decrease the whining a little bit, but not a ton. I want him to know that I love my quality time with him and that I make it a priority, but that there are unfortunately other things to be done in the house besides playing.

We had to say goodbye to our beloved tv this week. The cost to fix it would just be too much to make it worth keeping. Dan especially loved that tv, so he is extra sad. So that makes FIVE appliances that have died on us within the span of a few months. Old Fridgey is still hanging in there. He's the only thing left from the original batch of appliances in the house.

That's all for now. Thank you for checking in!

Attitude

Last night I took Elijah to his Thursday physical/speech therapy. The past few times have really been breakthrough sessions for him. No more tears when the PT tries to move him ONE INCH out of his comfort zone. No more crawling over to Mama every 15 seconds. He really has seemed like a big boy to me lately, and he has been making a ton of progress, too. Last night they got him to take sideways steps ON HIS OWN, while holding onto the edge of a table. This is a first! Of course, there had to be incentive. What could possibly appeal to him so much that he would take steps without being forced? TRUCKS, of course!

They had this really cool toy truck track with three trucks that drove around inside of it and it was love at first sight! When he first saw them, I happened to be standing behind him holding onto his hands. He immediately tried to RUN over to them, but that didn't work out well so we tripped over each other and fell to the floor. Honestly, I've never seen him so smitten before. During the session, I was sitting there watching him, amazed at the progress that was unfolding before my eyes. Then I had the thought...Hmmmmm, anything he loves enough to willingly take steps for is going to be hard to tear him away from. Uh oh.

And I was right. When we were finished and he knew it was time to leave the beloved trucks, an instant MAJOR tantrum erupted. So far, it was my most embarrassing public parenting moment. The tantrum was so bad that I had absolutely no idea what to do. I'm pretty sure I disengaged from reality and became comatose for a few moments. His physical therapist, speech therapist, speech therapist assistant and I all stood there watching it. After what seemed like forever, I picked Elijah up and told him it was time to go home. He arched his back so violently and quickly that he flopped over my arm and hit his head on a stool. He continued to flop around on the floor and scream and kick and hit. I sat him up again and put his coat on.

He calmed down immediately when his very nice PT found a truck that he could take home with him. I kind of wish she wouldn't have done this, but I certainly wasn't going to start fresh with Meltdown #2 by taking it away. He grabbed the truck from her, smiled instantly, and looked at me like, HI Mama! We're having fun, right?! The front half of the car was quiet on the drive home.

Later we went to Dan's sister's house to celebrate his mom's birthday and Elijah swatted his little 1-yr-old cousin because I was holding her in my lap. Mr. Attitude has some things to learn about "pecking order," as Dan says.