Homestretch

We made it through the weekend! I'm not sure why the weekdays are so much easier for me to be 'on my own', but they are. I'm sure it's due to the fact that I'm used to weekday traffic and weekday park attendance and whatnot. I did discover one more thing this last weekend: weekdays are easier because I have online friends to chat with and 'regular' friends that IM or email me. Not so much on the weekend. This made the weekend difficult because I was very much without adult conversation. (Cooper and his parents did take Eli and I out for dinner one night and that was wonderful.) Regardless, the weekend is over and we are in the homestretch now.

Eli and I went to the aquarium this morning. He has not been since he started walking, so as excited as I was I also had some fears of him running off. I pushed Eli in the stroller from the parking deck to the entrance (quite a long walk, in the biter 17-degree cold this morning I might add), and then to the area they politely ask you to 'park' your strollers inside. I knew I wanted Eli to be able to walk around in the large shark/fish aquarium exhibit, but I also knew it would be difficult if not impossible to carry him after I let him loose. So we started with the penguins (which didn't impress him) and moved to the beluga whales (which he kinda liked), then on to the sea lions (which he LOVED) and the jellies (he couldn't get enough). Finally we were to the large open room and as luck would have it, an elementary class was just leaving the prime front seat. I put Eli down and let him explore the tank at his own pace. He laughed and pointed to all of the fish while moving to different areas of the tank for a few minutes. Then he discovered the seats/steps where I was sitting. That became his new favorite thing about the aquarium. Luckily the big room was at such a small capacity I could let him go up and down these steps, while still running back to the fish every few trips to point and laugh, as much as he wanted without worrying about him disturbing anyone. We had close to fifteen minutes of such freedom before the room filled up again and we had to leave.

The rest of the day was spent playing in Eli's room and running a few small errands. Since Lehr has been gone I've also been practicing couch-time/blanket-time on my own each night. I just sit on the couch and knit while Eli is on his blanket. It has been great - he has only tried to get off once on one night. I'm hopeful this means we've really turned a positive corner with this practice!