Random Eli Updates

We've had a few somewhat busy days. To start out the week, Noah came over to swim with the kids at our neighborhood pool. Maddux was not in her usual happy pool mood, but we managed to stay close to two hours anyway. The boys had a blast together, diving in the baby pool for Noah's dive sticks and 'swimming' with inflatable inner tubes.

Tuesday morning I arranged for a babysitter to watch Maddux so I could spend some one-on-one with Eli. I planned to take him to the Children's Museum, since that is something that is difficult to do with both kids at this time. Eli was whiny and moody, but it was still fun to go and play with all of the cool exhibits. Of course Eli loved the kitchen section the best. He stayed in there and 'cooked' for a long time. He also got to 'fish' in the pond, paint on the wall, play with moon sand, and entertain himself with the train tracks. We even saw a short circus-themed 'show' while we were there, which left Eli quiet and comatose. He was obviously in soak-up-mode, which he tends to default to in overwhelming situations. Later he recounted the whole show for me though.

This morning the three of us went for a walk that ended at the park across the street. Eli and I had a mini boot camp and then we played catch and watched the tennis camp activities. Maddux got very dirty crawling around, but she had a good time as well. I pressed my luck and did a quick Target run when we returned which went surprisingly well, given the unhappy state of the kids today.

We've had a few more time outs with Eli in the last week. One was pretty serious for us: he walked over to Maddie and bopped her on the head with his (plastic) bat. Lehr brought him right inside and put him in a time out. He stayed, though he cried the whole time. His bat is now in 'time out' also, for an undecided amount of time. Eli totally knows why too. If you ask him why his bat is in time out, he'll tell you, "I not make big boy choices." At least he's able to regurgitate what we're feeding him!