Date-Day

Due to travel and night-time activities and potty training, it has been several (many?) weeks since we've had date night with Eli. Lehr did take him on a Father-Son day this weekend, but I haven't had one-on-one with Eli for quite some time. So today Miss Laura came over to watch Maddie so we could rectify that situation. Per Eli's request, the two of us went hiking at Sope Creek and had lunch at The Flying Biscuit Cafe. Eli had a blast throwing rocks into the creek and in several ponds along the way. He wanted to run most of the way down to the ruins, which was a long way and I definitely had to run to keep up with him. Of course it was all level or downhill, so the return trip was a little more difficult for him, but he made it back up. We had crazy storms last night, so the trails were pretty muddy...not that Eli was bothered by that. It is always so neat to see what happens when I get the kids one-on-one. Eli knew this was a special occasion and he commented on it quite frequently.

"We have date today?" "Just us....Mommy an E-i....goin on date!"

Then he wanted to talk about all sorts of things.

"Mommy, member the muffler broked? Let's talk about it?" (When he says, 'let's talk about it', that means he wants me to tell him the story of whatever again. In this instance, he wanted to hear about the car crash he and Lehr had last winter.)

I got the kids up a little early today to prepare for our big day. (We still ran late though, and Laura arrived before breakfast even started.) My favorite part of the morning was when Eli went into Maddux's room and looked through her closet. He saw me put her down on the changing pad and realized she needed some clothes to wear. As he browsed through the hangers, he told me, "Ummmm, maybe she wear dis? Or she wear deese shirts?" I think it is so cute that he wanted to pick out clothes for Max.

Second runner up to that cute moment happened when we were walking out the door. Maddie was standing up at the train table with Miss Laura. I told Eli to say good-bye to them. He said, "Bye-bye Me-ss Au-ra." Then he bent down and kissed Maddux's head and said, "Buh-bye, swee-tee." Melt melt....It doesn't get much better than that.

Back to our hike. While we were hiking and talking, the subject of bears came up. I don't remember how, but it caused Eli to tell me that we might see bears on our hike. Well....maybe.....I guess it's possible, but not at all likely. So I asked him what he would do if he saw one. He told me he'd run away from the bear, but then he also told me he'd talk to them (da bears). He then followed it up with, "E-i see bears and el-fants." Good luck with that.

We finished up with a trip to the biscuit. Eli ate a wheat biscuit and scrambled eggs. He was very well behaved and he was totally into it being a 'date' with a big-boy chair at the restaurant (I let him sit in a regular chair instead of a booster). Life is good.