Knee Deep Blog

When Your Child Says...I'm going to say the "h" word

I was faced with a situation in which Eli was very mad and looked at me with sheer anger and yelled, if you don't let me watch Curious George I'm going to to say the "h" word and I'm NOT getting dressed!

I have to admit that the first thing I thought of was, what the hell is the "h" word and it took me a few moments to reconnect to the situation at hand in which I had just turned off the TV and told Eli to get dressed and ready for school. I mean the routine is, get up, pee, get dressed, eat breakfast - and some mornings he watches Curious George and some he doesn't.  But, TV first is not the routine during the week.

Instead my defiant six year old was dangling the "h" word as retribution for missing Curious George.   

1,000 O’Clock – Eli’s Learning to Tell Time

Eli has the full week off from school. A friend said, I don't remember having all of Thanksgiving week off – and I don't either but he has it. Tim and I are precariously balancing home and work this week to support it. Unfortunately we planned some over lapping appointments which reminds me that we'll want to be more thoughtful over Christmas aka Winter Break.

So Tim took off at 8 and I have Eli this morning. I had a quick 30 minute call at 9:30 and told him not to interrupt me (in my office). We went over to the clock and I showed him it was 9:21 and that I would be back upstairs at 10. Off to my call I went.

As I was getting ready to wrap the call I heard, Mom, mom it's time it's weird. And I wrapped my call and came up.

The first thing he said was, it's so weird, I looked over and it was 1,000 o'clock but it's not that time any more.

I wanted to laugh but didn't. Instead we walked over to the stove and I showed him the two dots. See you cover the last two numbers here and it shows ten. That means ten o'clock. Then I covered the ten and showed the two numbers on the right. Then you only look at the last two numbers and you can see how many minutes. What does it say? "o" six mom. Yes, that's right. So when you look at them together you say, it's ten "o" six.

And you know what Eli, it really does look like 1,006 from far away doesn't it. No wonder you thought it was 1,000 o'clock. Perception is everything.

Eli Loves Lemon Sorbet

Eli really loves lemon sorbet.  In fact there's something about lemon sorbet that makes him loose all self control and not only lick the bowl but ask to lick yours too.

What's interesting is that it doesn't happen for any other sorbet or ice cream flavor, only lemon sorbet.  I first noticed this phenomenon last summer.  We were eating sorbet on our deck after dinner. Eli said, I'll be right back and went into the house.

Things That Make Me Smile - Folded Laundry by Eli

Last night Eli was finding ways to procrastinate changing into his PJ's and begin reading time.  In the moment, little did I know the benefit I would receive...all of his laundry neatly folded. 

What makes this a big deal is that it's the first time he's ever folded a thing in his life.  He's kind of a funny kid in that he definitely notices when there is a mess, but has no interest in cleaning it up himself.  In fact just 15 minutes earlier I was helping him put away a pile of Pokemon cards that were on the floor and trying to teach him (again) how to use a rubber band.  I mean who would have thought that it takes quite a bit of dexterity to use a rubber band, and for a six year old adding the twist and second fold is almost impossible.  We had quite a few good laughs.

Kids and social pressure to fit in aka spiderman is not cool

 It's still bugging me...the newly purchased spiderman with muscles costume that's sitting in the closet and will now stay in the closet this Halloween.  Why?  cause Eli was told that spiderman is "dumb and baby" and he's only six.

Here's the background.  As you know the retail stores begin each holiday 4 to 8 weeks prior to the holiday.  Eli has been invited to a bunch of fall birthdays so we've spent a lot of time in Toys R Us and Target with Eli picking out what he thinks his friend will really like.  Of course he would like to be much more generous than mom allows, but that's another story.  So we've had the opportunity to see the Halloween costumes for quite a while and he's been very attracted to spiderman with muscles.

Frugal me of course refuses to pay $29.99 plus tax for a costume that gets worn a few times during a short period of time.  So I asked him a bunch of questions, such as why he wants to be spiderman and what other ideas he had.  Eli is pretty single track once he's made a decision and was very clear that this was the halloween costume of choice.  So I was in a bit of a dilema would I cough up the money or not?

What Does Your Kid Stick In Their Pocket? Laundry Treasures

Ever since a red crayon melted in the dryer onto one of Tim's new favorite shirts there is a consistent conversation that mostly happens after the fact - after we find  miscellaneous "things" under the wet clothes in the washer.

Now if we could only train ourselves to remember to first check pockets and then get undressed.  I need to acknowledge that we're still working on it - plus it's much more exciting to find change and bills which I get keep instead of holding my breath and hoping it's not my clothes when I see a string from melted gum or notice a glob of chocolate from a left over cookie.

Over the past wave of laundry I put the laundry treasures on the counter and took a picture (before the camera broke - see previous post).

I found:

• money
• a blue plastic cube - not sure what from
• the red tube and 4 colored beads from the magic trick box on Eli's birthday
• a semi melted green and a black hollow rubber ball which I have no idea what they are from
• multiple mostly broken sea shells from our Vashon Island Weekend - I actually had to vacuum the washer in between loads to get the many small broken pieces out
• a wrench from a lego set
• plastic money
• a white rock

Needless to say Eli is a collector at heart and his pockets are one of his favorite stow away spots.

What Kids Do When You're Not Paying Attention - A Photo Story

 Earlier this week I came upstairs from my office in route to a board meeting to discover  Eli individually creating muffins in the muffin tin. As I came around the corner he was holding a 5 lb bag of flour and pouring it into each tin that contained green  or blue colored water and a variety of floating sprinkles.

After the initial shock I asked him what he was doing and he plainly answered, "I making a yummy muffin concoction."  Yep I'd say that absolutely described it.

As he was speaking I was also scanning to look for the babysitter who was on the phone on the couch in the other room.  He immediately said, "we'll be sure to clean it all up and I've got to finish this call and I'll be right off."   That's nice - my six year old is making colored muffin concoctions and the babysitter who is usually always right there was hanging out.

Losing Your First Tooth - The Tooth Fairy's Visit

Eli wrapped up May with a bang - a great birthday party and his first visit from the tooth fairy after losing his first tooth.

My favorite was when he tried to negotiate with us by saying, Mom just tell the tooth fairy to bring me a lego because it takes so long to go to the store.  You never want to go.

I immediately let him know that I"m not in charge of the tooth fairy.  Plus we were lucky that his three cousins from Portland were staying with us and at eight, Ellie has plenty of tooth fairy experience.

Eli's birthday dinner included corn on the cob which did the trick - so that when he woke up the next  morning he was proudly displaying this tooth that he said he found in this mouth.  The day was so busy with four kids, six adults that night for dinner and an impressive 1.5 hour sword fight that we almost forgot about the whole tooth fairy thing, but Ellie remembered.

How Eli Almost Wet the Bed

I woke Eli up for school the other morning and thought...hmmm...I smell something.  Of course being direct I asked, "did you wet the bed?"  He promptly responded, "no mom, I was really sweaty last night."

I am very grateful that Eli isn't a bed wetter, and maybe he was just sweaty, but I needed to keep looking because I was sure I smelled something.  Then I saw the tell tale dark circle.  The funny thing is that he was adamant that he didn't wet the bed and was only sweaty and responded with something like only Blake (his cousin that is six months his junior) wets the bed. 

Winter Break, Spring Break - Does Eli Ever Go To School?

Tim and I have had a deep contemplative conversation over the many days and weeks Eli has off from school and all we come up with is...how many days does he really go to school?  And, I don't remember having so many days off.  Yep, that's as contemplative as it gets.

In the past month we've had two half days, one teacher learning day and are now in our second non-consecutive week off (thank God it's not back to back).  And oh yeah, we've got to rework our schedules and find a babysitter when we can so we can actually do some work, cause when you're five you do need some attention. Although I'm sure Eli wouldn't mind watching the Pokemon video from the library at least three times in a row.

I'm holed up at Chocolate Cafe in Wallingford, on the free wireless due to a meeting that was canceled, but I didn't know.  Its such a great cafe, good music and just loud enough so I can tune in for a few versus, and then tune out and focus on chronologically going through my multiple days of unanswered email in search of perhaps a cancellation email. 

I decided I would simply sip my tea and enjoy the mostly quiet and all about me aesthetics for a couple hours before I head back to the house with Tim in his office, Eli and the babysitter in the sun room and me downstairs with on a client call in another hour.

Ah, life of the home based gal...in search of the perfect moment.