Off to Swim Class!

Katrin's Camera

Touch-a-Truck Day

(click a pic to enlarge)

Mr. Martin Riker

Has up a smart blog post, here.

Stuff and some other stuff and then some pictures

It really does seem like language just happened to Elijah. He now says:

cracker : gach ga
truck (pretty much anything with wheels) : guch
flower : oof
kitty kat : gee gach
dirt : dih
balloon : boon
spoon : boon
cup : ka
car : ch
go outside : ow
door : do
mama : mama
dada : dada

It seems to make him so happy to be understood. Just a minute ago he looked at the cupboard and said gach-gah and we went over and got a cracker and he was mightily chuffed. He also signs. He still signs to nurse. He signs hat/head. He makes dog sounds (panting), pig sounds (almost a snort but more like a German person coughing), cat sounds (a screech), and bee sounds (zzzzzzzz). He claps when he wants you to sing (which is almost all the time, even when he's nursing). His favorite song has been the teddy bear picnic one (by a long shot). But he's also into the wheels on the bus song (urgh) and that don gato song. He clucks his tongue when he likes a song and sort of bounces a little to show approval. Boy's got rhythm. His clucks usually keep good time.

He's not walking yet, but this week he started taking steps while holding onto our fingers. Before, when we'd try, he'd just fall right to his knees (on purpose) and crawl away. He hasn't seemed too bothered about walking. He's more into kicking and talking. He likes to spas out on the mattress or in the bathtub. And in addition to speaking baby English he also is really into vocalizing all possible sounds. It's almost like a sound experiment in our house. I wish I could capture it on tape. The noises he makes are sort of unbelievable.

E was super on our trip to Colorado. He loved being at Greg and Heather's - they have two cats (two tails to catch!), and a little rubber dinosaur, and one of those cat bowls that perpetually runs a little waterfall . . . and carpeted stairs, which are basically heaven to Elijah, who climbed up and down about fifty times a day, often saying "gach gah" because he knew the crackers were upstairs. In general, the kid likes to eat, preferring, it seems, banana and avocado above all else. He also loves bread, and crackers, and pasta, and raisins. So it's basically a carbs thing with him. He also is pretty cool with tofu and scrambled eggs (he likes a little thyme in his eggs).

AWP was good, in as much as AWP is ever good (as opposed to the ways in which AWP is evil). We saw people. We bought pretty books and also a few ugly books. Mostly it was just really good to see friends and the Rockies were friendly too. Here are some pics.

Kentucky and a Joke

We just got back from a quick trip to Louisville (where we were assured that we should be calling it Loo-uh-vul even if we're not locals). Elijah was awesome. He had so much fun meeting people and crawling on new grass (Kentucky grass!) and climbing up new stairs (Kentucky stairs!) and crawling on new carpet (Kentucky carpet!). I gave a reading and a talk on form and it went really well. Lots of people and lots of questions and I even sold some books. Then an awesome dinner under pink blossoms in the "gallery district." All in all, a welcome and charming little break. And I'm getting paid for it!

In more important news, Elijah is telling his first joke. Well, he's funny pretty often, or almost always, and he had his "shake your head at Daddy joke" and his "suck air in while saying 'E' joke" but this joke seems a little more sophisticated. He points at dirt or a cord (or takes them in his fat fingers) and then puts his finger inside his mouth while shaking his head "no" and smiling (or downright busting a gut). Then, when Mama follows with the requisite "No, not in the mouth, Elijah" he just loses it in a mess of giggles. He does this about twenty times a day now. Good times.

Leaps and Bounds

As a follow up to the last post . . . lately it seems like Elijah learns a new word or something everyday. Today I asked if he wanted a cracker and he pointed inside his mouth and said "ah ah." When he was done he looked at me and did it again, meaning, I guess, "More please." Amazing! Also today I was talking about his clothes and I said "shirt" and he grabbed his shirt and tugged at it while looking at me. Then I said "shoes" and he pointed first at one shoe and then the next. Genius!

Elijah and His Aboom

A few months ago I posted something about Elijah and his first words . . . I said he was saying "Mama" regularly and had started to say something all his own for "Kitty." I'm 98% sure I wasn't making that up, but then there were no new words and that word for kitty has pretty much disappeared (replaced by nothing, he mostly just points and screams at the poor Doctor). "Mama" didn't disappear but he still often said Mamamamamamamama. If you asked him "Where's Mama" he of course knew the answer, same with "Dada" and "Giraffe" and all that jazz, but now, as of about a week ago, it's like a light went off and he points at me and says "Mama" like a real word and like he really gets it. Also this week, he has started pointing at something else and saying the same thing over and over. It's a balloon we got at a party a few weeks ago and he looks at it and says, everytime, "Aboom." A new word? A coincidence? I have no idea. Like teeth coming in, this whole language acquisition stuff is exciting and sometime frustrating and mostly really unbelievable slow. Although, as I type that, I'm reminded of how really it's just slow to us. To Elijah, the world must be so overwhelmingly new all the time. Everything's an adventure. In fact, I just this second heard Marty say to him: "You've got your mommy's panties on your foot, son. I don't think she wants them there." See? Pretty exciting stuff . . .

Monday Night at the Library

Stuff

Some stuff lately:

Elijah pouring the cat's water bowl over himself, totally fascinated.

I handed Elijah one of those plastic cups with the soft plastic layers around the top (to keep cheerio-type snacks inside while allowing tiny hands in) and he figured it out right away and was so into it that a minute later when I talked to him he jumped. I've never seen him quite so engrossed in anything before. He sat there eating puffs for about half an hour. Very pleased with it all.

He screeches in gleeful anticipation whenever he sees a dog out on a walk. Even if we're inside the house. If we're out walking, inevitably the dog walker and dog stop to say hello. E is very social. If you even say the word "hello" in conversation, he starts waving.

If you hum or beat-box or read a rhythmic story, he dances. If you snap or clap, he dances. You dance, he dances. Say dance, he dances. The other day we were walking around the house (me holding E in one arm and on my hip) listening to Feist or Cat Power and I was snapping with my free hand and pretty soon E started clicking his tongue as a way of joining in. It actually did sound a lot like my snapping.

He likes to feed mama. In his high-chair, he will occasionally hold out a pea or a puff or whatever for me to take with my mouth. He is also neat, in his way (not with books, which he pulls of every shelf he can reach, nor with clothes, which he loves to take out of drawers or baskets). He won't usually accept a spoonful of food until he has swallowed what is in his mouth. Also, with the cup mentioned above, if he spills a puff on the floor, he either eats it or puts it back in the cup.

His funny joke with dad: see dad and shake your head back and forth really fast until you're dizzy. Hilarious.

E turned one and surely never a cuter baby ever graced the age:

new glasses and toothbrush

Me in ELLE Magazine

Okay, not really in the magazine . . . but on their blog.

Must-See TV

We like to call this one, "No Pukey."

Attention Grandparents!

New pics are up at Shutterfly (link to the right).

The Will to Language

One of the coolest things about being with Elijah all the time is watching/hearing his movement into language. He absolutely talks all the time, we just don't know what he's saying yet. When he picks something up he jabbers away at it, and when he's mad he says "Doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo," or lately "Nay, nay, nay, nay, nay, mama." He says "mama" very clearly now, usually when he's sad or angry. He also says "dada" but that often still comes out as "dadadadadadada" noise.

One thing that makes me happy is that he still does his air-talking, which I thought might be all gone by now. I think I've written here about this before, about how when he's very intent or happy he'll talk in a little gasping whisper and say "Taa, paa, too, pah, taa, daa, tee, pah" etc. It is amazingly cute. Also amazingly amazingly almost heartbtreakingly cute is his new thing of going "bbbbbbbbbbbbbb" where his lips vibrate and tickle his nose. We "talk" in bbbbbbbbb together. One of us starts it and the other responds. His pudgy little face is awesome vibrating to his quick bbbbbbb lips. I love it.

Anyway, I am writing today because I'm pretty sure he's said his first non-mama-dada word. It is . . . . drum roll . . . kitty cat. Big surprise. It's cool too because his noise for "k" is like bush-man clicking. He makes the click twice and says, sorta, kee ka, kee ka, whenever he sees Spangley. Rad.

He also knows, for sure, these words (besides Mama, Dada, and Kitty cat, of course):

ball
giraffe
banana head (pictured above)
shoes
foot
book
touch
inside/outside
Elijah

These are all things he will point to or go to if I ask him to. (For touch, he'll touch if I say to touch; and we play inside/outside games where he lowers a toy into a container and I say inside and he brings it out when I say outside, etc. Over and over. He thinks it's great fun.) There are probably others I'm not thinking of. It's fun and I wish I could be more philosophical about it, but he is cranking out and crawling away and I have to gooooooooooooooooo

Happy New Year!

Also, two new months up at Shutterfly (link is to the right).

Duet

Post-bath singing, here.

All Elijah All The Time

It may seem like I never have anything to talk about here o`ther thHAN Elijah (who is helping me type btw), which is partly true, but it's also partly true that I use this blog as a diary in which to record things I don't want to forget (on which I record things? can a blog be said to have depth, like a book?). Anyway, just for the record, we went to his month nine checkup today and he is: 28 inches long / 20 lbs. 11 oz. heavy = 75th% for height and 50th% for weight. Also, he has learned to snort. Conversations with Elijah are now peppered with snorts. He is funny and a little rude. He looks like this:

Lists

It's like I'm always making lists lately. There's grocery lists, of course. But I feel like I have more to-do lists than ever before. If I don't write something down there's a very good chance I won't remember I ever thought it. And we quit Netflix, so now I have to keep an actual list of movies to see (one day, when I can go to the movies again). And so sometimes, like when Elijah is asleep and I'm next to him on the bed and can't get away without waking him, and so I just lay there and ponder or doze, I keep making lists in my head as I go. Dumb lists. Or, banal anyway. Like, my top five favorite books. Not of all time, of course, because that's impossible. I mean, you're not even of one mind for all time. But, right now, your top five.

1. Mrs. Dalloway, Virginia Woolf
2. The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, Gertrude Stein
3 W, or the Memory of Childhood, Georges Perec
4. Austerlitz, W. G. Sebald
5. Persuasion, Jane Austen

But then I can't stop. I'm like, okay, five alternates:

6. The Mirror in the Well, Micheline Aharonian Marcom
7. Pamela, a novel, Pamela Lu
8. Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov
9. The Ravishing of Lol Stein, Marguerite Duras
10. at this point I start to panic . . . I maybe need three slots here . . .

Or, the top five things that make Eljah laugh and/or talk his happy funny words:

1. Touching a new and coveted item (this morning, it was Mama's nightgown on the floor)
2. The cat
3. Waking up in a good mood and with Mama right there and looking around and waving arms as if to say "One day, all this will be mine, as far as the eye can see"
4. Pulling books off shelves
5. Pulling all laundry out of the basket

On the Move

Starring the kid. Also featuring a handsome Dr. Spanglestien in two cameo appearances. Critic Martin Riker says this film comes closest to "capturing the spirit of Elijah Beck."