Ely is crazy about...no that's not a strong enough word...beholden to...no that's not it either...OBSESSED with Thomas the Train. He can name all the trains and has chosen James and Toby as his favorites. He knows which train is in which episode within the first 5 seconds of each show. He can tell you which trains do which jobs - Percy gets the mail, Henry delivers presents, Stepney brings the dinosaur bones. He wakes up every morning and says "Morning dad, morning mom, take blankie, sit down couch, trains on, juice please" - it's his longest sentence of the day. He gets home from daycare each day and immediately finds all 7 of his toy trains and lines them up on the coffeetable. He asks me to read a Thomas book and sing him the theme song before bed.
But I've decided that as long as I have to memorize all these songs, he might as well be learning from this silly little show. He can tell me the colors of all the trains - James is red, Thomas is blue, Percy is green, Toby is brown, etc. He's also learned his letters by knowing which trains start with which letters - G is for Gordon, P is for Percy, H is for Henry, J is for James, O is for Oliver, and E is for Emily. He now knows about half of the alphabet and points out "wetears" (letters) everywhere we go - the handle of the shopping cart, a sign in a parking lot, on my sweatshirt. His favorite letter is W - a strange choice - but he loves it so much he carries around the little foam W from his bathtub set and sometimes takes it to bed with him, pronouncing it "dubeeyou". And he loves to "read" - he can tell me the whole Curious George and the Puppies book just by pictures.
And in non-Thomas related updates:
He's developed a completely irrational fear of sock fuzz. He hates having anything between his toes, but the worst is when sock fuzz makes its way into the bath water. Having lived all day in his little sticky toes, the fuzz finally finds freedom in the warm bubbly bath. It deliberately sneaks up on its unsuspecting host, lying just under the bubbles, ready for attack. The boy with the sticky toes notices its presence, and promptly FLIPS OUT. It is like no reaction or fear he has ever had for anything else. He screams. He stands up and shakes from head to toe. He claws at me, trying to get out of the tub. He panics and nearly hyperventilates, all while screaming "wuzz, wuzz, wuzz"! The poor kid is inconsolable for at least 10 minutes. And forget finishing his bath or even rinsing off. I've taken great pains to make sure that before every bath he toes are free of fuzz, and I've gotten rid of every pair of dark socks he owns. What a silly kid!
Ely's talking streak continues. The days of one word exclamations are over. Every utterance is at least 2 words, if not more. I cherish our little conversations as he tells me about the world around him. Although, he has a bossy streak (I wonder if the first born of two first borns is doomed to this fate?!). Mom, stand up. Dad, sit down, play blocks. Walk, coming? TV off. My pillow/toy/blanket, own! (as in, get your own). Mama, help me. Ely is so good at observing and putting concepts together. I now notice that he picks up on things that I never intended to teach, just by observing and listening. And it's given us all a little reminder to watch our language! :)
He also loves to help me cook. I've done more baking in the last few weeks than in years because I love to watch him help. After we're done with the cookies, pancakes, or bread, he can tell Greg exactly what we put in it, even if it's hours later. Eggs, brown sugar, milk, etc. He gets to dump everything in the big bowl, crack the eggs (whilst I pick out the eggshells!), stir with his own spoon, and help clean up his own mess!
I meant this to be a little update to serve as a reminder of all these little things that take place day to day, but it turned into quite a long post. I apologize for being a proud mom! :)
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