How much does pure joy cost?

Exactly $2.83.

A couple days ago, I bought Elliott a big bouncy ball for a whole $2.83. I knew he'd enjoy it because he has played with a similar ball at a buddy's house, but I had no idea how incredibly thrilled he would be to have his very own ball!

In the above picture he is kissing the ball. He kissed that ball about 100 times in 20 minutes while chasing it around the house. Although Elliott is big on snuggling, he is pretty random about kisses. I get about 1 kiss a week from the kid. That ball got more kisses that I have in months. I'm so jealous!

Confession

I have a confession to make.

We bought 2 loaves of bread in the last couple weeks. (this is not my confession, it is just the back story to get you caught up). We usually do not buy bread since Jason doesn't eat wheat, but we started buying it for Elliott. You see, Elliott is a little guy. At his doctor's recommendation, we are feeding him high calorie foods to fatten him up a bit. So I bought some bread so I could make him toast slathered with butter.

Instead,

(this is the confession part)

I have used nearly the whole two loaves to make myself grilled cheese sandwiches.

If you're counting, that's a lot of grilled cheese sandwiches. But I simply cannot resist the buttery grilled bread with oozing Tillamook cheddar cheese. So most days for lunch, I have a delicious grilled cheese sandwich while Elliott nibbles on his broccoli (with calorie high olive oil) and bits of seasoned chicken.

Elliott isn't too thrilled with buttered toast so he isn't eating up the bread fast enough. So really, I'm just using my resources wisely and not being wasteful, right?

Or maybe I should start making grilled cheese sandwiches for Elliott too.

The Highlight of Every Week

This past Thursday morning, Elliott experienced his favorite part of the week. Actually, it is not only Elliott's highlight, but one of my favorite times also. We both eagerly anticipate every Thursday morning.

You must be wondering, what happens on Thursday mornings?

The answer:

The garbage truck.

Yes, the garbage truck faithfully visits every Thursday morning (except during all that snow we had this year). And with complete fascination, Elliott watches the truck go up and down the street with his undivided attention. I used to hold him next to the window until that got old (for me, not for him). I realized that if I put him in his highchair to watch the truck, I had quite the opportunity to get things done while the truck provided a good 15 minutes of entertainment.

Here he is watching the truck as it goes all the way down the street:

And here is the reason why I look forward to Thursday mornings. I always know that I will have time to get my kitchen clean on Thursday mornings (without a little helper in the dishwasher).



So if you happen to visit me on a Thursday morning and you're impressed with my tidy household (quite the feat with a toddler), now you know my secret to a clean kitchen.

An Unimpressive Birthday

Elliott is over 13 months old so I thought it was about time to write about his 1 year old birthday. I could come up with lots of excuses about why this post is so delayed (we've been working overtime, we've been sick, etc) but the real reason is that I just didn't have much to say about his birthday.

But being a major event in one's life, I thought I'd ought to write something.

But really Elliott's expression says it all:
Elliott was rather unimpressed with his own birthday. Nevermind the gluten free cake I baked (he has since shown he has no allergies! Thank God!), or the festive sports themed party decor or the nice, clean house I worked to make presentable to all his guests.

Nope.

Throughout the party, he seriously surveyed the busy living room and didn't crack a smile. Not a single smile. Here's is a sampling of his obligatory participation of birthday events:

Even though Elliott wasn't thrilled with his birthday party, Jason and I enjoyed it. We delighted in an afternoon to spend chatting with family, some of who drove quite a long distance for the celebration. Family, thank you for celebrating with us!

Adventures with Blood

I fear this is only my first post of many about blood.

Check out this sequence of pictures for a hint of Elliott's exploring nature:

Here is his sweet smile to me after pulling this infant bouncy seat next to the window.



And here he is in action. He was bouncing all over the place while he climbed up but it didn't slow him down at all.


And within seconds he was standing on the bouncy seat with his feet not touching solid ground at all. He was quite delighted with his accomplishment.




This adventure ended without incident. However, a few days ago, we had an incident.

There was blood. Lots of blood.

He was standing holding onto a metal futon style chair. I was sitting right next to him just in case. Well, my just-in-case position wasn't good enough. Jason walked in and Elliott flung himself in pure excitement and hit his chin on the metal chair. At least that's what we think he hit. All we saw was mouthfuls of blood pouring out. He was screaming and we couldn't see what was bleeding (a tooth? split gum? tongue?) so we jumped into our van to head to the walk in clinic.

The bleeding stopped along the way but we thought it would be wise to get him checked out anyway. We discovered he bit his tongue pretty hard. With the help of hydrogen peroxide, Tylenol and time, he has healed up very nicely. No stitches at all.

Lessons learned from this first adventure with blood:

1. Babies are unpredictable (you would've thought I would've learned this one already)

2. Metal chairs are hard.

3. Soak your clothes in cold water to remove blood stains.

4. Even if the bleeding has stopped, walk into the clinic or hospital holding the blood-soaked towel. This will help you get into triage right away.

Hopefully we won't have many more adventures with blood. But as my sister-in-law reminded me, we did name him Elliott Ray with the initials "ER". Oh well.

We stole a van

It's true. We stole a van yesterday. And I feel a little tiny bit bad about it, but not too much. I really love the van. Here I am in it:




Let me explain.

We have been in the market to buy a used van to accommodate the stuff we have to cart around with Elliott. During the last month, my sweet husband has spent countless hours scanning the used auto ads on craigslist. I have to admit that it crossed my mind a few times that he was just wasting time. But that is just not so.

His hard work and diligence paid off. Big time.

Yesterday, he noticed a 1996 Honda Odyssey with only 88,000 miles for $4300 go up on Craigslist. It is the top of the line model with all the bells & whistles and the guy was selling because Microsoft was transferring him overseas. The seller wanted to get rid of it quickly because he was leaving at the end of this week, and he knew he had priced it low. The ad showed us the Kelly Blue Book value at $5500 so this was quite a deal.

Jason got that gut feeling that this was "the one" that we had been waiting for. So he called around noon (within one hour of the original posting) and found out that someone else had already called and was planning on looking at the van at 2:00 pm.

So we jumped in our car and hurried to beat the other guy there.
First come, first serve, right?

We arrived at 1:10 and I knew immediately that we'd be buying it. It was in excellent condition and it is the smaller model (seats 6) so I found it easier to drive than the full sized mini vans. I hurried on the test drive because, after all, we had to close the deal before the other guy arrived. At 1:30 pm, after the test drive, we offered the asking price and the van was OURS!

The seller called the other guy and said that the van had already been sold. And then I felt a little bad, but like I said before, not that bad. Jason rationalized that it was probably a dealership anyway who noticed how underpriced the vehicle was and planned to resell it at a higher price.

So yes, we stole a van from someone else. You just gotta be quick to get the deals on Craigslist.

Our Baby is Back and Ready for Swimming

Our cheerful, active baby is back.

How do we know?

Well, last night he said dog, quacked and roared all in the space of a few minutes. (Notice an animal theme going on here?)

And, boy, are we relieved!

After a week of fevers and rashes, we are thrilled that Elliott is ready to take on the world again.

That's a good thing because he starts swimming lessons next week. Yep, big boy swimming lessons. (the class is really called "Tiny Tots" but I'm telling Elliott he is a Big Boy!)

He is already practicing his swimming skills. He is becoming more and more active in the bath tub and our bath tub is rather slick. Being the good parents we are, we bought a non-slip pad that is supposed to suction to the bottom of the tub to prevent slipping except that our tub has an odd finish on it that the little suction cups won't stick to. So the pad floats and creates a rather dangerous obstacle for a baby. Without the pad, all Elliott has to brace himself on is the slightly rough finish on the bottom of our tub. This strange, lightly bumpy finish looks like it is supposed to resemble a non-slip surface but it is completely ineffective for an exploring little boy.

During the last two days, Elliott has slipped a couple of times and his little face went into the water (we right there, even holding onto him, but he just slips around). Both times, he came up sputtering but okay. So I'm off to Fred Meyer to further baby-proof our tub for our adventurous guy. If anyone knows what works on that fake-non-slip tub surface, please let me know!

Stay tuned for details of swimming lessons!