You are currently browsing the category archive for the ‘Eli’ category.
At 2 1/2 years of parenting, life is a kind of busy like we’ve never known. The busyness is reflected in the lack of blog posts among other projects in life that have fallen off. Today we dropped the kids off for three hours just to take a nap and catch up on our to-do lists. At least we have supportive grandparents in town to give us the break. I’m more amazed by single parents every day.
So where do we stand at this 2 1/2 year mark of parenthood? Well, today was mother’s day, and I think Eli’s exclamation this afternoon pretty much summed things up. “Mommy, I just peed in the grass!!” Yup, we’ve crossed the potty training threshold. (The grass was only his advanced move after mastering the toilet on Friday.) And I must say, when he finally figured out that potty, it was my proudest moment as a parent.
Other random thoughts and highlights from the past two months:
- Eli’s memory for names – especially random short encounters (for weeks he asked where Richard was. Richard was the man who installed our dishwasher. Also for weeks after our vacation to Florida, he asked about Buck. Buck was a man we met on a walk one night. Or Bob…the man doing laps in the swimming pool.)
- Watching Eli struggle with time. (Everything is yesterday or last night. ”We went to Florida yesterday, or I went to cousin Jonah’s house last night.” for months after our visits. He also constantly asks what time it is. And when we answer, he says, “Why?” That’s a tough question to answer.
- Eli comes home from daycare one night starts calling us Mr. Dad and Mr. Mommy for the next 2 weeks
- Liam seems to be a more pensive baby than Eli was. While we had Eli’s deep bellied laugh at 3 or 4 months, Liam makes you work a lot harder for his short-winded chuckle.
- Russ turned 4 years old on Cinco De Mayo. He was our first boy, and life with him alone seems like a decade ago.
- Rachel starting her MSW amidst a full time job, and raising two kids under three years old. She’s following her dream and inspiring me every day.
- On our honeymoon almost 6 years ago, Rachel and I wrote down a fantasy business plan for a restaurant we would open someday (and who hasn’t had that fantasy). Last month a restaurant we’re partners in opened down the road from our house.
Bonus photo for Liam since he is being far less recognized on the blog than Eli was and I don’t want him to develop a complex. You’re just the second born, Liam…I’m sure you’ll bond with my little brother someday over life as the younger sibling.
On another Monday morning after a near sleepless night with sick kids, I listened to a song from Greg Brown and his show that Rachel and I saw on Friday. Parenting is hard. It’s even harder when you’re running on the fumes of sleep deprivation. But then there are the moments when you have a chance to slow down and look at the innocence and purity of your kids and it fuels you to get up and do everything you can for them again and again. I’m grateful for our kids, my wife and our very supportive family this morning. And for Greg Brown of course.
Take it away Mr. Brown…
I wouldn’t say it’s getting any easier, but the idea of being parents of two kids is at least settling in as our new reality. This coming weekend we’ll have a 3-month old in Liam and a nearly 2.5 year-old in Eli. Really?! When did that happen? Our lives have become so full and focused on what we’re doing for the next two hours, that when we finally slow down and take a step back, it feels like we’re catching up on weeks of events. I guess that’s one of the reasons we’ll need to keep the blog, photos and albums going. Because when we finally take those breaks, it will be nice to have something to joggle our sleep-deprived memory.
Since my last posting, we’ve continued with the infant routine of 1-2 hours of sleep followed by 1-2 hours of wake. That’s pretty much infant life for 3 months. Add to that a 2.5 year old that gets more energy, language, wit and manipulation with every week, and you’ve got a picture of where we’re at today. I’m really not complaining, just describing the reality. Eli has never been more fun to be around. His vocabulary exploded a few weeks back and now we’re talking to an actual kid. He seems to remember just about everything he hears and sees. So if he doesn’t know a word, you tell him once and it’s locked into the toddler database. As for his big-brother role, he seems pretty into it. I’ve heard him talk to other people about his brother Liam, he’ll sometimes kiss or hug the guy and generally show interest. But then there are also those moments like this weekend when his grandpa dropped him off, and Eli said that Mommy, Daddy and Russ live here. But not Liam. ’No, Liam does not live here.’
A few highlights from the past couple weeks:
- Family vacation to Sarasota. Spending a eight days without the distraction of work, computers, house stuff, responsibilities etc.
- Visiting the cemetery of Eli and Liam’s great-grandparents in Sarasota. Two people that never knew our kids. Two amazing people I would have loved to see our kids interact with.
- Building the first sand castle and construction site at the beach with Eli. Do we have kids in part so we have an excuse to really play again?
- Visiting the orange grove my grandfather used to pick up fruit from every week. Making fresh squeezed orange juice and eating on the “lanai” just like my grandparents did every morning. Then taking the same 2.5 mile walk they took every evening before dinner. Life’s pleasures should always be so simple.
- Eli’s first swim lesson with Rachel.
- Liam’s first smile. Watching Rachel react to Liam’s first smile.
Eli in Florida:
Liam:
Woah. At the six week parenting mark, I’ve finally found 30 minutes of free time to make a blog entry. That’s kinda’ what life with two kids feels like. We’ve got these very rare quiet moments when two kids are asleep…when we can either catch up on our own sleep or tackle one thing we’ve been thinking about or wanting to do for ourselves but can’t when the two kids are awake. Actually, when Eli is in daycare, life doesn’t really feel that different than it did with one kid, but the minute he comes home, or the weekend/vacation kicks in, it’s full throttle. Once again, I have no idea how single parents do it, and I’m more thankful for Rachel than ever before.
A few highlights from the past few weeks:
- Eli seeming to find interest in all things musical – calling out the names of different instruments when he hears them in the car.
- Eli’s favorite instrument – Harmonica (or Mahkana-maka) – See video
- Eli starting to “read” books to himself. Walking into his room to hear him “reading” with the same inflection when we’re reading to him at night.
- Eli playing with, and already looking up to his older cousin Jonah. Brings me back to time as a kid with my own older cousin.
- The first family road trip down to NJ to visit Rachel’s parents. Rachel in the back between two boys…flashback to her childhood with two older brothers.
- Eli’s last day of “Tuesday’s with Nani”. Eli spent every Tuesday with his Grandma Karin from 3 months old until 2 years, 1 month. Now he’s in daycare full-time and Liam starts the “Tuesday’s with Nani” in February.
- Looking at Rachel when both kids are finally asleep, and just laughing at the life we find ourselves in today
Here’s a photo/video update of the two kids at their respective milestones.
Eli @ 2 Years & 2 Months:
Liam @ 6 Weeks:
Mahkana-Maka:
Liam rolls @ 1 month:
It’s getting harder to remember a life without this guy running around. At 2 years, we’ve settled into some sort of a parenting routine and he’s pushing new boundaries each week. We’re not sure what to expect from “the terrible twos”, but he knows what he wants and has learned how to use “no.” For the most part his assertiveness is still cute, but we’ll see how long that lasts with another Ash on the way any day now…
A few clips and pictures at his 2nd birthday:
Eli reading to Russ (and aggressively patting him)
Eli reading magazines at dinner (a demand at every meal)
Eli bites it at gymnastics (and dad holds back laughter)
Eli opening a gift on his birthday (quite the reaction to a pair of pants)
And then the biggest highlight. Meeting Bill Murray at a Cornell Football game.
A few clips of Eli and Parenting at 22 months:
Language: We’ve clearly entered the questioning phase of childhood development. Eli’s vocabulary expansion is on cruise control and now he wants to know what everything is around him….
Swimming. His mom was a State champ and his dad has a freakishly long torso, so he has the genes to be a future Mark Spitz. Yeah, he has the aid of a pretty ridiculous looking 1950s inner-tube jumpsuit, but look at this kid move.
Helping Out. In addition to picking up our language, he’s mimicking much of what he sees us doing. Which happens to be a lot of house work.
Just Eli. Two random clips. His first backwards walk, and a time in the grocery store when he heard his mom use the word “honey” for dad.
That belly is the big news this summer. That’s right Eli…we’re giving you the greatest gift a parent can give their first-born. Someone to pick on for the next 20 years. Come November, you’ll be a big brother.
Growing up, my brother was my best friend and partner for endless games, chats and torment. Watching my own son grow up with a sibling will no doubt bring back some great memories from childhood.
From a parenting standpoint, it’s hard to imagine what it will feel like to have two kids to spread the attention between. But as with the first, I don’t think there is any way to really prepare for it. We’ll buy extra diapers, stock a little more wine in the cabinet, close our eyes and get ready for the ride.
A few interesting things (probably to his parents only) that we’ll want to remember about Eli from this stage someday:
- Following his mom’s actions, when he wants my attention, he now yells out, “E!” (see video)
- His word for all done: ”Gah-gong” (also in video)
- His favorite book: We All Go Traveling By – He can point out the buth (bus), chuck (truck), bikey (bike), and peeeen (plane)
- His favorite character: Elmo or “Em-mo”
- Favorite Song: Wheels on the Bus (complete with ‘rolling down the river’ hand motions)
- His surprise face whenever he sees something new or wants to impress us (see jack in the box video clip)
Thanks for the endless free entertainment buddy. A few short clips…
My son is 19 months old and knows how to navigate an iPhone. Does it make me a bad parent for exposing my kid to a smartphone before he can talk? What responsibility do we have as parents for a generation growing up surrounded by this kind of technology? Living and working in a digital age, I can’t help but think about the right balance between the virtual world and the natural world for my kid’s development…and these issues are only going to get more complicated. But it’s this conflict and challenge that I believe is driving the success of a local organization I’ve been following in Ithaca…
Primitive Pursuits was launched ten years ago with a mission to teach kids the skills that will strengthen their connection with nature. It’s almost hard to believe that an organization like this has become a necessity. Growing up, I spent as much time as I could outside. But then eventually I discovered cable TV. And then video games. And then computers. And now I spend most of my day in front of a laptop working for an internet company. (Neither of which even existed 25 years ago!) Well, now we have a generation of kids growing up with the virtual world as a standard in their lives. Between websites like Facebook and online gaming, kids can even create a social life without leaving their bedroom.
Tim Drake, the Director of Primitive Pursuits, shared this statistic with me at a recent meeting: On average, children spend 53% of their day in front of a screen, 35% in a classroom and less than 1% in outdoor activities. He also shared results from a study that children could identify 100 corporate logos but not 10 plants from their own backyard. What are the repercussions of children growing up without a strong connection to nature? If you don’t connect with the natural world, do you have any sense to protect it?
The concept of Primitive Pursuits is nothing new, but the relevance and importance seems to be growing as our society grapples with questions about the role of technology in our lives. However we decide to raise our own son, I’m glad to know that there are people like Tim focused on the basic idea of getting kids connected with, and excited about the outdoors.
I attended the Primitive Pursuits 10 year anniversary event last weekend and took a few pictures for their website….
This slideshow requires JavaScript.
For more information about Primitive Pursuits, click here. There is also a documentary on this subject of the need for outdoor education for todays kids called Play Again. I haven’t seen it yet, but hear good things.
At this point in Eli’s development, he’s starting to take control of what he wants out of his day and those around him. His vocabulary is getting bigger by the week, but mostly he still talks in long sentences of gibberish. In the past month, he has been using that gibberish to ask for (or demand) things that he wants. He has pretty strong opinions about food, toys, books or even songs…
10 years ago this September, I was standing on the corner of Broadway and Houston in Manhattan on my way to a job interview. I was staring up at the World Trade Center wondering how a small plane could have accidentally crashed into the World Trade Center. In a sign of ignorance prior to that day, I took in the chaotic scene of sirens and gawkers, but then got on the subway still planning to make my interview.
10 years later, I’m now married and raising a son who will have no emotional connection to 9/11 or Osama Bin Laden. And when Eli comes home from History class one day and asks me what it was like the day Bin Laden was shot, I might have a tough time explaining. On the one hand, I’ll probably tell him that initially it didn’t really impact me. It didn’t mean we would be ending our “War on Terrorism” or pulling troops out of the middle east. And it didn’t mean that our risk of terrorism would suddenly drop with his departure. But having lived in New York City in the period after September 11th, his death did mean something. For 7 years after 9/11, looking at the gap in the lower Manhattan skyline stirred a mix of emotions. Knowing this man is dead does bring some undeniable sense of closure to that period of my life. And if it feels that way for me, I can only imagine what it feels like for people who were directly impacted by the attacks that day.
And if I can look into the future, this smart kid’s next question will probably be, “how did it take 10 years to catch him?” Fortunately, I have a few years to find a satisfying answer for that one…
Recent Comments