Fear Factor

Lately Eliot has developed some, shall we say, irrational fears. Irrational in the sense that these anxieties don't really make any sense to his parents or even other adults. It all started with the witch doll in October, and has slowly gained momentum in the last month.

Now, a witch doll I can understand. She was green and mean looking, you know, with the frown and the hairy mole and all. She was straddling a broom with her skinny striped legs and who wouldn't be afraid of that? And the next fear, of my cousin Kevin, made some sense. Kevin suffered a horrific leg injury that put him in a contraption like this. We called it his 'cage'. Eliot didn't want to swing from it or anything, but didn't take much notice of it either. The cage has been removed and Kevin is getting around with a cane now, but whenever Eliot sees him he completely loses it - screaming, crying, climbing up my body, pounding heart, the works. Once we calm him down, he's fine, he'll even talk to Kevin, but at the next family gathering the freak-out repeats.

But what didn't make sense was when he went completely bonkers over a jumbo pack of Double AA batteries. Really? I cannot find one reasonable explanation for this. The screaming and the clawing and the writhing were all present once again. I can only guess that he may have seen a frightening ghost at the same time the multi-pack was produced from a Walgreens bag. This happened at my grandparents house, a place known for its history of paranormal activity, so I suppose that is possible. But reasonable? Not so much.

There are other fears that are weird but understandable. That sort of creepy zoologist puppet at the Zoomagination Station at the zoo, I can see that. The illustrations in the You are Creative and You are Brave books? They are a little intense. For Eliot, these books are more like You are Scared Shitless.

The hard part is not knowing what will be scary. Thunder? He doesn't look up from his puzzle. My sister Laura popping up from behind the couch? He laughs his face off. Baby dolls with eyes that follow you around the room? He falls in love with them. So when the two of us sat down to watch some Sesame Street Old School Volume 1, I didn't give it a thought. I had heard that it might not be appropriate for today's preschoolers (this is a little something called foreshadowing), but I wasn't completely sure why. I figured if we watched it together and talked about it, we would be okay.

Like for example, in the segment about where milk comes from when the narrator says something to the effect of, "Mother cows make far more milk than their calves could ever drink..." and I piped in with, "Eliot, that's baloney, mother cows only make more milk than their calves can drink because they are forcibly milked twice a day. The narrator doesn't know what he's talking about." I'm not even vegan. And I have to admit, I'm pretty sure that most of the illustrators working on the cartoons were smoking the drugs. A quick search of YouTube and you'll be all set for your next acid trip.

But I digress. I thought that would be the extent of the inappropriateness of the videos, and otherwise it would be fun for him and a trip to nostalgia town for me. And it was. Until this:



Now for me, the creepiness factor comes when the guy opens the trapdoor and says "Two turtles". First of all, he kind of looks like my dad. Secondly, the face he makes seems really inappropriate for children's television programming. But it's not until the end that the horror show really begins. The baker falls down a flight of stairs and his pies go a'flying. The first time Eliot saw this he referred to the baker as the 'Pizza Man' (after an animatronic doll my grandparents put out at Christmas, one that is wearing a similar hat to the baker). He asked to watch this specific part again 2 more times. But on the third time, he lost his marbles. He jumped into my arms and I fumbled with the remote to try to turn the TV off, and covered his eyes in a desperate attempt to shield him from the abomination on the screen.

But there is hope. Eliot has language now and he is using it. He's not really able to give responses when asked, "Why? What is so abhorent about double AAs?" But as I'm sure he will be required to do in therapy, he has taken to listing his fears for us in this way: "Fraid: Pizza Man Stairs. Witch Doll Pumpkin Patch. Zoo Doll. Kevi Knee. Creative Book. Brave Book." And then he makes his fake scared cry noise and we talk about it. So we try and reassure him that it is okay to be afraid, that those things cannot hurt him, that we are here to keep him safe. And then we stay awake at night hoping that we can protect him from that damn witch doll and her zoologist henchmen.

Butter Bulletin: 17 Months

Dear Eliot,

On Monday you hit the seventeen months' mark. You may have noticed that I skipped a few months there, and honestly, I don't have a great excuse. I probably don't have to tell you that I am a big fan of procrastination, so just be happy that this is not Butter Bulletin: 17th Birthday.


Obviously, quite a whole lot has happened in the past four months. Most notably, you started walking shortly after the last Butter Bulletin. You were pretty hesitant at first, just a couple of steps a day, until one day you were just walking. Everywhere. All the time. It was as though you wanted to be really confident that you could do it before you finally had the courage to just stroll. And do it well. Though, that said, you have managed to fall on your face a couple of times. In one horrible example, you were walking on the sidewalk (yes, I think we all know where this is going) with Daddy at Grandmother and Pop's house, and your hand slipped out of his and you faceplanted in the driveway. It was a bloodbath. I have never seen your father so freaked out in my life. Did I mention the blood? There was tons. I was sure I would look in your mouth and see your few little teeth hanging by threads. Fortunately, you just busted up your lips (and good - you looked like a sad little duck) and you healed right up in no time. And the fall did nothing to instill a natural sense of fear in you. Apparently, one year olds are fearless little death-seeking machines, and you are no exception.


You are also a talking machine now. I started to keep a list of all the words you picked up, but then I realized I would be writing night and day and I wouldn't have any time to keep up with all the blogs I read or maintain my knowledge of useless celebrity gossip, so I decided to give it up. Here's a sampling of your favorite words of the moment:

• NO! - this word is being said by you a little more than necessary, in my opinion, anyway, so if you could start saying - YES! that'd be great
• Cheesie - means cheese, mac and cheese and goldfish crackers - this is your favorite word by far
• Doll - means doll and baby - you refuse to say baby for some reason, even though when you say 'Big Bird' it sounds just like baby
  
• Door - you love to close and open doors, and you especially love to pop out behind a closed door in an attempt to surprise someone
  
• Paw Paw -means cup; you say this word a lot, because you have an unnatural obsession with drinking containers
• Keys - which you love to attempt to put in skeleton key locks throughout the apartment
• More - which is no longer just a sign, but a gesture accompanied by a word "Mo"
  
• People's names: Lila, Emma, Hannah (Nahnah), Paw Paw (the person, not the cup), Maw Maw, Laura (LaLa), CeeCee, Na, and most of all JJ. "Who's on the phone, Eliot?" "JJ." "Who's at the door, Eliot?" "JJ." It's JJ this and JJ that. She must have been some freakin' awesome babysitter.

Your imaginative play has exploded in the last couple of months. You can be found playing with your kitchen (a set of pots, pans, and implements courtesy of Aunt LaLa as we will be referring to her from now on) and a cardboard box that I drew 'burners' on. If anyone asks what's cooking, your answer is always "Cheesie!" and it is always punctuated with an exclamation point. You love to feed your creation to anyone who's available for a taste, and that includes animals in books, dolls (real and alive), and action figures.

You spend lots of time organizing your things. You enjoy grouping things; all the cups go in here, oh, then you move them over there, oh and again, back over here and repeat. You have a very serious and determined look while carrying out these tasks. You genuinely seem to enjoy helping us 'clean up' and putting things in their place. This is all the proof your father needs to know that you are indeed his child. That and your obsession with all things sweep-related: brooms, mops, vacuums. You're smitten. You are a little domestic diva (or whatever the male equivalent is). I look forward to the day when you and Daddy work together to put things 'away' where I can't find them and constantly talk about scrubbing the floor. I know, its a crazy concept, but people actually scrub - with brushes - their floors. Regularly. I'm fairly convinced that these people are in a group consisting only of your paternal grandmother and aunts, but I don't have hard proof yet.


You are also obsessed with 'riding' your bike, which consists of us pushing you halfway up the block before you announce that you are "Done!" You are infatuated with playing with your Dadas - a small collection of your father's old GI Joe's, many sporting his trademark beard, hence the moniker. You are still over the moon about books, books, and more books. You are out of your mind crazy about splashing in the Tower Grove fountain or any water infused area. And you are on the edge of insanity when it comes to Sesame Street, especially Elmo and Grover - which is the opposite of what I thought you'd be into before I was a parent, which was that you would be obsessed with modern art and beat writers by now. But I guess that's what separates the parents from the hipster doofuses, and if letting you watch 10 minutes of the double S once a day is what it takes for me to brush my teeth and dress while you maybe learn about the letter C through the magic of Cookie Monster, I'm all about it.


We recently went to visit your grandparents, aunts, uncle, and cousins in Pennsylvania. It was really great to see you with Ava and Riley: playing, fighting, hugging, chasing, laughing. Now that you are more than either a blob o' newborn (at the 2 month visit) or the sickest kid in Western Pennsylvania (at the 10 month visit) you can fully interact with those two and you held your own. You're really lucky to have such a big family that loves you, in multiple states.

And another thing - you are an awesome traveling companion. You did great on both plane rides, which I will take some credit for, as I packed the most primo snacks, new library books, stickers, crayons, and your tea set. You snoozed in the almost 2 hour car ride each way, and were completely relaxed and ready for whatever we had planned each day. You slept and napped great almost every day, and I'm pretty sure you were teething for most of the trip. You did so great that I'm taking you (by myself) to Canada to visit your arctic cousins, and I'm hoping you and I will have lots of inside jokes and embarrassing stories to laugh about later.


And speaking of teeth, you finally sprouted some more, after not having any new chiclets since January. And then your gums savagely pushed five chompers out in a matter of 2 weeks. I was getting a bit worried that you were only going to have 6 teeth for the rest of your life, and those implants are kind of pricey, so you would have probably had to been partly toothless for a period. Like until you could get a full-time job. Though, I'm sure we could probably find some mighty fine dentures to fill in until then.

As for Nipsy: it's still a part of our lives. We have been slowly but surely weaning the past few months and now we are down to two meetings per day, once in the morning and once at night. I'm both looking forward to the end and dreading it. I had hoped that you would be the one to initiate the break-up, but alas, you are still in love with the Sssss. Fortunately, you have made up for your loss of nursing with lots of extra (and unexpected) snuggling.

We moved into our new apartment and frankly, we're loving it. You love your big room, and the openness of the place. I love that everything is on one floor, which makes chasing you a bit easier. We are in the center of the neighborhood, so you are making lots of new friends, as am I. The Butters are in a really good place right now. And of course, you are the very center of that place.

Love,
Mumma

Butter Bulletin: 13 Months

Dear Eliot,

First, let me apologize for the lack of regular posts on your blog in your first year. It's just that I have a hard time tearing myself away from looking at your sweet angel baby face all day long. And at night I just lay in bed and think about you. Oh, and I was sometimes washing your poopie diapers and cleaning up your O's and goldfish crackers and working for the psychologists and sometimes even hanging out with Daddy, holding hands on the sofa. But otherwise, I have been spending all my free time WORSHIPING you.


Today you are thirteen months old. I'm superstitiously hoping this month passes by quickly, because for some unknown reason your father and I have a real aversion to the number 13. It is likely rooted in the nefarious reputation of the number as bad luck, but it has permeated our consciousness, and Daddy won't even allow the volume on the TV or stereo to be set at 13. And 12 is too quiet. But 14 is sometimes too loud. Hopefully this thirteenth month of yours will help snap us out of this ridiculous behavior.


You had quite a month this month. You received a lot of very nice gifts from all your friends and family for your birthday, and you spent the month playing with them all. You love to sit and look at your books; sometimes allowing us the honor of actually reading them to you. You love animals and you make this really excited "Ooohhh, oooohhh!!" sound when you see them. You even kiss the page sometimes when there is a kitten in a book. We gave you my (admittedly disgustingly stained) Cabbage Patch Doll (Kent Abe) from when I was a little girl and you are in love. It is the only thing you allow in your crib (everyone else is evicted as soon as you get in) and in the mornings you hold him and kiss his pen-marked and poxed face. I found an exact replica of Kent on eBay and we're patiently awaiting his arrival. I can't wait to write your name on his birth certificate.


And the phone. You are still completely obsessed with all things telecommuncatory. You have actual conversations that involve pauses and rebuttals. You laugh at things the caller tells you. If an actual telephone is unavailable, you improvise. I've seen you talk on stuffed animals, spoons, blocks, and even your hand. You hold it up to your ear as if you are a reporter out on location getting a message from the news desk. It's my favorite.


You have a new word that sounds like this - Schsssss. This sound means the following: cheese, keys, nipsies, and most recently, crackers. Oh, and snakes say schsssss. You also say ball and when we tell you no, you tell us na, na, na. Also sometimes when we tell you no, you laugh at us. We are not big fans of that, so, do what you can about just doing what you're told, okay?

Most importantly though, you said Mama. Thank you. I was beginning to feel a little neglected. Although, you could say it more. Especially since Dada is your favorite word. Maybe just one day of saying it over and over again like you do for Dada every day. Think about it. And if you decide against it, I'm never buying Gerber's Lil' Crunchies Zesty Tomato flavor ever again.

This was the month of the scream. Your mind has obviously well advanced past your limited vocabulary, and so when you aren't in need of Schsssss, you yell. In a screamy way. And it's really loud. Fortunately it is usually accompanied by a pointed finger, though that doesn't always provide a clue, as sometimes I think what you want is everything in all the world all at once. Especially if it is really sharp or pointy or expensive. When I comment that you are SO loud, Daddy always says (in his soft soft normal speaking voice), "Hmmm...I wonder where he got that from". Daddy thinks he's funny.


We sold our house this month and we're in the process of finding a new place to call home. The reality that our first year with you in this house is going to be the place where other people make their memories is definitely sad. In this house you slept in our bed, had your first smile, laughed your first giggle, learned to crawl, learned to cruise and walk (4 steps total!); you learned to climb the stairs, and terrorized the floors with your wagon. So now we'll make new memories, in a new, much less expensive (in a not crippling-your-parents-with-financial-stress kind of way) place and they will be just as wonderful. Because, Baby Butter, wherever you are, is where we will always want to be. And no matter where that is, it will always be good.

Love always,
XOXO,
Mumma

Two Steps!

Tonight during Naked Time, Eliot took his first two unassisted steps. Both Justin and I were there to witness this milestone. Justin demonstrated Eliot's facial expression for me later and it looked like, "Holy shit, are you guys seeing this? Can you even believe what I'm doing? This has got to be, hands-down, the best thing I've done so far." And then he fell over.

Happy Belated Butter Birthday

It's all for you, baby.

Whoops.

e!
Thank you to all my disciples for attending this, my first birthday.

What is that? Spicy pepper jack cupcakes? What is wrong with you woman?

This is low-fat, right?

First Jingle-Jangle ride. Note the wrapping paper in the lower left corner.

Gift-wrap aftermath.

My work here is done.

He said it. To my face. He said MAMA!

Happy Birthday Baby Butter!

Dear Eliot,

Today you turn one. I cannot believe that an entire twelve months has passed since you came into our lives. What they say is true, and possibly corny, but it does go by so fast.

Ever since you moved in, I don't have to do the dishes anymore. Thanks Eliot.

This has been the toughest and most rewarding year of our lives. I have never felt so stressed, weak, joyful, and strong all at once, and it's taking some getting used to. Daddy and I haven't had much sleep in the past year (mostly Mama - just remember that). After you were born, we decided that we couldn't bear to put you in daycare. We made the decision for me to stay home with you and find another way. That way included nannying for Parris and Bronte, two little girls who've made you their honorary little brother; and doing freelance writing for neuropsychologists in Canada, a lucrative yet so far spotty endeavor. We also decided to sell our house and move somewhere smaller, so that we could all be together without having to worry about money. Because that is just a drag.

"Okay, Ruby, I think it's time I filled you in about the birds and the bees. This is a bee, right?"

This year, you have:

• Lost your front hair
• Grown your front hair
• Grown 6 teeth (4 top, 2 bottom)
• Learned to roll over, sit up, army crawl, real crawl, pull up, and cruise
• You can say: Eliot, up, Dad (sometimes Dadda), duck, dog, hat, and hi
• You cannot say: MAMA - which is something I think you need to really focus on now that you are one
• Dressed up like a hot dog
  
• Learned to wave
  
• Learned to crawl up and down the stairs
• Learned to kiss
• Had your first haircut
  
• Learned how to SLEEP THROUGH THE NIGHT at ELEVEN months. Finally. Thank you so much, you don't know how much the sleep deprivation was starting to kill me.
  
  Who knew I would fall in love with a slob?
  

Your favorite things are:

• Cheese - any kind, any where, any time
  
• Gerber's Graduate's Zesty Tomato Crunchies (which I often use to bribe you, and then feel guilty about, because I'm pretty sure they are just low calorie baby junk food stuffs)
• Farmer Tad's banjo
• Phones, remote controls, anything with wires or lights
• To stand at the coffee table and 'talk' on your phone - which might sometimes actually be a stuffed animal or remote control - My guess is that you are mimicking behavior that you are probably seeing a little too much
• Your Daddy
• Nursing - yes, still, your face gets this complete look of unadulterated glee when you realize you will be meeting with 'nipsies'. I'd also like to point out that your teeth are killing me; the other night after I put you to bed I noticed that I had TEETH MARKS on my nipple. You should also consider working on that. Just a suggestion.
• Other kids - you have so many friends: Sylvia, Ruby, Ava, Lila, Parris, and Bronte. You do not have many boy friends, which leads me to believe that you will either be a ladies' man or gay, and I want you to know that I'm fine with either of those options. I just ask that you do not deny me grandchildren.
  
• The time right before bath time, formerly Naked Time, (you are just too mobile to risk an off-the-mat pee). This is the time of the day when you laugh the hardest and I really feel that we are a family.
• Sharing food - you love to offer a bite to whomever is at arm's length, you also are very good about offering up your toys for someone else's examination.
  
• Sliding - Ruby has a slide in her room (lucky!) and you just about lost your mind when you experienced it. Even cuter was the way Ruby laughed at your reaction.
  
• Waking up at ungodly early hours. Like 4:45 a.m. That is just ridiculous. Please add sleeping in to your goals for 2008.
• Books and being read to. I am convinced you will be reading by your next birthday. Please don't disappoint me.
  
  Proof that you are an angel.
  
  My baby boy, you are pretty much a toddler, which is exciting and a little bit sad for me. I loved your babyhood; you are such a happy and loving boy, you bring such joy to everyone who knows you. Although, you could really have started sleeping through the night on a regular basis a little sooner. Your sleep routine was killing my blogging. I blame all my lazy updating on your thrice nightly waking. That said, I am very much looking forward to your toddlerhood. I can't wait to watch you learn and grow and change and walk and talk. You and Daddy are the best things that have ever happened to me, and I am thankful every day that we have one another.
  
  XOXO,
  Love always,
  Mumma
  

November Part II

Here
comes
Eliot! Who learned to crawl-like-a-wounded-soldier this month.
First snowstorm = first snowsuit, courtesy of Grandmother.

November Part I

Eliot attended his Grandmother's birthday party. 1st party hat!
Here he is just being his cute self during a photo shoot with Daddy.
And the two of them being their cute selves.
He could stand and hold himself up in November.
On a side note, we had a yard sale because we are broke and have/had too much unnecessary junk.

Toothtastic!

The day we'd been waiting for finally arrived. After weeks of intermittent drooling, chewing, crying, night-waking (weeks? I mean months) misery, Eliot finally popped out a shiny, razor-sharp pearly white. Tomorrow it will be two weeks old.

It came after a night filled with painful screaming, and then drugging (thank you Motrin) and even co-sleeping, which was possibly more a way to comfort his parents than him. Two days later, I slid my finger over his gums, and there on the lower left side, was a very short, very sharp little tooth nubbin.

I'm really surprised how wide it is, and now I'm convinced that our tiny little boy will have a mouth full of horse-chompers. That being said, it is so mother-loving cute that I can barely stand it. I'm constantly looking for ways to make him open his mouth WIDE so that I can get a glimpse of it's milky whiteness. So little and so perfect. Only 19 more to go!


You can see it if you look really, really, really closely.

Oh, by the way, I can do this now.

Eliot can sit up. It all went down in an approximately 24 hour period. Thursday, he was 'sitting up' for about 4.2 seconds and then flop! down he went. Then, around the same time the next day, he was sitting up indefinitely. Okay, well, maybe more like in 5 and 7 minute intervals. He was even catching himself. The best part about it was that I got to witness this feat. This is why I didn't go back to work. This is why we have chosen near-poverty. This is what it is all about.

I was a little disappointed that it happened so fast, as I was kind of looking forward to watching him try it out and get the little wiggles while attempting to maintain an upright position (other moms, you most likely know what I am talking about). But no, Mr. Impatient had to figure it out right away. Now if only he would figure out this sleeping through the night thing I've been hearing so much about.