Milestones

Well clearly I have not kept my New Years Resolution to blog more.  I blame this on the fact that either Elijah or I or both of us have been sick pretty much since the first of the year.  He finally got over this horrid cold about a week ago but unfortunately that was right after I managed to catch it from him.  I am better now but still coughing and blowing my nose more than normal.  And of course while I had the cold I wasn't feeling too nauseated (Thank you, Jesus!) but now that it's gone, more or less, my nausea has returned with a vengeance.  Like last night I got to throw up my dinner.  Yay!  If I have a third child maybe it will be a girl and I won't be as nauseated.  I kind of doubt it, but one can always dream.

Anyway, as a result of all the illness around our house we have become WAY too attached to the television.  So now that we're well, I'm trying desperately to make it a rule that we only watch Sesame Street in the mornings and a Veggie Tales video in the afternoon while I make dinner.  I'm sure that's probably more than any kid should watch, but sadly it's a great reduction in the amount of our TV viewing of late.

Of course, that means that we must fill up the time doing other things like breaking lamps, climbing on things we shouldn't, or playing with toys.  I have been trying to think of things to do outside of the house but that gets difficult since he's really still too small to play on the playground.  Today we are going to try Science City at Union Station.  I have been told there is a toddler area.  I hope this is accurate because we're going after his nap, which usually ends around 3.  It makes total sense, right?  Now that we're not sick anymore we should visit a place where tons of toddlers waddle around and put their grimy hands on everything, right?!

Anyway, we're going today because it's right next to Mike's (aka Daddy's) work and when he gets off we're going to meet him for dinner and then go to the Ash Wednesday service at church, which starts at 5:30.  So it's either go meet him for dinner or not see him until after service.  But onto the title of this blog.

Here's a picture of Elijah riding his car to break up the monotony.

If you've read any of this blog or have talked to me at any length about Elijah you know that he reaches every milestone at about the time I'm thinking he's never going to reach it and there's something wrong with him.  Well, I have been thinking that about his speech for quite awhile.  He babbles like nonstop but as for actual real words, there aren't that many.  And the ones he does use I'm not even sure he knows what they mean.  On the other hand, it's clear that he understands at least 80% of what we say to him.  So I have no idea what's going on.  But instead of focusing on that, I'm starting to wonder why there aren't notable other milestones, such as climbing.  Because he has that one down.  In fact, just when I think there's nothing in an area to climb on, he finds something to climb on.  Or what about breaking something?  Because he broke the floor lamp in our living room.  We managed to fix it, but still.

Or how about shapes and puzzles?  Because he's insanely good at that stuff.  Not like to where I'd be concerned about austism, just good at figuring out which piece goes where and what shapes go in which holes in his shapes ball.  I wish I could video record him doing these things but generally when I pull out the camera he is more interested in the camera than in what he was previously doing.

Here he is putting the cow piece in the right spot.

 

You probably can't tell, but that's the blue cube-shaped block he's put in the right spot.

 

And as you can see, the triangle shape is going in the right spot.

He also has a shape ball that has way more complicated shapes in it (i.e. hexagon, pentagon, trapezoid, etc.) but it's upstairs and I'm too lazy to go to the trouble of trying to get a picture of him playing with it.  Suffice it to say that he can usually find where the shapes go and if he doesn't it's usually because he has the trapezoid upside down or he confused the pentagon spot with the hexagon spot or something else equally understandable.  So instead of complaining and worrying about the lack of speech, I'm going to praise and brag on my kid for being really good at shapes.  It's just a different sort of intelligence, right?  Maybe this is where he's gifted and he's just not interested in talking all that much.  At least I hope so.