Chocolate on a Rainy Day: Dear Elliot

Dear Elliot,

Today you turn 4. How quickly the years have passed. I remember how nervous daddy and I were when we first brought you home from the hospital. How you cried and wouldn't latch to breastfeed and I cried and we tried to figure out how to use the pump and then you guzzled the bottles of pumped milk every 3 hours for 5 days until we figured out how to nurse. You were jaundiced, which made you a bit lethargic, so we had to wake you to make sure you ate. You had such a mad little cry. You went from cheery to "where's my damn milk" in a nanosecond. And then when you ate, you would dig your little fingers into your eyes over and over - we had to keep mittens on you so you wouldn't scratch your delicate skin.

A few days old

You were (and are!) always quick to laugh and smile. Such a cheery boy. And a determined one. When you were learning how to roll, you would spy something on the other side of the room and roll towards it. But having such a large head, you would roll in circles and get so mad! You were a very physical baby. Big hugs. Big kisses - complete with teeth. You would crawl on other children and pull their hair, often making them cry. You affectionately received the nickname "Brute" since playdates nearly always ended with the other child(ren) in tears. We did constant intervention, correction and redirection with you.

First Easter

You got your first tooth at 4 months old. Your first word was ball.You walked at 10.5 months. You started using the mouse on my computer - correctly - sometime around 2 years old. When Felix was born, you called him a "tiny little boner" instead of "newborn". You love to dance and have an amazing move where you bend over at the waist and move your arms back and forth across your body. Makes me laugh every time I see it. You call it your 'boogie-woogie'.

Happy 1st Birthday!

You are incredibly smart. In fact, we brought you for special testing and discovered you're in the 99th percentile for cognitive development - which means you're one smart cookie! Your brain is always thinking about things. Lately, you've been describing pictures you see outside - street signs, signs in shop windows, signs on vehicles - and asking what it means. You're starting to spell and can do basic math.

Birthday #2 - you're a big brother now!

I had to write down this conversation we had the other night:

Elliot: I'm going to be 100 when I have my own kids. One will be named Stella...

Mama: Who's going to be their mama?

Elliot: You are, mama. And Felix will be one of my kids. And daddy - he will be my next husband and will take care of the kids when I die. And when I take one kid to the grocery store, he will take care of the (ummmm, 9 take away one...) 8 kids left. The other kids are Happy, Long, Giraffe (that's a funny name!) and Flashlight. And Mat, Dinosaur, Cat, Crayon, Chalk and Felix. Happy has blue skin. And another Flashlight. Actually, I don't want two Flashlights...I'll name the other kid Bag.

Mama: That's 12 kids!

Elliot: Hey Felix! I'm going to have 12 kids when I'm 100 and you're gonna be one of them!!

Just before 3rd birthday

You love cars, dinosaurs, books, macaroni & cheese, shepherd's pie and mama hugs. You're very crafty. On the walk home tonight, you collected a handful of dry pine needles, a stick and half a roofing shingle. You said you were going to make a picture of a boat out of them. (But you changed your mind when we got home and threw everything on the lawn.) You make up words all the time. My favourite is "clonch" as in, Felix fell down and clonched his head. And I will probably cry when you stop pronouncing the "-tion" suffix as "shkin" - constructshkin, directshkin... too cute.