Elliot, now age 5, told me last week that he still drinks from a milk bottle every night at Karolina’s apartment. He said this on his own. I did not ask him about it.
So now most every night that he is with me, we drink a MUG of milk in bed together.
It’s had the effect I want. Last night, he told me that he asked mama for a cup instead of a milk bottle. According to Elliot, Karolina refused and gave him the bottle against his wishes. But at least he tried, and he clearly understands that milk bottles are for babies.
We went to the 75th Israel party on Wednesday. Rebecca was there with her father, Aaron. Drum lesson on Thursday. Friday a hike and the 2016 “Gods of Egypt” movie because Elliot is on an Egypt fetish now (Max had that phase too but a little older)… mummies, pyramids, etc… infused with Passover lore so it’s cute. Saturday the aquarium. I got a kids microscope, and Elliot loves it. Need some more slides, though. Then the monster trucks in CO Springs on Sunday and various stuff around our house like bike rides, roasting marshmallows, Elliot climbing the backyard fence on his own for the first time, telling pizza kitten stories in the “furniture tent”, going to the playground and Chinle’s Dog Park, playing hide and seek at the trees by the soccer field on the way, overturning rocks next to the playground to look for bugs, racing each other home with me pretending to be a sports announcer.
Reading countless books all weekend to Elliot. Playing Super Mario Brothers on the NES emulator. Backrooms Doge game (“capital H… capital H”) on the android tablet.
Teaching Elliot that he can drink milk at night from a mug instead of a bottle, since he told me Karolina still has him drinking from a bottle at night.
Now I spend the next day cleaning up since I don’t have time to do that very much while I’m with Elliot 😀
He starts off using a Christmas tune that he hears me sing sometimes, “Oh Maxilein, oh stachelschwein, you are my favorite Maxilein….” But I don’t know the name of that song and don’t remember the original words. Elliot then switched to “You are my sunshine.”
He sang a version of this just before I videoed that i liked even more.
I picked Elliot up from school. His teachers told me he’d been picking his nose so his nose was bleeding. We went into the hallway and Elliot said he had to whisper something to me:
“There’s a bead stuck up my nose.”
“What?”
“There’s a bead stuck up my nose.”
He wouldn’t tell his teachers why he’d been picking his nose. I showed him how to close one nostril and blow it out the other nostril.
I spent some time in the morning with Elliot and his class, before 9:00. I showed them how to play bowling, which was a hit because they had just gone bowling a few days earlier at Elliot’s 5th birthday party. Here’s a video:
Today we celebrated Elliot’s 5th birthday a few days early. On his actual birthday, he’ll be with Karolina and although there is a bowling party at Bowlero, I wanted something between us. Afterwards, we played Plants Vs. Zombies stuffie classroom “in real life”. I played the Plants Vs. Zombies music and well, it wasn’t a “classroom” – it was just the plants and zombies fighting… especially Elliot’s new “chomper plant”.
He got the “Chomper” stuffie, a pocket knife from my father (which he’s been begging for), Chutes and Ladders, and a wind-up chicken that poops eggs. All things that he asked for except Chutes and Ladders.
I like that we make his birthday special, but not over-the-top special as in the “Old Family”with Karolina. This is so important to me right now; that he understands special days but not see any anxiety from me about planning and executing it. I did not have any anxiety planning or executing it because it was not over-the-top.
Elliot was so thankful and grateful and happy. He absolutely adored the cake. He hugged me and kissed me plenty!
We visited Quinn in Boulder today. There won’t be too many more of these – Quinn graduates next month and moves back to New York after a couple of months. I still remember visiting him right after he moved in during his freshman year; visiting the museum on-campus with baby Elliot, Max, and Karolina.
Elliot woke up in the middle of the night with a bloody nose. He was crying and said he had a bad dream. In the dream, he was on an airplane filled with ghosts. There no was pilot flying it. He couldn’t tell me much more about it, but he was scared. He asked why he never has good dreams. I told him that he will eventually. Everyone does.
He said he had the same dream when he was a baby. Or did he say when he was 2? I don’t remember. Anyway, he said he had the same dream as a baby, and he was crying, and I gave him the milky bottle. It was sweet. I asked if he remembered me holding him in arms, cradling his head in one hand and holding the milk bottle with the other. He said yes, yes, he remembers.
This morning I read the story of Icarus to him and also Atalanta. Then Green Eggs & Ham. Right in the middle, Elliot says “He’s Jewish!” because the Dr. Suess character won’t eat the ham.
Grendel is on my chest, listening to the story, as usual.
Adventure to the Gobling King’s tunnel (culvert), then King Soopers. Elliot was in the wagon the whole time, and I pulled. A lot of work! He’s somewhere between 45-50 pounds now. I ran about 1/4 of a mile of it.
The other day Elliot said to me, “I don’t want my parents to die.” Then he hugged me – hard and long. It was so precious and special to me. I can’t explain it. I think he is coming to understand that his parents will die. He sees my parents have died. I have photos of them around the house, and he asks about them. Maybe he asks Karolina about her parents. He asks about death a lot.
Contrast this to Jan 22, 2023 when he said, after I asked him if he’d bury me in a Jewish cemetery when I died, “But you don’t die because you’re new and I’m new.” I wrote a lot about that in an earlier entry; it was during his first cemetery visit,
There is something about Elliot’s learning of death that is sad for me. It’s the loss of his innocence.
Today he said to me, out of the blue, “Daddy, there was another singer who died in a plane crash.” He could not tell me who it was. But he’s referring back to a few days ago when we listened to “Bad, Bad Leroy Brown” by Jim Croce and “Rocky Mountain High” by John Denver. I told him both singers died in plane crashes.“He wasn’t wearing his seat belt?” Elliot asked. I didn’t want to explain at that moment, so I said, “Yes.”
Easter Egg Hunt Pictures
It was the first time Max came to the house in more than a year.
I went for a walk on the bike path the other day. In a gully off the path were dozens of singing birds, roosting in some bushes and brambles. I went over to them, sat down, and listened for a half hour. Such beauty. I captured a couple minutes of audio.
Tonight I met my friend, Tim Coutts, at 240 Union. He’s known Elliot (now almost age 5) since he was born. We’ve known each other perhaps 10 years. We often meet at the bookstore on Sunday mornings at 10:00.
I met him because he is a long-time FoxyProxy customer. He is British – from New Castle – 30 years older than me, an ex-physicist at NREL, and a great inspiration to me.
He is 83 and in great health even after a stroke and being a life-long diabetic. He exercises 4-5 times per week, one of those with a trainer. He’s been doing that for decades. He does Wordle and Sudoko and reads and is active and involved and alert and charming and intelligent.
