Elliot got this book for his 4th birthday. I don’t remember which child gifted it to him. But we read it once, back in April, and then it went “missing” among the dozens of books scattered about.

I’d forgotten about it. But Elliot hadn’t. He asked to read it last week. We searched and finally found it. Now we’ve read it probably 3-5 times and it’s on top of the bed where it can’t be lost.

Every time I see Elliot after he’s been away for 5 days with Karolina, I notice small changes in his growth. I don’t mean physically. I mean verbally and socially. For instance, this time using using the phrase “This is my point…”

The routine is left-side touch only, “nope!” Right-side touch, “nope!” Then touch both contacts together, “Ha!”

Normally, I would not have Elliot today, but it is Juneteenth so I have off from work.

We visited PetSmart. Elliot petted a hamster and wants to buy it. He’ll name it Poochy. Then we went to the Eastridge Swimming Pool (the “Frog Pool”). He spent an entire hour going down the indoor water slide. It was his second time on the slide. He kept saying to me, “This is so much fun, Daddy!” We walk up the stairs together. Then he slides down and, after the lifeguard gives the OK, I slide down, too. We meet in the pool at the base of the slide. He asks, “What did you do???” And I would alternately say, “The pencil! the carrot! the daikon!” and he would say, “I did the meatball!” or “The carrot!”

Afterwards, in the locker room, he always likes me to weigh him and measure his height on the scale. Then we play hide-and-seek in the lockers — he can still fit in them and close the door completely, and they are half-height lockers!

Hey Daddy? Remember, I love you. Yes, he really said this to me as a 4-year old.

A collection of Elliot’s reading flash cards. He knows them all by heart and has for some months. I keep adding cards, and he picks them up right away. “CATCH”, “SKELETON”, and “SQUASH” are words he asked to learn.

UPDATE: July 7, 2022. We’ve added quite a few more. Elliot learns them instantly, remembering them days later and not making any mistakes. He now requests all the words he wants to learn: AXE (after visiting the Renaissance Fair where we got a wooden axe with red paint for blood), TERMITE, SHARK, BEE.

Complete list — 28 WORDS!!

TERMITE, SHARK, BEE, COCONUT, SQUASH, LIZARD, DINOSAUR, CATCH, PET, PEN, BUG, ELLIOT WOLF JUNG, CAR, CAT, CUP, BUS, HAT, HORSE, MOON, DOG, FISH, BANANA, BALL, SUN, FLY, SKELETON, AXE, LEMON, COW

Me: “It’s about girl named Dorothy. She’s trapped in her house during a tornado. The tornado takes her to another world and the house falls on a witch. Dorothy and her dog spend the rest of the movie trying to get home. She thinks only the Wizard can help her. She has to find the wizard. She follows a yellow brick road and meets a scarecrow who wants a brain. A robot who wants a heart. A lion who is afraid of everything and wants help. They all join her hoping the wizard can help them, too. And there’s a green witch chasing them!”

Elliot, age 4: “What happens? Do they find the wizard?”

Me: “You have to watch to find out.”

Elliot is fascinated by tornadoes, especially because he learned about them first from his book “Otis and the Tornado”, and then I showed him videos of real tornadoes a few months ago.

Noelle drove Elliot to camp this morning. She wrote this to me:

“Daddy, what’s your favorite animal?”

“Sardines!”

“Daddy! That’s not an animal.”

“That’s a fish?”

“Mm hmm”

“Ok, monkeys. What’s yours?”

“Spiders and geese.”

Elliot doesn’t run down the ramp at preschool anymore asking me to chase him. He doesn’t say “gaga” anymore – he says “Mark” when I ask where is Max.

First time eating corn on the cob. Elliot loved it so much, he asked if I could pack some for school lunch.

Elliot was watching a YouTube video where a character was crying after smelling an onion. I explained to Elliot how that happens. He was very surprised and wanted to see me experience this. We immediately went to the supermarket and bought a onion and a black balloon with black string (he chose the color). And at home, I cut the onion and showed him how it makes me cry. He laughed! He was not very interested in trying it himself.

Yesterday was his first time eating a nectarine.

UPDATE 2020-09-17: first time using a stapler. He spent 10 minutes stapling blank sheets of paper together

Today in the pool was his first time doing a backflip: I flipped him backwards over my shoulder. We did that a few dozen times because he loved it so much.

Also today was his first time floating in an inner tube. He borrowed one from a girl in the pool. He absolutely loved it and asked if I’d buy one (“borrow one”).

The pumpkin seeds we planted in the garden… Elliot’s never watched plants growing closely. He expects them to grow much faster. The pumpkins should already be there! He thought they would appear the same day we planted the seeds.

There are so many new things for him every day! It is wonderful to experience them vicariously.

Every day he examines a plastic pass from Halloween that Max and I used to enter the Andersen Farms Haunted House and Zombie Paintball Hunt. He asks me to tell him what the paintball hunt says, and to explain how it works. Every day for the last three days and also last week. Finally today he asked if he could go with me.

Then he asked if he could wear the badge/pass to the pool. I told him people would be scared of him ( it has a small image of a zombie on it).

Elliot always gets a balloon when we shop at King Soopers, unless it’s a Sunday when the flower department is closed. Today he chose a black balloon with a black ribbon. Usually he chooses green or red. He’s never chosen black.

First Time Eating Corn on the Cob

Anderson Farms Zombie Paintball Hunt plastic pass – he loves it and even brought it to the pool to show off! He showed it to different children there, thinking they would be scared of it or like it. I was sad that he was disappointed – no one was very interested. He kept asking me to read the part that says “ZOMBIE PAINTBALL HUNT”

The sardine towel arrived. Relaxing on the furniture tent with Grendel. Looking at all the different vegetables that people are growing in the community garden (we looked at each and every one). Walking to the pond, throwing rocks into it, and making up stories about the pizza kittens and bugs in the pond. Finally, changing into Spider Man pajamas and laying over top of the day’s clothes.

A couple of weeks ago, I picked up Elliot from preschool, and he had several of these concrete rocks in his pocket. He proudly told me they were meteors that he’d found in the playground. One of the other boys found some, too.