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Elliot really wanted this bloody foot attached to a chain. Halloween prop at Spirit Halloween. He got it. At the end of the day, he really wanted a real chain so we got one cut at Home Depot same length. I told him we’re not getting a real foot though. One of these chains is fake and one is real.

I can only remember giving soda to Elliot once. And the other day he said to me, “Daddy? Remember the time you gave me soda at the pinball place?” (1 UP arcade in Greenwood Village). He said he did not like it.

The other day Elliot asked, “Daddy, what’s a chicken nugget?”

I explain it’s a small piece of chicken, and that he had them at Chick-Fil-A. He LOVES THAT PLACE. We’ve only been there two or three times, and he loves it not for the food but for the indoor playground. And so now he asks if we can go there. He promises to eat his fruit (I got him a fruit cup the few times we’ve been). And although there are other children in the playground, he wants me to play with him 😀

I said to Elliot, “I love you even if you ride a motorcycle. I love you even if you eat shrimp. I love you even if you eat crabbies or lobster. I love you if you get a tattoo.”

He loved hearing this. Loved it! It is a variation on something I’ve said to him for years, “I love you no matter what.” But he didn’t take to that like he did these statements. Maybe because these are very concrete.

He asked me to repeat it several times and then the next day, too. Yay!

I’m a decent software engineer. Don’t ever confuse that with a building engineer. I’ve never been able to build a gingerbread house. This was a Halloween one from Trader Joe’s. Elliot was SO EXCITED to build this together. I feel I let him down. But it still tastes good!

Today Elliot said, “The Schnaka man stopped coming. I hate the Schnaka man.” Indeed, I have stopped filling the Schnaka box after about 14 months. Elliot knows his job chart well. The Schnaka box is not needed anymore. Maybe when I change the job chart? Anyway, it is bittersweet. He loved it so much.

UPDATE Dec 2, 2022: We emptied the remaining toys from the Schnaka Box. We brought them to Pre-K and gave them to Miss April for her “treasure box”. The kids in the class get a treasure for little things like “listening well.” I am proud that Elliot was not attached to the toys enough to give them up. I made the suggestion, but he quickly agreed. When we got to the school, he even asked about the toys proactively to make sure I didn’t forget. Miss April was happy.

Today we spent 4 hours at O’Fallon Park and then Lair Of the Bear park, where Elliot showed me where he had two days of fishing camp with Maxi this summer.

At O’Fallon Park we explored them Rock Island. We played in the river the whole time. Elliot made two aquariums from empty glass containers that held our lunch. They had sand and a few tiny snails. He pretended there were other creatures in it, though. It was wonderful to play and watch him play. He truly loves the water. He called these “tide pools” because we watched Coyote Peterson and Nick Bingo make tide pool aquariums on YouTube. I corrected him a couple of times, but he still liked to call them tide pools.

We went to Elliot’s favorite store again, Spirit Halloween. He loves getting scared by the animatronics, looking at the props and costumes, and just browsing around. Here does not ask me to buy everything, but we did get a two-headed snake skeleton.

Then we went to the block party hosted by Claudio, Leah, Luca, and Josie.

Elliot learned a social lesson at the party. At one point, I saw him lying on the grass face-down, unmoving. I called to him, but he did not respond. When I approached, I noticed he was crying.

He said the girls were mean to him (there were a group of 4-5 girls maybe ages 8-11 nearby). I asked him to tell me what happened. “They told me not to lick them.”

Elliot likes to lick people as a joke. Their arms or whatever. I call it “lickens”, like my father did when Muffin licked us. Maybe this encouraged him because a year ago it was a game for us, but I’ve told him many times that people don’t like to be licked. I tried to explain it’s just our game, but I did not do a good job of that.

Anyway, the girls had enough of Elliot chasing them around, trying to lick them. Eventually, they were mean to him to get him to stop.

It is a lesson he had to learn. But it’s still painful to see my child hurt. Fortunately, he rebounded quickly and played with Luca and Connor the rest of the night, and Josie a little bit. She is 6 months older than Elliot.

When Elliot sees Grendel go into the litter box, he says, “Grendel! You’re building a sand castle?”

Elliot and I had a lot of fun at Joy Park (Children’s Museum) with Maya, Ella, and Piper last night. We climbed all the way to the top of the structure. We played in the sand – and on and on! Then we had pizza in downtown Denver.

Elliot switched swimming teachers a few lessons ago to a woman named Mae. She is teaching him to dive, a nice change from months working on freestyle.

Elliot calls seagulls, “SEA EAGLES”.

“Daddy? Dinosaurs lived long time ago?”, Elliot asks.

“Yes”, I say.

“Where?”

I reply ,”They lived all over the Earth, especially in Colorado.”

“When you were a boy, you saw alive dinosaurs?”

And some more, Sept 2022, just before Rosh Hashanah.

Sent by his Blue Room teacher, April Price.

And later that day, Elliot got his 2nd COVID vaccine shot. He asked me many times why it did not hurt.