Elliot loves helping and copying.If Karolina is vacuuming, he wants to vacuum.

If I am turning a screwdriver to replace dimmer switches in Cordillera, Elliot wants to turn the screwdriver.

If we’re walking Chinle, he wants to hold the leash.

Stirring the soup? He wants to stir.

And on and on. So many things.

Sometimes he repeats something we did, but much later. Tonight he took a bath. He opened up the bath-book that my sister got him when he was born. He pointed at the pictures and imitated reading, just as we did with the same book so many times.

More than an this, Elliot LOVES throwing stones and sticks and pinecones into the ponds and streams at the Cordillera house.

He loves being outdoors with Taylor the baby sitter.

This was the last weekend we will sleep in Cordillera (actually we slwpt there the next weekend but without Max). We’ll spend one or two more there but without beds, I’m not sure where or how we’ll sleep. Max will only be there one more weekend.

Here are some memories of it:

1. Me, Max, and Elliot playing on the master bed. Max was hiding under the blankets from Elliot. I would pick up Elliot and hurl him from sky, like a dive-bombing baby, onto Max under the blanket. Elliot and I would peel back the blanket, exposing the hiding Max, who would beg for mercy. But we didn’t listen. We’d attack and punch him with sound effects. Elliot squealed with delight. Max laughed and also squealed and screamed. Repeat 20-30 times 🙂
2. Max and I saw Taylor at the Athletic Center. She is the young woman babysitting Elliot while Karolina packs the Cordillera House. She had the nicest story to tell.She says she’s 24 and does not want a baby until she’s at least 30. The other days she took Elliot to Eagle, where she lives with her boyfriend. They both went with Elliot to he library and the playground. Elliot and her boyfriend apparently got along very well. Afterwards, her boyfriend said, “I think I want 5 kids. And I don’t want to wait until you’re 30.” They both adore Elliot!
3. Sushi in the Sukkah at Rabbi Dovid and Doba’s house. We did this last year or the year before, too. But we have not seen them since Elliot’s briss, almost 18 months ago. Chava is older looking and so are the boys. Talking with newly-wed Sophie about Lilly and the quality of education at VMS and Colorado.A woman approached Karolina and said, “I just love your outfit. The skulls, the cat shoes, the jacket… everything.” She raved more about it, I jus dont remember all the details — I got hung up on “skulls and cats”. That is my kind of woman 🙂
4. Going to the Athletic Center with Max one final time. We made up games in the pool… throwing small floats at each other; you get a point if you splash the other person but lose a point if you hit him or the float is thrown outside the pool. We played “Super Dodge Ball” in the racquetball court — giant exercise balls hurled at each other. I think that’s the last time we’ll play that since we have no where else to do it.

5. Watching Weird Al’s UHF movie with Max for the first time (in bed together on a Saturday night, my favorite).

6. Shopping at Home Depot. Max pushing Elliot around in a race car / shopping cart. They spent probably an hour in the Halloween section while we explored flooring options for the new house.

7. Repairing the garage light with a 6 dollar glue gun; the electrician wants 175.

8. Elliot wearing Max’s cowboy hat and strumming the 6-string guitar, just like a cowboy.

9. Max reminded me of something he asked about this past Summer. We were watching Stranger Things Season 3, which takes place in the 1980s:

Max: “Why is that woman wearing pink stuff on her eyes?

(A woman was wearing eye shadow).

I explained it and told him it’s not in style anymore. Tonight, he said that Mrs. Welch at school (5th grade) wears that “strange eye paint” and will it come back in style someday?

It is the 10th anniversary of Annoying Orange. Max, Elliot, and I watched his special video in bed yesterday morning. It was Elliot’s first time, which means we probably haven’t watched him in 18 months or more. Strange.

Karolina was not pleased. She said Elliot should be older before he sees that silliness. I said, “will it take away 10% of his brain like Max’s friend’s parents say about Sponge Bob?”

She was not pleased.

I was reminded of Annoying Orange because Mara texted me a photo of an Annoying Orange pen that Reid had purchased. Reid says Annoying Orange reminds him of me.

Mark DeCheser <mark@decheserstudios.com>
Mon, Sep 30, 3:24 PM (15 hours ago)
to Eric

Jailbreak:

Teams are split 50/50. Escapees go hide. “Cops” count to 60 or something like that.

“Cops” try to catch prisoners who have to go to jail until they are either freed or all prisoners are caught. The only way to free a prisoner (or multiple prisoners) is for an uncaught prisoner to touch the jail cell without getting caught. You play a round until everyone gets caught or you can’t catch everyone (this part is fuzzy).

Once one or two prisoners get caught, one jailer camps the jail to prevent jail breakers.

Bloody Murder:

One murderer goes and hides in the woods. All the “victims” or whatever you want to call the non murderer go out to find the murderer. The first person to find the murderer shrieks BLOODY MURDER LIKE FUCKING FRANTIC_NEUMAN and everyone hauls ass back to home base. If the murderer catches anyone, the caught victim joins the murderer for the next round. This continues round after round until either there’s one victim left standing or everyone is caught. Also fuzzy here.

Yours,
One Traveller of Willowdale

Mia & Meran have a crush on Max and Jackson. They told Max. And Jackson. But they told Zayde they like Max a little more. Jackson does not seem to care very much. Max feels weird, happy.

Max: “I never had this experience before”

He keeps saying that.

Zayde

Johannes was born a couple of days ago.

Karolina is laughing because it was her father’s name.

Max is happy because he predicted it would be a boy. But he’s hasn’t spoken or asked about Johannes two days later. It’s his 6th sibling, after all, and on 17 months after Elliot and 11.5 years apart in age. He doesn’t seem to give the matter much thought.

He spoke to Mareike and Mark once, the day of the birth, but mostly just Mareike. I hope he realizes how lucky he is someday.

Elliot in Diana Donovan’s garden

Elliot with Donovan the Colorado Senator

Karoilna in Diana’s garden

Elliot loves the giant balls at the Cordillera Athletic Center

Friday the 13th PLUS A FULL MOON! We signed an offer to sell 1562 Red Draw in Cordillera. Bittersweet. Max is with Gaga in Aspen for the weekend.

Yesterday, 14 September — Elliot’s first kissing sound (he’s been trying to do this for a LONG TIME)

Today, 15 September 2019 — kissing sound + blowing it with his hand. Where did he learn this? We have no idea. It must be pre-school. He does not watch much TV besides Shaun the Sheep, Totoro, Pink Panther, and Elmo so it’s not likely he learned it there.

Two other things he did this weekend which we don’t know where he learned:

1. He picked up one of Max’s lego minifigs in the TV room in Cordillera. It was a devil guy. He brought it to us and made his deep-throated “AHHHHH!!!!!” sound. How did he know this is a bad guy to make that sound? We only use that sound for scary guys, monsters, or animals (sharks, crocodiles, etc).
2. We were at the Slifer offer with Pam Horan-Kates in Cordillera. Elliot was getting into everything. He took delight in an office water cooler, pressing the cold water dispenser without a glass beneath it. Finally, he found a glass, put it under the dispenser and filled it. How did he know this was a water cooler for drinking?

Note to self. When I become nostalgic for Elliot at ages 13 months (when he started walking) and his pre-verbal days like now, also remember how difficult it was to watch him. I must follow him around, wherever he wants to go, and hover in order to protect him from falling.

During his first month or two of walking, he did not know he could fall. So he would do things like step down a ledge and fall, hurting himself. I could not turn my head for a moment.

Now that he’s been walking almost 4 months, he now l knows not to step down large ledges, but he still falls all the time. Yesterday, he fell into the rock bed at the Cordilllera house while trying to get rocks to throw in the stream (he loves doing this hour after hour). I can turn my head for a moment, but then he steps in a big mud puddle up to his knees.

Following him around, guarding him, protecting him is rewarding in that I get to see what interests him and what doesn’t: he LOVES to be outside and exploring things in nature: rocks, sticks, the red berries at Cordilllera, ponds, streams, the little mouse that Chinle injured before I scolded her. In Littleton, it’s the rocks thrown into the TrailMark pond, the toys in the backyard like bubbles (he LOVES bubbles), balls to throw to chinle, rocks to drop into the grill over the basement window, and last but not least: watering the lavender plants with his little watering can.

But to not forget how much work it is. It is more tiring than FoxyProxy, Nasdaq, S&P Global, and working out at the gym. It is more tiring than anything I’ve done; even Max was not this tiring.

Karolina and I talked about that. She agrees that we could plop Max in a corner with some toys, and he’d sit there and play alone for quite some time. Elliot won’t do that. He would get up and wander around, curious, exploring, getting into things — bumping his head and falling.

Yesterday, Elliot — age 16 months — went into my office, picked up his indoor swing, and brought it into the living room. He dropped it, pointed to the door frame, and said “Uh! uh!”

So I setup the swing and swung him for 5-10 minutes. He loved it!

I love that he is able to communicate with us, even though he’s not even 2 years old yet.

Karolina told me that when they were in Maine, she and Elliot would watch a video like Shaun the Sheep in the upstairs bed together. Max would come up the stairs and Elliot, anticipating Max disturbing and bothering him, would take both hands in the air and pinch his thumbs & forefingers together… like a crab or lobster. He would do this to Max as Max approached the bed, threatening Max with his claws then pinching Max when he lay down.

Also he went to the doctor yesterday and is 29 lbs, 15.2 ounces… which is 98% percentile for weight.

I’ve been showing Elliot for a year how he can play with animal crackers. I make sounds when the animals play together. Last week, Elliot finally did this on his own with 2 crackers. Karolina told me about it. He was making growling sounds and holding them in his hands.

The red lobster claw — Elliot loves putting this on his hand then chasing me and Max around the house. We cower in fear, and Elliot laughs his head off.

Elliot’s wears this then loves chases me and Max through the house.

New shoes!

Today we saw lots of little blonde hairs on Max’s legs. Karolina and I were upset and told Max not to grow up!

After 16 months of my growling and pretending to eat Elliot’s finger whenever he puts it into the mouth of something, Elliot is making these sounds on his own. It started a few weeks ago when he was in Maine. Now he does it all the time. He puts his finger into the mouth of a toy or stuffy or even me, and says

“Rah rah rah rah rah rah !!!”

Tonight, in my closet, I was changing into pajamas from a wet bathing suit (we had so much fun at Normandy Pool, and Max was tortured by an 8-year old named Olivia!)

I was naked. Elliot came to me, and I thought he was going to put his finger into my belly button — which then causes me to emit a fake laugh, and he loves it. Well, no, he touched my penis and said, “Rah rah rah rah rah rah !!!” then laughed and giggled his head off.

When Karolina, Max, and Elliot came back from Main on Wednesday night, I was at work. We had not seen each other in 12 days. I walked in the garage door and Elliot was so happy to see me. He was sitting in his high chair, turned towards me, beaming with smiles. I will never forget that vision; my heart melted.

Karolina and Max were also happy to see me, of course. Karolina was unpacking the car, and I was not sure what kind of mood she was in after an 8-9 hour drive from Omaha.

Max later said, “I’m glad we’re together again” and hugged me. He also said he’s glad to be home, but he said he’s glad to be with me again after I was appreciative of his stories about D&D and monsters. I guess Karolina did not pay much attention to those 🙂