-- Frozen Corn. In college, while making dinner one night, Alli introduced me to frozen corn. If you are starving while making dinner, it's yummy to snack on while cooking. It's surprisingly sweet. One day, I introduced it to Eli, and now it's a common snacking request. Everyone in the family thinks Eli and I are a little strange for eating it. The day that Scott took these pictures, Eli requested that some frozen spinach accompany his corn. And, he actually ate all the frozen spinach, too. I have to admit I haven't even tried frozen spinach myself. But, I guess you can never have too much spinach.
-- Daddy's Special Cupcakes. Scott loves blueberry muffins. During the school year, Eli and I baked Scott double batches and froze them so that he'd have a quick, easy, healthy breakfast option. Since Keira's arrival I haven't done much baking. Scott baked the muffins himself a few weeks ago. He made them with all wheat flour and decided to puree the blueberries to try to make them more appealing to Eli. We've discovered that if we puree the blueberries in our blueberry pancakes he doesn't balk at them. If they are whole blueberries he tends to pick them out, or make us eat the blueberry pieces. Scott decided to try the same trick in the muffins to see if Eli would eat them. It was a success. Not only did he eat them, but because of their dark color (maybe they reminded him of chocolate), he called them "cupcakes" and ate them for special dessert after lunch.
--Remote Controlled Dump Truck. Eli has received several big brother gifts since Keira's arrival. One of his favorites is his first remote control vehicle. It's a dump truck. I think he's driven it at least once a day since he got it.
-- Radio. Another gift that has stood the test of time is his MP3 player that he got for his birthday. It came with some children's music that have since become favorites. Scott also added some of his favorite songs from itunes. His favorite song is "Pop Goes the World" by Men Without Hats. Scott introduced Eli to this song, which was one of his favorites from high school that he recently purchased off itunes. Now it's Eli's all time favorite -- he does a special frenzied dance to it while running around the house, and holding his radio. It reminds me a little of moshing. The most recent addition to the songs on the radio is Eli's Bob CD Story Book. Now he can listen to it whenever he wants without having to wait for us.
-- Puzzles. I saved the best for last. The boy is obsessed with puzzles. His two favorite activities are combining smaller puzzles or doing his United States puzzles. This first pictures shows him combining puzzles. In this case he took four twelve piece puzzles and mixed them up. Then, with a little help he sorted all the pieces then did the puzzles.
His other favorite puzzles are his United States puzzles. Unfortunately, along with many Americans, I have embarrassingly little knowledge of geography. I've been learning a lot by helping Eli put these puzzles together. He now knows at least as much as I do (if not more) about the location of the states. He can do most of these puzzles by himself, and he must be doing most of it by shape. He must have internalized the shapes of many of the states, because he'll point out things that look like the states. For instance, one morning Scott was making toast with cold butter. Since the butter was newly out of the fridge, he was using a sharp knife to cut off tiny pieces so they would melt easier on the toast. Eli said the first piece of butter looked like Georgia, Scott and I both started laughing because it did! Then, the next piece Eli said looked like the state above Texas, except without the little piece sticking out. And, it did look like Oklahoma without it's pan handle. It's so interesting to see how his brain works. Thank God he won't be inheriting my pitiful grasp of geography.
-- Keira. He still wants to love, hug and cuddle her at every opportunity. That is, when she's not sleeping or nursing, which doesn't allow for a whole lot of time. :)
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