Mommy, did you swallow a cow?

Things have been going well at the McElheny household. Caleb is 7 months now and has one tooth, is sitting up, and every great once in a while will sleep through the night. Or at least, make it from 11 p.m. to 6 a.m. without nursing. He is so smiley and happy and content and is a perfect 20+ pound chunk of baby love. He is getting more and more blonde hair all the time. I think I may have to trim it over his ears soon. He is also doing lots of vocal experimentation. For about a week the continual experiment was to just scream as loud as he could - this was done when he was happy, bored, upset... basically anytime, or what ended up feeling like all the time. I learned a lot about how much I've been conditioned while we've been disciplining Ian for these things. I hear that noise and instantly start to say, "time out!" and the blood pressure goes up a few points - then I realize it's just Caleb, and he is not old enough for time out yet. At least that one seemed to be fairly short lived, now we are on to some strange form of raspberries with his fingers in his mouth and growling. Lots of growling. Especially at my friend Krista's 8 month old girl. I think they are in love. :-)

Ian is 2 1/2 years old and has just figured out all the basics of tricycle riding. The best is when he packs his "trunk" (basket on the back of the tricycle) with his play cell phone, keys, his little Clifford bank with money inside and his "diaper bag" (a little soft dog house toy). Then he says "Bye bye momma, I'm going to work, I'll see you later, have a good day, bye bye!" He LOVES it and I LOVE to watch him. I am so proud of him when he tackles these things that were once difficult for him. For example. We have a zoo membership (thanks mammaw and papaw) and there is an incredible play area at our zoo. It's about four "kid" stories high with all sorts of slides and climbing features. For a while there it was hard for Ian to navigate through it and get to the bigger slides. He was especially unsure about climbing over the netting areas. One day I called up to him from the ground while he was shouting, "I can't do it mommy, I can't I can't!" I said, "Ian, what would Bob the Builder say?" So he sat and thought a minute, got a determined look on his face and said, "Can I do it? YES I CAN!" and plowed on through and got to the slide he wanted to go down.

Potty training is basically on hold. He knows what the rewards are (stamps on his hands for #1, a dum dum sucker for #2) and consistently goes potty right before his bath but we tried putting him in underwear and we had several accidents and he would just ask for diapers back on before making #2. So, we keep talking about it and he seems mildly interested at times but pretty much prefers to run in his play room and lean over his slide in order to do his business. Oh well. He'll do it when he's ready, or so they say.

I just love to watch the wheels turn in his little mind. The other day I was putting on his shoes and just finishing up a snack. He asked me what I was eating and could he see in my mouth. I swallowed my snack and opened up - he peers all around in there and then looks up at me seriously, "Mommy, did you eat a cow? Did you swallow a cow's udd?" I was completely confused for a minute, "a cow's udder?, No Ian, I didn't eat a cow." Then I realized what he was saying... my uvula!! "Ian, do you mean that little part that is hanging down in mommy's mouth?" "Yeah! The cow's udd!" At this point Matt and I were just cracking up - no Ian, that is mommy's uvula. Everyone has one in the back of their mouth like that. Now he thinks it is an especially fun game to come up to me with a glint in his eye and say, "Mommy, you have a uvula!" I say, "No Ian, YOU have a uvula." and he lets out a big "HA!" and round and round we go. What a nut.