i think i have a love/hate relationship with napping. on the one hand, naps are good. on the other hand, when i nap i miss things. on the other other hand [or maybe the one foot] i haven’t been napping well in my bed during the day because there is no snuzzling going on.

well, lately mj’s been giving me my blanket to tuck around me. when she does that i can wad it up in my fists and pull on it some and it’s like a passable imitation of real snuzzling. she gives me the blanket and bam, i nap.

mj and i just tried to take a walk but it was hot./ and not the good kind of hot when i’m asleep on someone and get all snuzzly warm, but the nasty kind of hot that makes you want to be someplace not hot.

all of that exercise has been paying off. today i was sitting with mj holding my arms, and then i was able to push up and stand by myself./

[okay mj had my arms but it was almost like i was standing by myself.]

mj and bg gave me peas for lunch yesterday. they were pretty tasty, and i ate all of them, but once i’d eaten them they felt strange in my tummy. and then i ended up spitting them up./ but not all at once. instead i kept spitting up a bit of them about every hour.

the worst part was i was doing this when bg and mj had a bunch of their noisy friends over yesterday afternoon. everyone was talking and laughing and suddenly brr-eurp i had peas all over me. yuck. i was so embarassed.

i had two good naps today. naps make everything better. i think everyone would get along if only they napped.

bg was home when i woke up from my second nap. then he went outside and cut the grass. he was gone a long time, and when he came back in he was very sweaty.

he fed me barley cereal and carrots all swirled together. while i was eating, bg told mj, ‘i can’t wait until eli can run the lawnmower.’

what.7 don’t they know about child labor laws.7 they can’t make me push that lawnmower around./ i know my rights because i googled for them just now.

i got back at them by being grumpy from then on out.

the only way i’m going to get this soft pudgy body into shape is to exercise. i’ve been working on my hand coordination. right now i can’t grab things extremely well, so i’m trying to grab everything and anything i get moved close to. mj and bg seem to like this. just this morning i grabbed bg’s goatee and held on for dear life. he was so happy he opened his mouth wide and tears leaked out his eyes.

we went out again. what gives.7 [that’s a question mark, by the way.] it’s like mj and bg [it’s too much work to type all of that out. do you know how long it takes to type when you only press one key at a time with your whole hand.7] have decided that now i need to go everywhere.

restaurants at lunch are crowded. we sat at a table with one of the people from last night and several others. the room was very loud. i think it was some kind of cajun restaurant. the food smelled great, but did i get any.7 hah. all i got was rice cereal, which tastes like blah. everyone is lucky i didn’t go b-b-b-b and cover them with spit and rice cereal.

the only reason i didn’t is because i expected to get some of that tasty-smelling food. i didn’t realize i wasn’t getting anything until we were back in the car and driving away. i tried to tell mj and bg, hey, where’s my tasty food.7 i saw you two eating all of that food and it smelled great. would it have killed you to slip me a shrimp.7

it all came out sounding like ‘eeeeah. gneeeeerh. wreeee aooooooo b-b-b-b-b breeeeee.’ stupid non-functional vocal cords.

i slept until 8 this morning./ it must have been all of the activity yesterday. i did get up at 4, just to keep the milk jug in practice. okay, okay, i was a little hungry, too.

but 8./ that’s very late for me. i’m not normally so lazy.

here i went and said how bath giver and the milk jug never take me anywhere, and they dragged me off tonight instead of bathing me and feeding me and letting me sleep like i’m supposed to./ the day was pretty good, although i kept having to take naps in the crib instead of on the milk jug. we played a new game in the hall with all of the pillows and blankets from the beds. first it got all dark outside, and there were flashes of light. then i heard a siren. the milk jug turned on the tv, and suddenly she scooped me up, grabbed all the pillows, and took us in the hall where i couldn’t see outside anymore.

it was fun and all, but that much fun can be tiring, so i had to take a nap.

in the crib.

but it was a good nap, and when i woke up, bath giver was home. we ate, and then just as i was ready for play time, they stuffed me in my seat and off we went to somewhere else./ i stayed cool about it. i played on the strange floor, even though there was a cat that kept stalking me, and i smiled at all of the people while they talked about storm fronts and i love the 90s.

then it was bath time, but i didn’t get a bath. the milk jug fed me, and tried to rock me to sleep, but that’s a load of crap. no bath, no sleep./ this is non-negotiable.

except then she let me snuzzle to her, and i’m a sucker for the snuzzle, and the next thing i know i dozed off. they woke me up putting me back in the seat. they were all excited about ‘the power’ being back on.

they at least bathed me when i got home. i pretended to be asleep so bath giver and the milk jug would leave and i could sneak out to the computer.

hey, maybe i should say how other things never happen so they’ll happen to me like getting to go see other people.

it’s about time. i’ve now got my own journal here. and i’m not yet six months old./

that last ./ thing is an exclamation mark, by the way. i don’t yet have enough coordination to hold down shift with one hand while i type with the other.

anyway, i’m eli. i’m being held prisoner by these two people, ‘bath giver’ and ‘the milk jug’. they don’t let me go see a lot of people yet so i’m going to use this journal to meet more people. i’m very excited./