Yesterday was one of those days that make the militantly child-free chortle with glee. Misty & I kept the nursery at church, a task we’re given once a month as sort of a kid tax for having childcare during the service the rest of the time. That and I haven’t damaged any of the kids yet. Normally this means we’re in a room with Eli and two or so other two year olds.

This time we had five. One of them, Jake, is a bundle of energy. One of them, Avery, is normally very quiet and sweet and loves me; this time she was upset that her parents weren’t around and required a lot of attention. One of them was in a near-constant state of meltdown from tiredness: Eli. At one point I was galloping about the room, Eli on my shoulders and Avery held in my arm as I tried to make them both happy. Look, ma, I’m a horsey! Eventually it ended, and a kind lady led me out into a field and shot me before shipping me off for glue.

Last night Eli woke up crying. We went in to soothe him since his crying like that is unusual, and he’s been fighting off an ear infection. “Does your ear hurt?” we asked him. He nodded solemnly and pointed to his non-infected ear. Uh huh. It was a TRAP, a trap of being awake when all good people should be asleep. Eventually Misty read to him and put him in bed, which led to about two minutes of crying followed by snoring.

He was, of course, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed this morning.

Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star
As Sung by Elijah Granade

Biko biko biko star
How wonder what-a are
Up above world sss high
Like ….
BIKO biko biko star
How wonder what-a are

Now that Eli is old enough to know that he’s doing things he shouldn’t do, we’re starting to wrestle with how to punish him and how to redirect his behavior. It’s something of a nervous tightrope act, only your hair is on fire at the time and the audience is throwing knives at you.

Sharp knives.

We’re very unsure about what we’re doing. We don’t want to crush his spirit any more than necessary, but he can’t run around like a wild hooligan. We don’t want to be those parents. I mean, we are those parents — every parent is one of those parents. It’s unavoidable, like gravity and getting peed on at least once when changing a diaper. But we want to minimize the length of time we spend being those parents.

I’m sure we’ll have this figured out in a day or so. I’ll let you know when we do.

Eli is moving to the stage where he does things he should not do while looking sidelong at us, making sure we’re watching him do the things he should not do. This in turn has led to the need for punishment. We’re trying to redirect him as much as possible (“Eli, why don’t you take this car and give daddy his razor?”), but sometimes that doesn’t work, or we feel like we need to curb really dangerous behavior.

The current approach is, when he does something dangerous that he’s been told not to do, to take him to his room, silently put him down, walk out and pull the door nearly shut. This really bothers him, since he is a giant vacuum of attention, demanding that all eyes be on him. He cries for a moment, then comes out of his room. His eyes are full of tears; his bottom lip trembles. In a quiet whisper he says, “Sorry, daddy. Sorry, mommy.”

That reddish stain on the carpet is the remnants of my heart being pulled out and trampled upon.

Monday he was again misbehaving. “I told you not to do that,” Misty said. “You’re going to have to go to your room.”

Eli promptly went to his room, pushed his door shut, and began crying.

Evolution of the word “Yes”

By Elijah Granade, Aged 23 months

1. “Uhhh!” Accompanied by urgent pointing and repetition of “uhhh!” Can be used to indicate “yes”, “I want that”, or “that way”.

2. “I do!” Pronounced “I daow!” This one showed up when he was around 14 months or so. Usage: “Are you hungry? Do you want something to eat?” “I daow!”

3. “Oh sure!” Pronounced “oh sooor” and said in an excited voice. This is a very recent phenomenon. Usage: “Are you ready to go outside?” “Oh soooor!”

Now everyone can guess what the next variant will be!

Hi, this is Eli’s dad. I’ll shout over the sound of the fourth wall crashing down around me.

I haven’t written in this journal for a couple of months. Once Eli began talking and expressing himself, I felt strange putting words in his mouth the way I had been doing. In addition, work had become crazy busy, so I stopped writing in his journal.

I’ve had a number of people tell me how much they miss it. It also served as a good way to keep people appraised on what Eli had been up to. Because of that, I’m restarting the journal. However, I’ll be writing it instead of Eli.

I’m going to be making a few more changes to the journal as well. Stay tuned.