Ahem

Elias is in the bath. He points to his testicles and asks, "What's this?" Cara explains that they are his testicles and goes on to explain how they are different from his penis, as well as explaining the purpose of both. In order to check for comprehension on this subject Cara asked the following:

Cara: "Where is your penis?"
Elias: [points]
Cara: "Where are your testicles?"
Elias: Where are my, uh... tentacles?"
Cara: "No, you don't have tentacles."
Elias: "Yeah. Just Dr. Octopus."

Mt. Hood and Girl Colors

Today we all took a trip to Mt. Hood with Marisa. Despite having spent my whole life in Oregon, I can't recall ever having actually been up there, so I was pretty excited. We were going to Skibowl - Cara and Marisa were going snowboarding, Cara for the first time, while Elias and I were going to spend part of the day tubing and part of the day hanging around the lodge.

Riding the inner tubes proved to be quite a bit more exhilarating than I'd anticipated - they move pretty fast, and when you get turned around it's hard to tell where you're going - but Elias liked it. We also ran into one of the kids from the center, which was a nice surprise. After a couple runs down the hill, Elias decided he was done, so we spent a few minutes in the play area and then caught a shuttle over to the snowboarding slope. We all had lunch together, and then I did some reading and Elias watched Gummi Bears while Cara and Marisa finished riding.

No doubt thanks to his particularly stylish snowsuit, Elias was of course mistaken for a young lady today by some of the resort employees. I mean, that kind of thing happens even when he's not wearing pink. Anyway, it came up again after we'd come home and were having dinner, and Elias said, "Mommy, it doesn't matter what names boys and girls have, right? And it doesn't matter about boy colors and girl colors." That's something we've struggled with before, so it was especially nice to hear tonight.

Sunshine

We have had a few gorgeous days. Friday was one of them and we decided to go to Tryon Creek State Park for a little jaunt in the woods. Elias' friend, Will, came along too as well as Will's mom, Marisa. It was really nice to be outside without any rain and Elias and Will had a great time. There are a lot of bridges at the park, so there was a lot of talk about trolls and ogres. After the hike we went home and a couple more friends stopped by. The kids played outside and drew on the sidewalk with chalk and explored the "jungle" in our backyard. After that, we all thought it would be a good idea for the kids to take a bath and they got water everywhere. I'm not even sure how they all fit into our tiny tub.

Oh, yeah... Elias' new favorite word is "presuming" except he says presumin' like the Tin Woodman does in The Wizard of Oz. Like today, playing a game with Harry: "I'm presumin' it's your turn, right?" Sometimes the way he uses it doesn't exactly make sense, but it's funny either way. Tomorrow we're heading up to Mt. Hood for snow tubing and snowboarding. Elias is not excited becuase he told me snow is cold and the last time it snowed I didn't bundle him up enough. Stay tuned.

Metal pigs and a pirate ship

Sunday was a beautiful day. We decided to head over to a neighborhood in NW Portland because we never go over there and we had nothing else to do. We walked around and on NW 23rd Ave. we came across some metal pigs. Elias climbed on those for a while and then we went to a toy store. Before we left, we told Elias that we weren't buying anything today so Elias was very good about looking at all the toys but not asking for anything. However, he was not so good about the gelato. Close to the toy store was a little cafe that served gelato. Harry wanted a drink so I thought it would be a good idea to stop in there for a little snack. I told Elias he could either have a little bit of the gelato or juice. He chose the "vanilla ice cream." After having several bites of his gelato he thought that maybe he would like juice. I explained to him that I had already given him a choice between gelato and juice and he had chosen gelato. "Okay, I want gelato," he said. "You have gelato," I told him. He didn't believe me... he had vanilla ice cream. We left cafe and most of the "ice cream." None of us were very happy.

After the gelato incident we walked to a park. It had a pretty impressive wooden play structure and we played pirate ship for about an hour. That was much better than gelato. Then we went to the Chapel Pub for dinner and Elias fell asleep eating his corn dog and tater tots.

The Saddest Thing I've Heard

Yesterday Elias and I were leaving for work. We walked out and then stopped on the porch so that I could close the door behind us. When I turned back to him, Elias was facing away from me, standing at the top of the stairs with his arms outstretched. He held them up for a moment more before letting them drop.

"Oh," he said. "I still can't fly."

Our bus adventure

This morning Elias walked into our room just before 7am. After getting onto the bed, he started talking about rain forests. I guess they have been talking about rain forests at school and he wanted to tell us about how they made a little rain forest. I thought it would be good idea to go to the zoo today to see the Amazon part and see the animals that live there and then go to the library to get some books in rain forests. It was not to be though. Elias nixed that idea in favor of going to the swimming pool and the library. His reasoning: "Mommy, I love swimming pools and books."

In that case, I decided we would go on a little bus adventure. Since we had the whole day, I figured we would just tool around town and hop on different buses. Before we left, Elias told me that we had to eat or we would die and that we had to drink water to grow. Fair enough. So we left the house around 10:30 and took the #75 to the swimming pool. A woman on the bus asked if Elias was a boy or girl. We stayed at the pool for about an hour then headed down south to Mississippi Ave. on the #4. While waiting for the #4, Elias made up a game that he would try to kiss my cheek but then his mouth would "fart" on my cheek instead. It was charming, as you can imagine. Also, an older woman drove by and shouted out of the car that my kid was really cute, but was it a boy or girl? Apparently this was the theme of the day.

Mississippi Ave. is very popular with Elias because it has a comic book store. We went to the comic book store and browsed for a while. We left with more than we had come in with. Elias got a Justice League comic book and I couldn't resist buying him a graphic novel of the Hobbit. Then we had lunch at a place by the comic book store and Elias ate almost his entire quesadilla. I think he may be having a growth spurt because he doesn't usually eat much. Then it was time to wait for the #4 again. While we were waiting this time, a man and woman were walking down the street with a bunch of pink cupcakes and passing them out for Valentines Day. Elias was happy to oblige. And that wasn't the end of the gifts that Elias receieved. After we got on the bus again, a lady kept patting Elias' head and talking about how cute he is. She asked if he wanted a piece of candy but he was pretty frightened of the woman and said no; so instead she gave him a dollar bill. It was a little wierd.

We got off that bus and went to the library but we were both pretty tired by then and didn't stay long. The #72 is right outside of the library so we got on that and transfered to a #9 which took us home. Finally. I was carrying the wet suits, the snacks, the library books, etc. Needless to say, I couldn't carry anything else, including Elias. When we had one block left Elias was not very happy about the fact that I couldn't carry him. "But, mommy," he said, "I'm extremely tired!"

3-D

Today was the first day in a long time that Harry, Elias and I got to spend the whole day together. This morning was spent doing mostly boring stuff like cleaning and running errands. While we were at the grocery store, we ran into our neighbor and his son who is the same age as Elias. We pushed the shopping carts together and Elias and John Paul sat in them and had a serious conversation about movies they had seen. This topic must have been on Elias' mind because we were going to see a movie later that afternoon.

During lunch, Elias told us that if we "couldn't do something the first time, we should just keep trying." Once again, a bit of advice from my little philosopher son... I don't have any idea where he picks it up. Also, this is apparently something he says to Harry when Elias is watching Harry play a video game and Harry isn't doing well. How comforting.

After lunch we headed to the theater to watch Coraline. It was so good. It was also in 3-D and that was pretty awesome too. The theater was packed because the film was made here in Portland, and also because it is awesome... did I already mention that? Elias looked pretty cute in his enormous 3-D glasses. By the way, 3-D is not the same as it used to be and neither are the glasses. I was surprised that Elias kept the glasses on through the entire movie but he did. He also got a little scared and asked if we could leave at one point, but luckily we made it through.

Very Busy

This picture is actually from a visit that Elias and I made to the playground at Irvington School a couple weeks ago, but things have been pretty hectic and we haven't taken a lot of pictures lately. On Friday I had to work, but Cara and Elias went swimming and then went down to the Powell's on Hawthorne and picked up a couple more Oz books. It's actually been kind of hard to keep up with how quickly he wants to read them - we've been getting new books every few weeks, but he burns right through them. 

Yesterday Cara had a lot of homework to do, so Elias and I spent the day together. I asked Elias what he'd like to have for lunch, and at first he wanted chicken strips from the restaurant next door to his school. When I vetoed that idea, he asked if we could have sushi, so we took the bus down to Broadway and met his Uncle Patrick for lunch. After that, we all came back to the house so that Patrick could solve some computer problems that we've been having lately, and Elias had a chance to watch a little more Ultraman - Patrick actually gave Elias the first series on video for Christmas, and Elias loves it. He talks about Ultraman constantly, and the other day we were sitting on the couch together and he said "Ultraman is my favorite superhero now." 

Today Cara had some friends and their kids over to watch the Superbowl, but the finest moment in the day was before anyone had arrived. Cara and I were prepping our dinners for this week, and Elias was sitting on the kitchen floor while he played with some toys. "You know what?" he asked. "Everything happens for a reason."