Menace

Last weekend, the effects of Hurricane Ike were felt all the way up in Evanston. In the form of a weekend-long deluge. I read somewhere, most likely in a blog, it was the most rain Chicago ever saw in a 48-hour period. Thankfully, we didn’t spend the weekend bailing out our basement. Here’s to building in the 1800’s! But again by Sunday we were in desperate need of entertaining Elijah.

When in doubt, to the library! Diana used it as a chance to catch up on her wine reading (yawn) and I took on the duty of chasing Eli. It seemed as though every child in the North Shore under the age of 3 was there, so there was a constant din of shrieking. The poor librarians looked like they were minutes away from leaping onto their desks shouting, “SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP!”

As soon as I set Eli down he b-lined to the giant stuffed bear. However, there was a two year old already perched atop. I can’t remember his name, but it was of those awesome trendy names. Let’s just call him JacobDylanAidan. Anyway, Eli squeezed his way onto the bear and JacobDylanAidan looked at him with as much hatred as I’ve ever seen a two-year-old muster.

JacobDylanAidan shoved Eli off the bear. Eli’s reaction was, “Hmm. Once I was on the bear…now I’m not on the bear.” And he climbed back aboard. JacobDylanAidan began to shake with rage and shoved Eli off again. JacobDylanAidan’s mom ran over and apologized profusely. She tried to force JacobDylanAidan to apologize as well.

JacobDylanAidan frowned and said, “Off Bear. Off Bear.” The mom began trying to use logic, “JacobDylanAidan, That is no way for a two year old to behave…”

As I chased Eli across the floor, I thought, “Isn’t that exactly how a two year old is supposed to behave?”

Eli goofed around for a few minutes and made his way over to JacobDylanAidan, who was building something with blocks. JacobDylanAidan began to shout, “No! No! No!” Eli barely touched one of the blocks and JacobDylanAidan freaked out. His mom came over and admonished him. “JacobDylanAidan, you have to learn how to share. Now let the little boy have the blocks…”

But Eli was already on the other side of the floor making out with a plastic giraffe. He then walked over to a kid who was playing with a plastic train. Eli touched the train and the kid flipped out. At which point JacobDylanAidan’s mom came over and said, “TylerLoganAustin! You have to learn how to share…”

I grabbed Eli and said, “We’re outta here.” We went to the other side of the floor where Eli started flirting with a young mom. She was much more receptive to my son.

p.s. I have no idea what this photo is about. And clearly Diana and I have to talk about what goes on at our house when I'm not there.