Joy

Last week, I was being chauffeured along a massive stretch of asphalt going 135+ mph. Never once was I afraid. Not because I was in a spectacular piece of German engineering. But because if I did die, heaven would be the Lisle Water Park as viewed through the eyes of my two year old son.

Yesterday we took Elijah to the water park and he redefined the word “joy.” He was suddenly the Mayor Of Water. He’d stroll from one tantrum throwing child to the other and say, “Hi! I Eli!” When a particularly angry tantrum thrower yanked a toy from Eli’s hands, my son simply laughed his head off and scampered back to the kiddie water slide.

The kiddie water slide was awesome. You entered the slide through a giant fish’s mouth and were, um, evacuated out the other end. At one point, as Elijah hung onto the top of the slide while an impatient jerk-kid literally stepped on his hands to get him to head down the giant fish’s digestive tract. Eli laughed the whole way down, shouting, “I did it!” as he slid.

But Eli’s favorite activity was sitting on fountains. There were these holes in the pool that spewed water about a foot into the air. He’d squat down over one of the fountains and laugh. And laugh. And laugh. To the point where it started to get awkward.

After allowing him to smear nacho cheese and smoothie all over his belly and eating his weight in brats at the Jacklich house, Diana (who at 3.5 months pregnant was still more svelte than 90% of the attendees at the water park) decided it was time to head home.

After we arrived home, I popped him in the shower with me and let him play with the hand-shower thing. He immediately resumed the fountain squat routine. I tried to snatch it out of his hands and said, “Give it a rest. You’re creeping me out.”

He aimed the hand-shower thing at my bits and pieces to demonstrate. I turned the shower off while saying, “Yeah, I get it. It feels awesome.”

Di took Elijah upstairs where he immediately went to sleep and dreamt of warm fountains.

The Cute Arts

As I flew over the Midwest on my home, aside from pretending I didn’t speak English to avoid talking to row-mates, I spent the entire time trying to make the airplane go faster with my brainpower.

I had to get home. I missed the unit so bad it hurt. But there was another reason I was trying to will a tailwind. I was worried I missed Elijah development stuff. Yeah, what can happen in a week? I dunno. What if he learned French or Algebra or did something completely blog worthy?

Well, thankfully I didn’t miss too terribly much over the last week. But there has been a development. Elijah has entered some kind of uber cute two-year-old phase. Yeah, he’s always been cute. But now it seems like his constant practice at the cute dojo has paid off and he’s now a black belt in the adorable arts.

All day today he’s been smacking me with cuteness. He clobbered me with hilarious made up songs. He executed a perfect roundhouse of smearing macaroni and cheese on his face. He punched through a cement block with a nude race through the house.

According to Diana, he hit her with a cute knockout yesterday in the car. She was listing off everyone she thought was great in their lives.

“And dada is great…and grandma is great…and Grover is great…”

He looked her with Bruce Lee calmness and said, “Wawa (water) is great and ELI IS GREAT.”

I’m surprised she didn’t roll the car.

Diana just rolled him into the office to watch me write as he eats his dinner. He just started doing a slinky dance in his high chair. I need to go to the hospital.

Business Trip Poop

Bad blogger. Bad blogger. I’m really sorry, loyal readers. Making the greatest commercial in the history of the world takes up a lot of my time. So hopefully this poop story will melt your heart and bring you to the verge of laughter.

Last Saturday afternoon, I arrived home from an errand and Diana was standing on the front porch, fuming. After assuring myself that I had in deed not forgotten her birthday, I asked what was wrong.

“How would you like to clean up some poop?”

Knowing Elijah was supposed to be napping, my heart sunk. And when I reached the top of the stairs, my nose sunk. My son, who I love more than life itself, had smeared doo doo all over the wall of his room. It was as if he was trying to communicate with me via hieroglyphics. Hieroglyphics that said, “I like to do things that make my father gag.”

We simply cannot keep this kid’s diaper on. It’s driving me crazy.

A couple nights later, Steve came over for beers and while we were watching TV, I heard the telltale sound of duct tape and diaper ripping. I ran upstairs and caught Eli diaper-handed.

I scolded him and explained that he was being naughty and needed to keep his diaper on.

He responded, “Diaper on.” We were on the same page. I re-applied diaper and duct tape.

Just as I was cracking open another beer, I heard it again upstairs. Riiip. I bounded up the stairs and lost my temper.

“No no no, Eli! Bad boy. Naughty naughty. You do NOT take your diaper off. I then gave him the silent treatment as I put his diaper and tape on.

He began to weep, knowing he crossed the line with me. I put him back in his crib and told him I loved him, but he was being naughty. As I sat back down on the couch, I heard him crying upstairs.

I fought every urge to go back upstairs and hug him and tell him he was the greatest kid in the history of the world. I felt terrible. I’m not the one who disciplines. I’m the horsey ride guy.

After what seemed like hours, he stopped crying and eventually fell asleep. The rest of the night I was distracted and not into hanging out with Steve. When he left, I crept back upstairs to look at my son. He was sleeping soundly, like an angel.

With his diaper off.

Father’s Day #3

I know I promised a grand poo story, but today is Father’s Day. All children are angels on Father’s Day. Besides, I have a big business trip next week, so I have to store up my poop stories for when I really need material.

Anyhoo, I got again the greatest Father’s Day gift of all: sleep. Around 9:30, I heard shuffling and Elijah chatter right outside our bedroom door. Eli was dodging and weaving Diana in an attempt to cross the goal line. Luckily for Eli, Diana’s linebacker skills were suffering from being pregnant. He executed a Walter Peyton style maneuver and scored 6. He began a touchdown dance on our bed.

Diana attempted to remove him, but he pulled out his secret weapon, cuteness.

“Stay with dada. Please?”

I pulled back the sheet and said, “Climb aboard. But we’re sleeping.”

He snuggled in beside me and I went back to my dream where I was nude and the lesbian girl at work was laughing at me. Suddenly, I noticed two-year-old toes being inserted into my nose. I woke up to Eli singing, “Super Y! Super Y!” while shoving his feet in my face. There was no going back to the laughing lesbian. I was up.

Diana fixed me a great breakfast and we listened to funk on the stereo. For his Father’s Day gift, Eli performed an interpretive dance to the music. Inspired by Monty Python’s “Ministry of Silly Walks.”

I laughed and clapped. Suddenly, Eli got inspired to remove his clothes. As usual. Then, his dancing became…uncomfortable. Somewhere, Eli learned the timeless dance of hip thrusting. Probably from Grover. He really got into it and started thrusting wildly. No doubt encouraged by Diana and my hysterical laughter.

After I’d had enough, I headed to the bathroom, where I could contemplate the joy that is my life. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. I’m the luckiest dad in the world.

p.s. Happy Father’s Day, dad.

Moment

Last night, Steve and Tommy came over for some beers while Diana was at work. We were watching the Cubs/Sox game repeat. Even though we all know the outcome of the game, it didn’t stop us from yelling at the TV. Which, of course kept Elijah awake.

After his 5th run through of the Alphabet Song, the Happy Birthday Song and the theme to Sesame Street, I went up to calm him down and try to get him to sleep.

I scooped him up out of his crib and rocked him in the rocking chair. As you know, laying on the giant hairy waterbed that is my stomach instantly makes him sleep. So, he started snoring immediately.

Because my Estrogen levels are through the roof, I was once again overcome with love for this boy. I began whispering into his ear.

“You are a special, special guy. Your mommy and I love you very much. You make us both very happy. You’re funny and cute and…”

You get the idea. Sapville. Population: 2.

Right as I was getting to my crescendo of love, I heard in my ear…

(Burp) “I burped, dada.”

I’ll take that as “I love you too.”

p.s. There was a big poop story today. But I have to get the details from Diana. More soon.

Flattery

So it’s been a while since we’ve announced any “firsts” for Elijah. But this one, this one I’m really excited about. I’m so proud of him I could cry.

Elijah performed his first impersonation. And the object of his most sincere form of flattery? Who else? His mommy.

It goes like this. A week or so ago, Eli grabbed a pair of Diana’s Jackie O-style sunglasses and started chanting, “Ha, body! Ah, mommy! Ha, body! Ah, mommy!” At first Diana had no idea what he was saying. But after consulting her “Elijah to English Dictionary,” she realized he was saying, “Hi everybody! I’m mommy!”

This is a major milestone in his humor development. Once he masters impersonations, it opens the door up to wisecracks, nonsensism, hyperbole and even irony, the white elephant of humor.

I can picture him now. Future Elijah. The year 2030. Up on stage, possibly on Mars, wearing a velvet space suit…

“What’s the deal with our space president? What would happen if he was in the cast of that popular space sitcom? I think it would go a little something like…this. ‘Ha body! Ah, mommy! Ha body! Ah, mommy!’”

Don’t quit your space day job, son.

The Flu

Elijah steadily got grosser and grosser last week, so Diana took him back to the doctor. After donning her ancient ceremonial mask, shaking a bone rattle and observing the position of several chicken bones at the bottom of a clay bowl, the doc pronounced Eli the proud parent of a Flu bug. When Diana shakily asked if he had the pandemic flu, the doc said it doesn’t really matter which kind of flu he had and if we really wanted to know for purposes of being interviewed on The Today Show, she could test him using a very uncomfortably long Q-Tip inserted deep into his nose. Diana passed.

I immediately asked how this would affect me. Specifically, would the Flu prohibit me from attending my brother Noah’s wedding? Unlike both Eli and Diana, who were full-blown Flu cases, she said I could still attend so long as I didn’t feel any Flu symptoms. I chalked up everything I was currently feeling to a low-grade hangover and hitched a ride with my other brother Steve’s family

You may be asking, “Wouldn’t you be exposing Steve’s two small children to Flu germs riding to the wedding with them?” To which I say, “Mind your own business.”

Since this is an Eli blog and not a Noah and Kira wedding blog, I won’t go into much about the wedding except to say it was completely kick ass and my Dad managed to give a shout out to HamannEggs in his speech. Your check is in the mail, Dad.

On the way back this morning, while feeling a little…ahem…flu-ish, I worried about the state of affairs back at the house. From my numerous calls home, I got reports of a deteriorating scene, where mommies and babies were competing to see who could be sicker. The winner got to infect me.

I imaged two scenarios. In the first, I’d arrive home to find our home in one of those huge quarantine bubbles like at the end of “E.T.” I’d have to fight my way through a sea of government agents only to discover Di and Eli strapped to gurneys and groaning “I’ll be right here” to each other.

In the other scenario, I’d find a completely darkened home, shades drawn, spooky music playing. Lots of velvet drapes. I’d stumble upstairs to fine Di and Eli sleeping soundly in his and hers coffins, having both turned into vampires. Not from the flu, but because Diana had read “Twilight” once too many times.

But, when I arrived home, they were both thankfully on the mend. Eli even asked to go outside instead of watching Sesame Street for the 48th straight hour. That said, I am still planning on wearing rubber gloves when touching either Di or Eli. For fashion, of course.

p.s. I have no idea how he got from Croup to Flu. Just lucky, I guess.

The Pill

Elijah is still in the clutches of Croup. I’m sure it doesn’t help that I address him as “Croup face” and “Croup poop” and “Croupie Crouperson.”

As I said in my last post, Eli’s doctor gave him two big, fat horse pills that Eli immediately threw up. So I was instructed by Diana to fetch two new horse pills and get them into our son at all costs.

First, a quick trip to the pharmacy where the pharmacist and I had a painful “Who’s on First” conversation:

“Where did he throw the pills?”
“No, I said threw up…”
“Why did he throw them?”

Then, I arrived home to see the sad, pathetic Croup Face. He was pale as a ghost, with red rings around his eyes. He looked like a baby vampire. Especially when he sank his teeth into my thigh.

Knowing getting two giant horse pills into him would be harder than getting Grover into a bathtub, I thought my best plan of attack was deception.

I crushed the two pills and submerged them into a big spoonful of Peach Ice cream. I overly eagerly shoved the pill ice cream into Eli’s face.

“Oooh, look. Ice cream. Yummy yummy in your tummy tummy.”

Eli knew something was up and groaned, “Nooooooooo.”

I pretended to eat the spoonful of pill ice cream while expressing my unbelievable delight at the tasty treat. However, a tiny bit of the pill powder fell on my tongue. I spitted repeatedly and shouted, “Oh lord! This is awful! Terrible! Awful.”

I quickly tried to recover and said, “I mean yummy. Try some!”

Eli dodged the spoon and moaned, “Nooooooooooo.”

I returned to the kitchen, where I plopped the melted pill ice cream into a cup. I tried to pass it off as his favorite treat: orange juice. He again refused because it didn’t look like orange juice so much as an orange slime blob.

He shoved my hand away so hard, some of the pill slime spilled out of the cup. I immediately discovered swearing is sometimes involuntary.

Finally, I sucked the pill slime into the baby syringe we use to administer baby Tylenol. I held it out and said, “Take this medicine.”

He then said, “Oh, medicine?” and drank it down.

Memories

Lately (and by “lately” I mean “for the last five minutes”) I’ve been reading about how women forget the pain of childbirth. I guess it’s so they’ll keep coming back. It’s the same way I feel about the newest Star Wars movies.

When I told my co-workers about Elijah 2, they all reminded me how bad it was the first couple of months with Elijah 1. Really? Was it that bad? I had some vague recollection of sleepless nights and throwing a bottle across the living room out of frustration. But for the most part I can’t remember a thing before Eli said “I love you” to me.

Well, this weekend Elijah decided to reenact the days of having a newborn by catching a nasty cough and fever. The poor little guy was up every two hours sounding like a baby seal.

At about 4am, after listening to Diana stub her toe/knee/torso/head on our bed fetching a crying Eli I thought, “Oh yeah. That’s right. This sucks.”

I made the executive decision to allow Elijah to sleep on me. There is something he finds comforting about it. I think it must feel like a giant, fat hairy waterbed. But it was the only way he’d sleep.

I think there is an old saying, “Never invite a vampire into your house and never let a baby into your bed.” Oh. I checked. That isn’t a saying. But it should be.

The rest of the weekend, the only way we could get Eli to sleep was by putting him on the giant fat hairy waterbed. Which meant I couldn’t sleep because I had a baby seal barking into my face all night. It also meant Diana couldn’t sleep because she was afraid I’d roll over and smother Eli and she’d have to rent a forklift to get me off him.

After taking him to the doctor this morning, we discovered he has Croup. Croup? Is that like The Vapors or one of those other Old Timey diseases that don’t exist anymore? Like Diabetes?

Thankfully, the doctor gave us some medicine that Eli refuses to take.

p.s. Today’s photo isn’t of Elijah 2. It’s some other kid I found on the internet.

Sing, Sing A Song

My wife sings like a bird. She is a trained, at times professional, singer. Her specialty, as she so aptly puts it, is “Show stopping jazz hands” numbers.

I, on the other hand, am what you may call a destroyer of tone. Mostly what comes out of my face sounds like a cat being strangled while clawing a chalkboard. I also hate harmony. I think it’s the work of the devil. Whenever Diana tries to harmonize with me I put my hands over my ears and rock back and forth.

Through the magic of genetics, Elijah has inherited Diana’s love of singing, but my complete lack of ability.

It is so very very cute to see him watch Sesame Street now. He knows all the songs, if not every word. And his bizarre monotone slash robotic utterings is freaking hilarious. It’s kind of hard to describe how he sounds over the blog. But if you happen to be reading this along side brilliant physicist, Stephen Hawking, he will give you an idea.

He also sings himself to sleep. Which is melt your heart adorable. He will chirp the Alphabet song over and over. But, given his robotic tone, it sounds like someone left a Speak ‘N Spell on in his room.

Right now, Diana is singing with him in the tub. He is belting it out at the top of his lungs along side her. Grover is in office with me with his paws over his ears.

Lame Duck

Sorry I haven’t written much this week, gang. The thing is, I’ve been super happy with the recent announcement of Elijah 2: Electric Boogaloo. And it’s really hard to write jokes when you’re happy. Ask Rodney Dangerfield.

Last night I came home and found Elijah and my brother Steve coloring in the living room. Elijah sprang up and shouted, “Dada!” and leapt into my arms. I was instantly struck by how this kid has no idea what’s about to happen to him. This December, he will be instantly and unceremoniously overthrown as Ruler Of The World.

As he ran around and jumped and laughed, I imagined this was how Julius Caesar’s dad must have felt. Right before Julius Caesar’s little brother was born.

But until December, he will remain Ruler Of The World. And I took his highness upstairs and gave him a royal diaper change and put him in his royal dinosaur pajamas and laid him into his royal crib.

I then went downstairs and addressed Duke Grover. “Grover, you’re getting knocked down to serf in December.” Grover seemed fine with it, as he continued to lick his royal jewels. Bam! I still got it!

I’m in Atlanta, so I don’t have any new photos of Ruler Of The World. So here my approximation of what Elijah 2 will look like

Awesome

I have to tell you, I think I have this being a dad thing all figured out. Elijah is a happy, healthy kid who I adore. Diana is awesome and beautiful and happy. Grover is, well, nuts, but in a great way.

For the first time in my life, I feel like everything is coming together. You know, balanced. I don’t think anything can phase me…what’s that? Hold on gang.

Sorry for the interruption. Diana just called.

WE’RE HAVING ANOTHER BABY!

And this concludes life as we know it. Things just got significantly more awesome.

More later. I have to go break it to Grover.