Friday, November 17, 2006

Here we are

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Ball begins with "B"

Elias has started to do the most amazing thing...he has started to identify the first letter of some words by sounding them out. It started with Zoo and Zebra and Organic. We just kept going from there, identifying Bowl, Baby, Popcorn, Pear, Refrigerator, etc. A whole bunch of words! He's pretty amazing! That amazing mind!!

Thursday, November 09, 2006

Monday, November 06, 2006

Tiger is DEAD! A very sad evening for the Williams house

Craziness, goldfish and more craziness

Elias has been pushing my limits of sanity lately. Last week was the first week in a long time that I felt like there was no way in the world I would survive his toddlerhood. Alas, this week seems to be off to a bit of a better start. Maybe it is partially because Brad and I have decided after watching the hurricane of last week pass through our house, that maybe Elias is ready to turn this whole independence thing up a notch. Our first move in helping to build/foster independence in our toddler: purchasing a goldfish and bowl with the hopes of teaching/giving opportunities for caring for something (feeding, cleaning, etc) as well as learning more about fish from first hand observation.

So, on Friday after a very mediocre nap, the kids and I venture out to the pet store. Once inside, we take pause to adore the little white mice running on the wheel and sleeping little pink noses pressed up against the glass. Elias took quite a tumble off of a little step stool, he was so excited to watch the mice. Next, we walk over to the fish. I was aghast by the living conditions of the poor common goldfish. Literally thousands swimming on top of each other! I tracked down a guy to scoop us out one, but at 29 cents a pop, sprung for two! Mr. Independence decided he wanted a "black" goldfish. So, the guy, seeming a bit exasperated by the fact that we were asking him to select specific fish among the thousands, first scooped out a gold fish with black fins. We decided that one could be for Dahlia. We sent him back in for another. This time, he was able to bring out a nice, black goldfish, along with a few dead ones that were floating at the surface (gross). The luke warm fish guy put the fish in a plastic bag (tied ridiculously, I might add) and sent us on our way. At home, we excitedly prepared the bowl and poured the fish into the water. "What are their names?" I asked Elias. At first, I don't think he understood. He was calling them both "Tag" or something like that. After asking for more clarification, we decided that the orange one was Tag and the black one was Tiger.

Both fish had been acting peculiar since we put them in the water...they didn't want to eat! Then, the orange one started to swim to the surface to breath air. Then, the orange one started to form white dots. YUCK!!! Then the water started looking pretty bad, and still, we had yet to see a fish eat. Well, today, when we arrived home from the indoor park, the orange one, Tag, was laying at the bottom, dead, not resting, DEAD after all of three days in our home. What in the world??? So, it's sad because we hardly got to know her/him, but it has provided an opportunity to talk to Elias about death and when he wakes up from his nap, we are going to have a flushing ritual for Tag.

When I told Elias the fish was dead, he said something like that we could go to the store and get another fish for Dahlia that was "NOT DEAD." I tried to explain that "NOT DEAD" was actually "ALIVE." That sparked alot of talk like "Mommy is ALIVE, Dahlia is ALIVE." I chimed in the Elias is ALIVE, too. To that, he said "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO." Then, he would move the bowl around, causing Tag to shift a little and he'd say "Tag is swimming! Tag is swimming!"

Oh, yeah, and before Elias accepted Tag was dead, he told me we could give him some medicine and put a bandaid on him.

So, the moral of this story may be to splurge for the $3.29 fancy goldfish. We'll see how long Tiger makes it.