a week of firsts

It's been a long while since we had so many first experiences in such a short period of time!  Since last weekend Elias has experienced, for starters, his first drama-free haircut:

In addition to the orange car-chair, the great thing about this new place is that it's just a couple of blocks away and so inexpensive I felt a little guilty afterward.  The cut itself needs a little fine-tuning but, just as you have to pick your battles with your kids, the pros of this place outweigh the cons and we'll definitely be back.

After his haircut we went out to dinner, taking Elias to his first sushi restaurant:

The sushi itself didn't go over too well but his kid's plate, including chicken teryaki, gyoza, and tempura, did. 

Monday, being Easter Monday, was a bonus "mommy day" and I decided to take the plunge and treat myself - I mean, Elias - to his first movie theater movie.

Instead of our usual afternoon quiet time, we caught a matinee of Rio, complete with popcorn and blue icee.  As I suspected he might be, Elias was pretty antsy during the last half hour or so of the 96 minute long feature and had a little bit of a hard time keeping the seat down, but overall he did really well.  So begins our official weekend matinee training!

The grand finale in this week of firsts was Eli's visit to the dentist yesterday, including his first cleaning (they seemed surprised that I was up for exam plus cleaning during the first visit...Why not kill two birds with one stone?).

It took some research to find a pediatric dentist that would take our insurance.  I even made an appointment with the dentist Neal and I go to and started to question the necessity of this whole pediatric specialty, but in the end I'm glad we trekked out to San Francisco to go here.

The place is completely decked out for kids, with, I think, slightly smaller chairs, and TV monitors attached to the ceiling above each station.  So while Elias's teeth were examined and polished, he got to watch a scene or two from The Little Mermaid, one of his favorites. 

Cheese!

I wasn't sure how he would react.  On the one hand, he has no reason to fear the dentist, having never been.  And of course we've only spoken positively of the experience.  Maybe it helped that Neal and I had just been to our dentist the week before - the first dentist I've had that I actually want to visit twice a year.  But oddly enough he did seem to get that this was something to be somewhat apprehensive about, saying things in the days leading up to our visit like "I don't want to go, I don't like the dentist," or "I don't like it there."  In the end he did really well - he was a total champ about it and very cooperative.  On the other hand, I take this first visit with a grain of salt since, historically, Elias has almost always done suspiciously well the first time at something new.  It's the subsequent visit(s) that will tell the true story of Elias at the dentist.  Either way, I'm happy to have this under our belt since I'd been a little concerned about what turned out to be just some staining on his upper, front teeth, likely from all the fruit this kid likes to eat.

And he ought to want to return since the day was packed with positive reinforcement.  In addition to the balloon, sugar-free lollipop, toy, and goody bag he got at the dentist's office, afterward we walked to nearby Dolores Park for a picnic lunch and then lucked out and found a second parking spot as we cruised past Mission Pie on the recommendation of a friend. 

Yum! We shared slices of banana cream and strawberry rhubarb and brought a piece of apple huckleberry home for Neal.  Great coffee, too.  I don't know about Elias, but I can't wait until his next dentist appointment!

the story of my life: mama edition

I don't remember where we were coming back from, and Elias hasn't done this in awhile, but a couple of weeks ago, he fell asleep in the car. I stayed out with him for a bit (always surprisingly relaxing and enjoyable), then attempted to carry him into the house, letting him stay asleep for as long as possible. Neal took this video of me trying to get comfortable on the couch, with Elias stretched out on top of me. As you can see, he had a hard time getting comfortable and eventually woke up just a few minutes after coming inside. Despite my having been out with him all day and my selfless attempts to facilitate his napping, who does he ask for in the end? Yep, you guessed it - Daddy.



This isn't the greatest picture in the world, but for comparison purposes, here we are in a similar situation just about two years ago:

What a difference a couple of years makes, huh?  I've been doing a lot of this kind of thing the past few days, looking at old pictures and watching old videos.  Looking at the baby version of our now full-fledged toddler always has the dual sense of feeling like just yesterday and a lifetime ago, all at the same time.

In other news, and as usual staying on the topic of sleep, I finally finished Elias's bedtime chart and wrote a bit about it on my other, more crafty blog.  I can report now after almost two weeks of use, that it's working pretty well, although I hate to admit not as well as I'd hoped.  We still struggle with a master staller, and I'm not fully comfortable with the reward part of it (I don't know that rewarding him with food or stuff the next morning is ideal and fear we're creating an even bigger problem), but some nights it does really seem to do the trick.  And when a star or two are left on the board, he does seem awfully happy about it the next morning. As my brother likes to say, we're staying in the fight...I'm just not sure who's winning.

Flip Fridays: performing

Things have been crazy busy around here (in a good way), but here are a couple of short videos I captured the last couple of weeks, starting with a short snippet of Elias singing along to the ending of an episode of Thomas:



...and at the zoo one Sunday morning, climbing in and over the tortoise shells in the children's area, one of his favorite activities:



Shy he most definitely is not. He's been hamming it up for the camera quite a bit more lately, smiling and saying cheese, albeit only for a second or two before moving quickly on to the next thing. He's also fond of saying hi and waving to complete strangers pretty much whenever we're out, wherever we go. It's a little heart-braking that so few people say hello back. Are they completely oblivious or late to respond because we're so unaccustomed to a casual greeting? Who knows. It doesn't seem to bother Elias too much whether they respond or not. In fact, if someone says hi back, that doesn't keep him from saying hi again next time he sees the person, like the bus boy at the restaurant where we celebrated our wedding anniversary this past weekend. That time, I actually felt a little bad for the other guy!

You can read more about our anniversary shenanigans on my other blog. In fact, Elias has been making cameos over on that blog quite a bit these last few weeks.