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Late Fall 2009 Update

Eli’s personality is exploding right now! He is an amazingly articulate, silly, creative, and energetic character, keeping us in stitches day in and day out. Here are some examples of the wild one these days:

* Eli is crazy for the card game Uno lately. He can’t get enough of it. Okay, yes he likes to stack the deck in his favor, but for the most part he kicks our butts without cheating, minds the rules and doesn’t complain about having to take cards, and is a very good sport if he doesn’t win (unlike his, um, father)

* He loves to count – he is constantly reciting addition fundamentals (“Hey Mommy, 3 plus 3 plus 3 plus 3 is TWELVE! That’s the same as 6 plus 6 and 8 plus 4!!!”). Also he is venturing into multiplication – he’ll call out, nonsequiteur style, “Well, 10 times 10 is 100!” (so there !)

* His love of girls remains and he routinely has a new crush. This week it is his classmate Gabriel’s sister Eva, who is in 3rd grade (he met her at Gabriel’s 6th birthday party this week – I was quite impressed with her as well). There is also Molly, in the other Kindergarten class, who loves to chase and be chased by Eli, and Molly, the 2nd grader who is an early-morning arrival like him – they play games together all morning until Kindergarten starts. And there is Zoe (4th grade), Emily (2nd grade), and of course Zenida in his K class.

* He’s really into cars recently and racing them. He’s created a specialized ramp in his room for high-speed racing and crashing into a pile of blocks that Daddy has meticulously built for the activity. Eli is always eager to give a play-by-play replay of the most recent crash, detailing how the car flipped over, crashed into something, dived into something else, did a 360 and landed on two tires!

* Eli has an emerging best-friendship with a boy named Aaron. While at times they tend to amp each other up and get into trouble, they are also working out the struggles of being a 5 year old boy in elementary school. They love to play games together in AfterSchool, and it is a good lesson for them to decide on the rules beforehand and work out their struggles with words and conflict resolution strategies.

* Eli continues to love to draw, and amazingly depicts the current situation as it is occurring. We have stacks of drawings expressing his enjoyment of baseball, driving home, racing with other kids at school, and other activities. We actually learn a lot about how he is feeling about something by talking about his drawings. very cool.

* Last week, Eliot had a lot of trouble at school before Halloween approached. We decided that it was so severe that we took away his privilege to collect candy on Halloween night. His school, however, participates in the “Trick of Treat for UNICEF”, and we gave him the option of going out with his cousin Bennington and only collecting coins (no candy). He actually did remarkably well, was eager to collect money rather than candy, and didn’t complain a bit if he didn’t receive either. (Eli: “I’m collecting money for UNICEF!”; Benni: “I’m collecting candy!”). He had a great attitude and I think it was a success.

* His reading and writing is progressing at lightening speed. He is able to sound out words and recognize common words at a glance. And his writing and spelling is moving along tremendously. It is so fun to watch him write cards to his friends and about his current fascination. Tonight he wrote: “Ave and Eliot sityn ieon – kissing” (Eva and Eliot sitting in a tree, K I S S I N G). What a Romeo!

* Favorite sayings of late: “How could you say that?” or “How could you say such a thing?”; “You’ve got to be KIDDING me!”; “Case dismissed!”; “It’s true, it’s really true! Serious!”

* Most of all he continues to LOVE racing!! Everyday when I drop him off and pick him up from school he wants to race to the classroom. Lately he has been giving me (Amy) a head start, so that he has the joy of watching me in front of him and then passing me like a rocket. That boy is fast!

Addendum: I love the fact that Mom gets a head start. When I drop him off, he of course wants to race, but with me it’s a bit different. I have to give HIM a head start. He doesn’t much like to get beaten, so usually I make sure I don’t run too fast though I try to make it look good. He will have to learn to be a graceful loser, and I’m probably not the best teacher 🙂

-Scott

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