Curb Your Enthusiasm

The title of this post has three meanings. First, as a homage to one of my all-time top three favorite television series (the two others are "Taxi" and "The Larry Sanders Show"), which returned to the air this week.

Second, for those of you who read and enjoy this blog and want to know why it isn't updated more often, understand we love the fact that you read our meanderings, but with both of us working and taking care of Elijah, the time left for creating these short masterpieces is limited.

Last, the title of this post is what I want to tell Elijah whenever Mary Poppins or an inflated moonwalk is available ...

With that out of the way, I will now bring you up to date.

As Sarah has mentioned previously, Elijah has started kindergarten, and it appears he is doing pretty well. He seems to enjoy his class and the after-school care program he goes to three times a week. Fortunately for us, most of his odd observations and behavior seem to be confined to our home.

As an example, Sarah mentioned to me that one day he announced he had to go to the restroom. Nothing wrong there, but when she thought he had been gone too long, she opened the door to find him standing on the sink looking at himself in the mirror, completely naked except for a strand of Mardi Gras beads around his neck. New Orleans, here we come!!

The bathroom seems to be a source of constant material for the little guy. Another day he told Sarah that the shape of the toilet looked like an arm on each side, which meant the bowl would be the person's head, when one lifted the lid, they would go "pee pee in that person's mouth!" Who knew? And I won't even get started on Elijah's fear of loud toilets, in which a Wendy's restroom off the interstate is in his mind is as horrible as Jason, Hannibal Lecter and Al Capone combined.

As I mentioned earlier, Mary Poppins is more popular around here than ice cream, with Elijah singing and dancing along with every song in this two-hour-plus opus.

(By the way, I didn't remember that there was a song or dance every five minutes of the movie, which is important only because Elijah insists we dance with him. Talk about an aerobic workout!)

His fascination with words and a certain song in the movie is evident here and was also written on a blackboard in a classroom at a temple we were attending for a special-needs program. The rabbi was so stunned she took pictures to show the congregation. (The printing on the board was much neater and in a straight line, which made it even more impressive.)

Elijah's love of this movie knows no bounds, and he expresses it in many ways. To mimic the "penguin dance," he will pull his pants down (just like Dick Van Dyke) as well as dance on his knees. The rooftop dance scene with the chimney sweeps is another favorite, with Elijah doing high kicks and a balancing dance step that would qualify him for a role in "A Chorus Line."

But his artistic side is also inspired by Mary. The following are just a few of his drawings from the film:

The hat rack Mary pulls out of her suitcase...

The lamp Mary pulls out next...

and his drawing of Old Man Dawes, who died laughing....

A short time later, another drawing appeared in our den, which I thought was also inspired by Mary Poppins. When I asked Elijah if this was his interpretation of the dance sequence "Step in Time" I was told no, that this had nothing to do with the movie.

"So what is it?" I asked.

"He's going to the restroom!" was the reply, and if you look closely, you can definitely spot the anatomy needed and the action occurring.

But it hasn't all been nothing but "a jolly holiday with Mary" around here. As I mentioned, we attended a program at a local temple with the preparation for the event stressing out Dad as he was trying to get the little guy dressed and ready. And because the little guy loves to remember and repeat songs and phrases that he hears, I probably shouldn't, while frustrated in getting him ready, utter the phrase "God damn it". (Yes, I know that seems mild, but just the previous week, without any warning, Elijah let loose, in an matter-of-fact way, a profanity-laced tirade dealing with spilled coffee. Since neither he nor I drink coffee or work at a Starbucks, it is quite obvious whom he heard it from.)

Sure enough, later that day at the grocery store, Elijah was riding in the large part of the cart drinking some water after his usual free cookie from the bakery, when Dad banged the cart against a display case (please no comments about my hitting stationary objects, even with a shopping cart). That action caused the following reaction from Elijah; "God damn it .... the water's cold!" Now mind you, this wasn't shouted in anger, but said in pure disgust with the situation. And as if to show that this wasn't a short-term memory situation, it repeated itself two weeks later. While he was eating a bowl of carrots in the back seat on the way to the gym, the bowl fell to the car floor as I took a corner a little too fast. "God damn it, the carrots are on the floor!" was Elijah's understated response, and though I know I shouldn't, I had to smile just a bit.

Interesting observations have become the norm for Elijah lately. A couple of examples: One day last week, completely out of the blue, he mentioned to Sarah that "somebody had two babies and six babies on 'Jon & Kate Plus Eight!' " A couple of days later, noticing the difference in height between Sarah and me as we were all walking down a hallway, he commented that "Daddy needs to be taller."

He also is greeting people with his killer smile and saying the right things. (Upon seeing a classroom assistant from a previous semester, he hugged her and said, "Hi, sweetie.")

All in all, it has been a great summer and a good start to the fall. As Sarah mentioned earlier, he loves school and he has already charmed the Y-Care (YMCA after-school program) people and the new therapists he is working with. He is talking more and wants to play with (or at least alongside) the neighborhood kids. There are festivals aplenty coming up in the next few weeks, all of which involve moonwalks, so he should have that big smile on his face for quite awhile. (The picture at the top of this post was from one such festival this week.)

Lastly, as a point of parental privilege, I have bought the items needed for his Halloween costume this year. Just like his daddy was 45 years ago, he will be the chimney sweep from "Mary Poppins." When he puts on the hat and starts to twirl the broom, all I can say is, "God damn it, he's cute!"

All aboard for kindergarten!

My, it's been awhile, hasn't it? Does it help that I have an excuse or two -- or 10 --for not posting anything lately?

If you're one of Elijah's grandparents, who at last count accounted for approximately 80 percent of the readers of this blog, I'm guessing the answer is no.

But I'll try anyway: School has started (five dropoffs and pickups a week), I'm in physical therapy for a knee injury (two therapy visits a week), Elijah is seeing both a speech therapist and an occupational therapist (two therapy visits a week), and I'm temporarily working full time again (five round-trip commutes to downtown each week, arriving back home at 12:30 a.m.).

Technically, there are also bills to be paid and rooms to be cleaned and laundry and yard work and grocery shopping to be done, though as you might imagine, I'm not quite keeping up with it alone. (Thank you, Jeff, for being a fantastic dad and husband and mower of lawns and washer of clothes and grocery shopper!)

On top of it all, there are various houseguests on the way in the next few weeks. You all know who you are; please forgive us in advance for the state of the house. We actually do look forward to having you here, but you can't say you weren't warned.

(An aside: How do households with two full-time workers and more than one child manage to maintain their sanity? I simply couldn't do it!)

Kindergarten seems to be going reasonably well for Elijah. It's too early for parent-teacher conferences, although we have already had back-to-school night and parent information night and some other night whose purpose I can't even remember. Many other such nights are scheduled throughout the year -- book fair, curriculum night, and on and on, making me wonder how I made it through 12 years of public schools with nothing more than the occasional "open house." (Just fine, actually.)

So far, kindergarten has held no surprises -- Elijah's still ahead of the curve on academic stuff and behind on everything else.

That's why he's in occupational therapy, which focuses on getting him to follow instructions, work as part of a group and pay close attention to the behaviors, moods and words of others. We're hoping it will help close the gap between Elijah and typical kindergartners.

That gap is sometimes literal. When lining up to go somewhere, which appears to constitute a fairly big portion of a kindergartner's day, Elijah is always the one wandering off, or slowing down as the line makes its way down the hall -- to the point that children behind him are pushing him and begging him to get moving along. He doesn't seem to have much interest in moving along, preferring to wait until a teacher or aide takes him by the hand and speeds him up. I've always found it perfectly acceptable to pull him around from place to place, but of course the teachers at school have better things to do -- this ain't preschool!

And that's the shocker for him. After four years of preschool, he's become rather accustomed to being in a sheltered environment. Those classes consisted of a few kids with "special needs," like Elijah, and a few "peer models," who were chosen on the basis of personality traits tending toward the calm and quiet. And several adults were in each classroom.

But now he's in the rough-and-tumble of a mainstream kindergarten, where the girls talk nonstop and the boys roughhouse nonstop. Being not much of a talker and not much of a roughhouser, Elijah is a bit taken aback by it all, but he's doing well (with the help of an extra adult in the classroom) and seems to like it just fine. His skill with academic tasks when compared with the other kids gives him a bit of confidence, which helps. (He's been writing complete sentences for several years now, so this week's homework -- a worksheet on the letter "C" -- is not exactly a challenge.)

I don't really have time for much more of an update, but I'll try to sit down in the next week or so and share the (surprising) tale of what appears to be Elijah's favorite class.

Hint: His favorite color is now "rouge."

Au revoir ......