This just looks too cool. Elliot is too young to wash his own hands, though. Right now he prefers to try to move the faucet or turn off the water.
Gary's birthday was on Saturday. We spent Saturday morning having a big breakfast (waffles, sausage, eggs, and peaches) and opening presents. Elliot liked the waffles and peaches, but not the sausage and eggs. He also liked Gary's birthday balloon.
In the afternoon we headed to Palo Alto with 2 goals: go to the playground and buy a cake. I had made Gary cookies for his birthday, but we both agreed a cake from The Prolific Oven would be dandy. We did the playground first, it's about halfway between Gary's office (where we parked) and the bakery. Elliot had a blast. He played with the water fountain, went down the slide, tried out the swing, and dug in the sand. He and Gary found a bucket, and Gary worked on filling the bucket with sand while Elliot emptied it out for him.
After the playground we continued on to the bakery. We missed their lunch hours, so we walked across the street to a burger joint. They have free children's meals in September, so we got Elliot a grilled cheese sandwich and french fries for lunch. They were a success, which is good, because he didn't like our burgers (although he did like our onion rings). Back at the bakery, Gary picked out a chocolate rum cake to bring home. We're over half way through it already! There's a toy store next to the bakery, where we stopped and picked up a pack of fat crayons and a shovel-and-pail set.
Sunday was pretty uneventful. We went to a salad bar restaurant for lunch, which is a terrific place to take kids. Elliot got to sample lots of different foods; his favorites included green olives, beets, macaroni-and-cheese, peas, and corn. He also liked the miniature cones I got for him, although he made an awful face in response to the ice cream in one of them. We spent most of the rest of the day at home playing. Elliot tried coloring, but seemed more interested in eating the crayons.
I would say that at home he spends over half his locomotion time walking, rather than crawling. Gary doesn't think it's quite that much, but I think it depends on the time of day. Also, if I remind Elliot to walk, he tends to stand up and walk more often.
Elliot is sick, again! This time we thought he was just teething, so he and I mostly stayed at home Wednesday and Thursday. He was incredibly fussy, wasn't eating much, and wasn't sleeping well at night. He seemed better on Friday, so we sent him to daycare. When I picked him up in the afternoon, he was covered with spots on his back, stomach, and a red rash on his cheeks. Gary came home and we all headed to the doctor. Our pediatrician took a good look at Elliot, left for a couple of minutes, then came back with the diagnosis of fifth disease (aka slapped cheek disease, more info here). She also had a big book of pediatric illnesses, with photos, so we could compare Elliot to the sick kids in the pictures. Fifth disease is a viral infection that causes, prior to the rash, cold symptoms (low-grade fever, runny nose, etc), and is otherwise not really a big deal. Historically, fifth disease is the fifth of 5 childhood rashes, the first 3 being measles, scarlet fever, and rubella. Fourth disease is no longer around. We are hoping Elliot does not plan to collect the whole set!
We were pretty surprised. Gary thought that the rash was an allergic reaction to something, and we had tried to come up with a list of all the new stuff Elliot had been exposed to in the past week. I thought maybe the rash on his cheeks was from teething (since he constantly had his finger in his mouth), but that didn't explain the rash on the rest of him. Our daycare provider suggested it might be acid related (apparently her brother had a stomach acid problem as a child, and it partly manifested itself as a rash around his mouth). Elliot hadn't been eating well, had spit up on me the day before, and was gassy, so this seemed possible, too. So when the doctor came back with an illness with a name, we were surprised, and a little relieved. Not that I enjoy Elliot being sick (far from it!), but while we were sitting in the office Gary and I started worrying that we were being over-neurotic. Of course, it's not like we can *do* anything about fifth disease, but at least we have a name for the symptoms, and can possibly separate out the teething symptoms from the viral infection.
Gary and I are taking bets as to whether either of us get it. If neither of us had been previously exposed, there is a 50% chance of contracting it. Gary is betting on me catching it and him not (since that's what happened with hand-foot-and-mouth). Woohoo, can't wait!