Playing Rough

Eli is having a little problem at daycare. He has been playing with the babies, which is ok but, he’s been playing a little rough. And by a little rough, I mean he’s been laying on them, choking them, and hitting them. He’s never been around babies before. I’m at a loss. I have no idea how to teach him not to do those things. I tell him every day that he needs to be nice to the babies and not lay on them or hit them. I know he’s not meaning to hurt them. He just wants to play. But he likes to play a little rough sometime. Case in point…



Big John has a black eye courtesy of Eli. They were playing on the bed the other night. Eli was hiding from mommy under the covers. He would come out and yell for me to come back there and find him and then throw his head back under the covers. Well, the last time he did it, instead of throwing his head under the covers, he threw it right into Big John’s eye socket. All I heard was Eli yell “MOMMY!” And then Big John yell “GET BACK HERE RIGHT NOW!” So I ran back there to see Big John holding his eye and moaning. Eli was almost crying because he didn’t know what was going on. So I scooped Eli up and took him in the other room to give Big John time to stop seeing little stars flying around his head. He said it almost knocked him out. This is his second black eye courtesy of Eli. I’ve been lucky so far and have been able to avoid getting one.

So do any of you have any ideas how we can teach Eli to be nice to the babies? His daycare ladies are disciplining him when it happens. But they can’t do much. They can’t spank him or smack his hand. They can just tell him no and out him in time out if they want to. Well, that doesn’t always work with Eli. So, please help me figure this one out.

Eli Gets Schooled

Eli started preschool last week. Wait… Let me say that again Eli. started. preschool. last. week. Does anyone else see the problem with that statement?? He is not even 2 yet people!! But his daycare does preschool during the day so he gets to do it also. Now don’t get me wrong. I love the fact that he gets to get a head start on learning. I am so glad that she offers it because that’s the only way he would get preschool. But it just makes me sad that my baby is in PRESCHOOL!!

It’s so much fun though. He has a school binder that we get to bring home every night and see what all he did that day. So far, he has worked on the letters A and B, and the colors red, yellow, and brown. He can identify an apple (because A is for apple). He can identify the letter B but not the letter A yet. But the first thing that he learned really made me cry. But I have to tell you the whole story first.

I thought his preschool started on Sept. 20. So on the 13th, I got home from work and we decided that we were going to grill out for supper. Big John had to go down to the store and get some charcoal. So that left just Eli and me at home. I had to go to the bathroom and since I can’t ever go to the bathroom by myself anymore, Eli was in the room also. Our bath mat has 6 big squares with a big flower in the center of each one. Eli was on the floor pointing to all the flowers and saying “flor”. Then I heard him saying something else so I listened really hard. He was pointing to each square and saying “One, Two, Tree, Four, Fye, Sis, Seben, Ate, Nine, Ten!! I almost fell off of the toilet!! I was so excited and I couldn’t wait to tell Big John.

By the time Big John got home, I had convinced myself that I was just hearing things. He didn’t really count to ten by himself. That was crazy!! We hadn’t even started teaching him that. So I told John about it but said that I thought I was hearing things. So later on, Eli was sitting with Big John and we had just got done reading Goodnight Moon for the 1,467,917 time. Eli likes to “read” it to us so Big John gave him the book. He started pointing to things on the pages and counting them. I started crying and made sure John knew what he was saying. It was so amazing!! I couldn’t believe that my baby was counting all by himself. That’s when Big John decided to tell me that I was wrong about the start date of preschool. It had started that morning. He learned to count in one day! My little man is so smart!!! I can’t wait to see what he has learned by Christmas!