The other day we were taking the bus somewhere and Eliot (as usual) sat next to a pretty young girl about 18 years old.  He said “I’m Eliot.”  Then he began talking to her about a few of his usual topics: What he had in his hands at the moment, who his mommy is and where she is, and that he didn’t like the spider ride that he went on two months ago at Luna park.  If he runs out of things to say, he starts pretending he’s a cat.  ”Meow meow, Mama, I said meow to that lady mama, meow, like that.”  The girl he sat next to this time indulged him and found him very cute.  When she stood up to get off the bus at her stop, Eliot slapped her on the butt!  I couldn’t believe it!  He looked at her and laughed, he thought he was so funny.  The girl was pretty surprised too, that a two-year old just slapped her butt.  He’s into girls in a way I’ve never witnessed in a toddler.

This evening Lucas was in the bathtub and we have this glass shower door that runs three-quarters of the length of the tub.  About one-third of the door is hinged so that you can reach the faucet easily by swinging it open.  Lucas wanted to close the door to the tub and he reached out to close it and had the thumb of his other hand in the gap between the fixed glass part and the door.  I have never experienced so intensely a desire to take pain for another person who is hurting.  As he screamed I wanted so badly to feel it for him instead.  I felt like I couldn’t help him.  His thumb quickly turned blue and purple under the nail and the backside skin had opened but there was no blood.  I know it is not broken but it is badly bruised and will take quite some time to heal.  It happened right before bedtime and I gave him a generous dose of Tylenol hoping to help him sleep.  I am assuming that he will end up sleeping in our bed around 3am.  I went in to check on him just minutes ago and he has fallen asleep gripping his thumb with his other hand.

Today I bought tickets to China.  We have been pondering a vacation for a while now and have tossed around several ideas, but as I kept in mind a budget and researched different options, nothing was really coming together.  Yesterday, I saw a picture from the World Expo of this amazing pavilion designed by a group of british architects and I wanted to see it in person.  I also have just been wanting to go to China and it seems like a perfect time to go.  It is a 10 hour flight from here, but the time zone only changes by two hours so there is almost no jet lag.  It is also an affordable direct flight from Sydney.  And with the Expo, it all made sense.  I went to a Chinese travel agency in Chinatown today and got great prices on flights to Shanghai.  We’ll be leaving on October 13 and staying 15 days.  We’ll travel around and see some other cities outside of Shanghai as well.  I’ll keep you updated on the plans as I carve them out over the next few weeks.

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