"Cheek"

Lately Elijah has had a fascination with lotion. Since he takes after his mommy with eczema troubles we have to lotion him up fairly often, especially his hands and cheeks. Now every time he sees lotion he points to it and says "cheek." I keep trying to tell him, "It's LO-TION, yes we put it on your cheeks, but it is called LO-TION." He doesn't care. To him it is "cheek," or more like "sheek."

So I'm in the bathroom making myself beautiful this morning (yes, it is quite a process) and Elijah walks in holding a little tub of Vaseline (we also put that on his cheeks sometimes). He looks at me, points at the Vaseline, and says, "cheek." I acknowledge him, make sure he knows how brilliant he is, and tell him to go put the Vaseline away.

He goes back into the living room and I continue on with my beautification. He doesn't come back, but I can hear him playing and that is a good sign (it's when I can't hear him that I know he is getting into trouble).

After a few minutes I come into the living room and see Elijah standing at his tool bench, and I assume he is just playing with his tools, so I distract myself with something else. After a little while I meander over to where he is playing and see that he has the lid of the Vaseline off and is about to stick his fingers in there. Mommy instinct takes over and I rush to his side and snatch away the Vaseline. Baby + Vaseline = Huge Mess.

I quickly begin to assess the damage, did he manage to get any out before I snatched it away? He did. He clearly had been digging in it before I happened to walk by. I checked his other hand. There as well. I looked at the tool bench and didn't see any evidence of a mess. With a sigh of relief, I turned back to give him a smooch. That's when I noticed his cheeks.

Apparently, mommy did not understand that when Elijah brought her the Vaseline and clearly stated "cheek" that he was in need of some serious moisturization. Well, if mommy's not going to do it, then he is going to get it done himself! And so he did.

How can I be mad when I have such a smart kid? :-D