Kyan is hopelessly obessed with ELMO!! What started out with a normal 11 a.m. Sesame Street viewing daily progressed to a talking Elmo doll my Mom picked up somewhere that he started carrying around and hugging (much to our pleading for him to give Elmo a rest because we were tired of hearing "ELMO LOVES YOU! ELMO LOVES YOU! YOU'RE ELMO'S SWEETHEART! HEEHEEHEEHEE!" every 5 seconds.) and loving Elmo. Then he learned to say Elmo, which sounds like Mama sometimes but always followed with a smile and giggle. I gotta say that I started to feel like, eh.. maybe it's not so bad!

For Christmas my sister wanted to buy him a lift-a-flap book because he absolutely loves them! He gets so excited to look under the flap and even more excited that he's a big boy and can lift them himself and that you encourage him. She got on Amazon and found a book about Elmo and his blankie with over 35 flaps! We now have to hide this every evening around 6 p.m. because we've read the book so many times in the course of the day that we want to cry when we see him bring it to us and he cries when we say, "Oh! You have sooo many books! Let's give Elmo a rest!"

The obsession continued one day while we were in Target and I told Jared to take him and walk him around since they were really not busy and he didn't need to just stay in the buggy and give me the mad face because I was taking too much time picking out new sippy cups. He came walking back in the isle a few minutes later, followed by Daddy, clutching a smaller Elmo doll. I looked at Jared with a pure "What the-- Where did he find? Why did you let him?" look and he said, "You know, I turned to pick something else up for him to look at and suddenly he was hugging Elmo. So we did what we do on any trip, take it to the cashier and distract him while we tell them to hide it because we don't want it, only this time Daddy was in a rush and said, "Let's just get it and make him happy for the ride home!" and I caved while wrestling him back into his coat/hat/mittens and said, "If it's not over 7 or 8 bucks, then okay, just hurry because he hates this suit and we need to get home!" $9.99 + tax later we were all happy in the car with a new furry red monster sitting in the arms of our little monster.

Now, I really don't mind Elmo, or never did until I had Kyan. Then after a while the helium voice gets on your nerves and you think, "Why could he love The Count? Now there is a fun guy!" or "Oscar is the greatest! Why can't he want to be a grouch?!" And yes, he does try to say Big Bird (BeBah!) and we get wild over Cookie Monster "COOK!" when we find out what the Letter of the Day is! But after soooooo much little furry "Elmo's World" at the last 20 minutes of the show a day, and the toy cell phone my Mamaw found for him that sings the theme song and does all types of other sounds and things, you can't help but lay down in bed at night thinking, "I hummed that stupid "Elmo loves his goldfish! His crayon too! That's Elmos's World!!!!!" while doing dishes, after his bath, to get him calmed down to sleep, WHY CAN'T I QUIT!!!????!!!

So the other day we were watching it and having a few crackers when I heard that familiar "la-la-lala-la-la-lala-Elmo's World" coming on and since he was having an off day and just wanted to cuddle up, we sat in our chair and watched all about "Bananas!" (a great show since he's a banana freak!) and then at the end we sang the Banana song, which is the word Banana (or whatever the topic is of the day) said over and over again and nothing else to the tune of Jingle Bells. Yeah. Ingenius! And then at the end Kyan got really antsy, which worried me because he really wasn't feeling all to well so for him to be squirming and wanting off my lap made me a little nervous. But instead of throwing up, or crying, or whatever he was going to do, he got up and went to the toy box and found his smaller Elmo doll. He hugged it and went over to the TV and danced a little and then waited... and finally.... Elmo came over to the screen and said, "Elmo loves you!" and Kyan got really excited and hugged his doll and giggled at me and then kissed the screen. (and this is why I wash our tv screen daily)

And it really dawned on me that yea... he is annoying... and yes he really doesn't teach you correct grammar or atleast that the words "I" and "Me" exist... but he makes my little boy feel good for a few minutes out of every day when I may be busy doing dishes or cleaning up the rest of the living room or whatever and can't be right there interacting with him. And I know that there are things that Sesame Street has taught him because we were no where near working on sounds that animals make, only what animals were what, and he busts out a string of "Moo!Moo!" at the California Cheese commercial one day. Now we've moved onto saying "meow!" at the Friskies commerical.

It just really makes you think that us Mom's tolerate alot of stuff with our kids and their likes,dislikes, phases, etc. but it could be a lot worse. Like think of the Mother who said, "Yeah, from what I hear her new friend, What was his name? Manson? Charlie? Something like that, seems to be an okay guy." I bet she wished her kid was only brainwashed by a red monster with a squeeky voice and a goldfish named Dorothy.