Elmo in da house!

No, the title is not a reference to Elmo's new rap album. I have been neglecting to mention Ian's love of Elmo. He always wants to watch Elmo. For those of you not regularly watching "Sesame Street" these days, the format has changed since I watched it as a kid. Now, each episode starts off with a 15 minute segment starring one of the characters. When we're lucky, it happens to be Elmo. This week, they were replaying two that star Elmo. One of them is when "J" is the letter of the day and Elmo calls himself "Jelmo" and decides he can only do things that start with J, like jumping. I told Ian that J is also for Jeff, which he knows is Daddy's name. It took him a couple of days, but, now he generally will say that J is for Jeff, occasionally still getting confused and saying that J is for Daddy (just like he sometimes says that F is for Mommy).

Anyway, a few weeks back, he started asking to watch "Elmo in da house". Which is very different from "Elmo outside". What he means is that sometimes he wants to watch "Elmo's World" (aka, Elmo in the house) and sometimes he wants to see Elmo running around on Sesame Street. The Jelmo sketch also stars the new proprietor of Hooper's Store (yes, Mr. Hooper passed on many years ago), Alan. So over the weekend he was asking to watch Mr. Alan. I think it's because at the end of the sketch, Elmo is so tired from jumping that he falls asleep in Mr. Alan's arms.

He also likes to take not one, but TWO Elmos to school sometimes. One of the Elmos was supposed to be a backup, but he spotted both of them one day and has wanted to sleep with two Elmos ever since. Puppy has basically been neglected and the Kitty/Tiger he got in California from Mei-Mei Yi Po sometimes gets some attention (it used to belong to cousin and doctor-to-be Liz when she was a baby). But it's basically all about Elmo.

He also loves to sing the theme from Elmo's World. The first time we heard him singing it was a couple of months ago and Jeff and I just cracked up. He often asks "You wanna sing Elmo's World?" Or he will sing songs the way Elmo does at the end of each show. Elmo will sing the the same word over and over to the tune of "Jingle Bells". For example, the other day, Ian asked if I wanted to sing the animals song. I said I didn't know it and asked him to sing it. So he starts singing, "An-i-mals, an-i-mals, an-i, an-i-mals..., an-i-mals, an-i-mals, an-i, an-i-mals!"

We love our Elmo!