Hats “R” Us

In the 10 months since Elliott was born, Kelley and I have clearly discovered the likes, loves and hates our son has.

Only a few of his hates — and by hates, I mean "spit-in-your-face-if-I-could" hate — are chart toppers. He hates having his face wiped, when we take his BaBa (our word for bottle) away from him to burp or occasionally getting into his car seat. His hatred for wearing socks, however, takes the cake. Elliott will not wear socks. No matter how many times we put them on him, they're off before we know it.

He likes — by likes I mean the lowest level of the word possible — the homemade food I make him. He truly was not a fan of the pork chop-applesauce-carrot-banana-oatmeal concoction I created, but he "liked" it.

His loves are off the charts.

Elliott loves toys and my God does this kid have toys. Toys "R" Us would be envious of Elliott's sea of toys. And, of course, he can't just play with one, two or three at a time. Instead every room of our house is like forcing your way through a maze of cars, trucks, motorcycles, building blocks, books, balls, stuffed animals and countless machines that make every loud noise possible and plays every children's song ever wrote.

Elliott's fav right now, it seems, is wearing hats. My kid has more hats than I have shirts. When we put a hat on him, it's permagrin time. He has a hat for each season and every single holiday. He has hats that resemble frogs, bears, lions and giraffes. He has hats that are fuzzy, non-fuzzy and hats that match every color ever made by the fine people at the Crayola crayon factory. He has sailor hats, pirate hats and safari hats. He even hats that resemble fruits (apple) and veggies (tomato.)

I own one hat — my beloved Kansas University Jayhawk hat — that I've had for nearly five years now and it's on it's last leg.

This is a conversation we recently had while clothes shopping for Elliott:

Kelley: "Elliott needs new PJs."

Me: "What's wrong with the one's he has?"

Kelley: "You mean the one's that haven't fit him in two months and the one's that you need to grease up just to get them on him?"

Me: "Yeah. What's wrong with those?"

Kelley: "You're right. Let's just get him another hat."

As I write this, I have become painfully aware that Elliott does not have a Kansas Jayhawk hat in his collection.

Time to go hat shopping …