The Hard Seat

Eli has this new trick with his booster seat to really tug at the heart strings. When he is tired of eating dinner, or needs a change of atmosphere from his booster seat at the dinner table he will get this real pathetic look on his face and say "Mommy my seat is so hard, it hurts. I need to sit on your lap." I fell for it once and of course as soon as I unbuckled his booster seat he was gone. At the next meal I but a blanket in the seat so he couldn't pull that one. He said "Oh, mom - this is amazing (his adjective for everything)".
So yesterday he sat in his booster seat WILLINGLY for 3 hours. THREE HOURS. While I was cooking dinner he wanted to play with beans. About two weeks ago I emptied three old bags of beans (black, great northern, and black eyed peas) in a plastic container and gave them spoons and other small containers to play with (thanks parenting magazine for the idea)- it has served us for HOURS of fun. So for about an hour he played with beans. We then ate dinner. Then he wanted to color - so he colored for about 20 minutes. Then he asked to play play-doh, which he played with for an hour and a half. If you don't have a toddler this is significant for several reasons:
1) toddlers attention span is usually about 5 seconds
2) Eli was occupied HAPPILY for THREE HOURS!! I made dinner, Isaac played without the threat of an older brother, and John and I watched the Florida and Alabama game.
It was a lovely, lovely evening. I am writting about it to cherish this - because I know the chances of it happening again are slim to none.