Conference Obsession Continues

Well, it's been about six weeks since my first post about Ellis' interest in General Conference. I remember putting up the post promptly because I was pretty sure the phase would pass in less than a week, and then he would go back to watching Diego or Thomas or "Buzz and Woody Show." I never would have guessed that six weeks later, his obsession with Conference, prophets, and all things holy would be going in full force. Well, here we are, end of December, and our home is just swirling with the excitement and thrill of the general authorities. Let me elaborate.

Shortly after my previous Conference post, we discovered General Conference Highlights on YouTube. In roughly 15 minutes, it shows just a little excerpt from each member of the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve from the last Conference. This was a great discovery for Ellis, because it would hold his attention, and we didn't have to switch to a different apostle after a minute or two. Here he is in the early stages of watching this clip for his lunch and dinner entertainment:

After watching this for a week or so, Ellis had all of the "Elders" and "Presents" names memorized, and then he got so that he could identify them by voice before their faces even popped up on the video clip. Soon he started memorizing parts of some of his favorite talks, and then he would get really excited when they would say his favorite parts. "Present Monson said, 'Young Men!!!!'"

One night Ellis was helping Ben with the dishes, and as he was standing by the sink, contemplatively looking at the soap bubbles, he quietly whispered, "My joy is full." What, Ellis? What did you just say? He confirmed by saying it louder, "My joy is FULL!" We laughed so hard that he realized it was funny, and "My joy is full" has become the standard way of expressing happiness in our household for the last month.

So some little kids are obsessed with balls or trucks or dinosaurs. Others love a certain TV show or book. I think it's pretty normal for two-year-olds to be obsessed with something -- to act out favorite characters, insist on the same movie over and over, or get excited about the same things repeatedly. I remember when Henry was two years old and SO obsessed with cars and really anything with wheels. He never wanted to do anything else. He would blow us away when he recognized things like "giant excavator" and "articulated dump truck." So I feel like Ellis' behavior must be fairly typical for a 2-year-old. It's just so CRAZY that he has chosen to be obsessed with men aged 70+ who stand and give sermons in a microphone. Don't get me wrong -- I truly love President Monson and the apostles, and I believe their words to be true and revelatory and life-changing. But I've never heard of a toddler who would choose them for his super-heroes. Please tell me if you see this as reason to worry for any reason. Meanwhile, I'm getting a kick out of this boy:

Isn't he irresistible? This is him in his "Present Oofdorf" outfit. He LOVES wearing a tie to church and looking like an apostle.

Ellis loves to play pretend . . . and recently his favorite thing to pretend is that he is "Present Monson." Tonight he INSISTED that we call him "Present Monson," and if we forgot, he reminded us -- every time! He would do almost anything we asked him if we called him President Monson. Ben was "Present Oofdorf," and Henry was -- of course -- "Henry B. Eyring." [Tonight, this made for a very interesting game of "Star Killers" (Henry's choice). We had President Monson playing the imaginary piano while President Uchtdorf sent missiles toward the stars that were trying to attack our spaceship; meanwhile, Captain Henry B. Eyring led the way and sent out forcefields to block off the aliens].

I think part of the reason for Ellis' obsession has to do with his passion for microphones. Pretty much anything (a broken wheel from a toy car, a drumstick, a jingle bell, a cabinet child-lock) can become a microphone, with a little imagination. Ellis is constantly walking around the house, talking into his microphone, just like his heroes. He bears his testimony; he gives talks; he asks people to raise their hands; he says "Amen" and insists that everyone else say it too. He also blesses the Sacrament, which we've been trying to stop him from doing because it seems a bit irreverent, but we really have a hard time stopping him. He is constantly turning the time over to each of us to talk into the microphone. If we don't start our remarks with "Brothers and Sisters," he corrects us. If we don't end with "Amen," we get reprimanded. And if we call him Ellis when he clearly stated that he is "Present Monson," that is the end of it!

This picture shows Ellis with the "Conference Train" that we had out in October when we watched General Conference. We kept it up on the wall for a couple of months because Ellis loved it so much, and he was always asking us to identify the faces on the train. One day he discovered that he could reach the pictures of the "guys," and he took off the picture of Sister Rosemary Wixom (Gen. Primary President). He ran around the house cackling, saying, "I got Wixom!!!" in a gravely voice. He laughed and got quite a kick out of this. It was serendipitous that he chose "Wixom," because I happened to meet her two days later at a Primary training and got to relay to her the story about her biggest 2-year-old fan. She was pretty touched! Here's the cell phone pic I got to prove to Ellis how cool I am. I met Wixom!!!

The most recent development is that this week Ellis discovered the picture of the Latter-day prophets in our Gospel Art Kit. He naturally wanted to know all of their names, and that resulted in me singing the "Latter-day Prophets" song about 50 times a day. He was immediately struck by these guys and soon started asking (just about every 30 seconds for 5 hours) to watch Howard W. Hunter on the computer. Thank Heaven for YouTube. We found testimonies of President Hunter as well as Heber J. Grant, Brigham Young, and the rest of them. We found a video someone made about the Latter-day Prophets Song. We found that silly video someone made to the tune of that Beverly Hillbillies song identifying the current 12 apostles. All of these have been hits this week!

This morning I captured Ellis singing the Latter-day Prophets song all by himself. I think this is adorable. You really should watch this one, keeping in mind that Ellis' L's all sound like N's, and he drops a lot of S's.

Isn't he just the most precious boy ever? I know that his "righteous" streak may not last forever, so I'm just soaking this up while I can. Then someday I can remind him of the times that he

* asked for his "Pwofets" as soon as he woke up so he could carry their pictures around the house all day.

* volunteered to say the prayer EVERY single time we had a family prayer or blessing on the food.

* sometimes said prayers in the middle of conversations, totally unprompted, for no particular reason.

* watched the entire Christmas devotional from start to finish 5 times in the same week.

* chose "Latter-day Prophets" for both his bedtime story AND bedtime song.

* said, " . . . and I nuv Jesus!" completely out of the blue several times a week.

What can I say? I nuv this boy!!!