Up and down

Ethan has been able to climb up stairs for a while now, but today he climbed down an entire flight! Wooow! I was impressed. :o)

The reunion was great! Even though Ethan was a sleepy boy (he screamed instead of napped in the car), he was so interested in seeing all the new faces and just checking stuff out that he really didn't fuss. Too busy!

On the car ride back to Austin, I sat in the back seat with Ethan. I had handed him a book, Pat the Bunny, but Jim and I were talking and I wasn't really paying attention to Ethan. Suddenly, he said "Hi!" really loudly. I looked, and he was playing peek-a-boo with one of the characters in the book whose face is covered by a little flap of fabric. It was one of those moments when you think your heart is going to pop because it can't possibly hold that much love...! He is just soooo funny and cute!

Hello from Houston!

We're in a La Quinta in Tomball right now. Tomorrow is the big Butcher family reunion...yay! We drove here today and met the Shimeks for dinner at Goodson's cafe. Great place, if you're ever in Tomball!

It was good to see them...I hadn't seen Mr. Shimek in forever, and last time I saw Mrs. Shimek was at my baby shower in Edinburg more than a year ago. For those of you who don't know them, my mom and Mrs. Shimek used to work together when I was growing up. Shimek (that's what everyone calls her) has 2 sons. Her baby, Chris, is my age and Stephen is 2 years older. Anyway, Shimek has always kind of been like a mom to me. She's funny and silly like my mom, but she was always easy to talk with about serious stuff, too. They're just really great people, and it was fun to catch up a litle and introduce Ethan to them. :o)

Anyway, so this is Ethan's (and Daisy's) first hotel stay. Neither of them seems to care one way or the other. Daisy is passed out on a chair, and Ethan is playing Godzilla with Jim. Godzilla is when Daddy stacks up blocks or toys or whatnot, and Ethan crawls or toddles over and knocks the tower down. They love that game!

Oh, our pictures turned out well...I'll add a couple to the blog in a bit. Not the best results ever, but they were free, so we really can't complain! She got a few cute shots of Ethan, though. Well, of course she did...he IS a cutie, after all!

Chompers

I should be sleeping because we're getting up super-early for family pics tomorrow morning. But I wanted to just note that tooth #8 finally popped through today! The one next to his top left front tooth *finally* came through. :o)

Kiddo is getting a full set of little chompers. And he knows how to use them...he latched onto my knee this morning during an "I'm really, really tired but don't want to take a nap" hissy fit. He left teeth marks and a bruise...ouch!

Tooth, clown, and a haircut

Yesterday, I noticed that tooth #7 (next to his bottom left tooth) is through now. I thought # 7 was going to be the top left tooth, but nope. We're still waiting on that one.

Also yesterday, we went shopping for something for E to wear for the family pictures we're taking on Wednesday. While we were at the mall, we saw a clown at the candy store. Ethan had never seen a clown before, so I thought it might be nice to wheel him on over to say hello. Now, I am NO fan of clowns. I don't get them, and I think they're just generally creepy. But kids like clowns, and I'm not going to let my aversion to them keep him from checking out something new...he's not a little Michelle. He can form his own opinions.

So, Mr. clown was a young guy, and he was very sweet. I explained that he was the first clown Ethan had ever met, and he did a couple of juggling tricks to try to impress Ethan. It did not work. Ethan looked at him, looked at me, looked at him again, and completely fell apart! It was kind of funny, in a sad way. Mr. Clown was so disappointed and kept apologizing, and Ethan just screamed. I ended up having to take him out of the stroller and carry him a while before he finally settled back down. So, if anyone was thinking about hiring a clown for Ethan's 1st birthday, let me go ahead and recommend not doing that. :oD

Today was a biiiig day for Ethan (more so for his Momma.) He got his first haircut. I was so sad that he wasn't going to have his crazy baby hair anymore; but I have to admit, he does look pretty darn cute! We went to a salon called Cool Cuts 4 Kids, and I think the girl's name was Hilda? Anyway, she was really sweet and good with him and explained everything she was doing to me and Jim. We plopped him into a firetruck chair and he was mesmerized by the Barney show pretty much the whole time. We don't usually let him watch tv, so he was really interested in the colorful characters. After a while, he started playing with the firetruck's steering wheel, and that made him pretty happy. He stayed calm until the very end, when she tried to use the clippers. He didn't like that. But she *did* nick him behind his right ear, so I'm sure that didn't help. It didn't really bleed or anything, and he didn't cry; but after that he got fussy and was just done with the whole thing. Overall, it was a pretty good experience, and now he looks like the big boy that he is.

Poor Baby...or toddler...

So, we had a brunch playdate this morning. Spaz that I am, when I went to the grocery store yesterday, I forgot to get the mini-muffins I had promised to take. I had to get Ethan up, fed, and changed lightning-quick (which anyone who has a kid knows is laughable) so that I could go to HEB for the second time in as many days just to get the muffins and avoid being the "lame mom."

So, I'm dressing the squirmy kid, and I have to make a choice: t-shirt and shorts, or cute little 1 piece jumper? One piece...quicker, right? Fine, that's what he's wearing. Except, it's all baby blue with little cartoon animals all over it. But hey, he's a baby, that's what babies wear, right?

Whatever, I get him dressed, we get in the car, we get muffins, we show up on time, the world is a good place. But then I start watching Ethan playing with the other kids. He's standing up, cruising, (no walking this morning), and bouncing along to music. In a baby blue jumper with little cartoon animals all over it. He's totally a toddler, and he was wearing a baby outfit. It was just wrong! So, I still ended up feeling like the lame mom anyway.

Forgive me, Ethan...that jumper is going into the pile of clothes that Mommy will not make you wear anymore, I promise!

Look who's walking!!

Yesterday at Music class, Ethan took two steps! He was chasing a little girl (Samantha), of course. :o) He's gotten up to 4 steps at a time. Still a work in progress, but he's walking. And no, he's not a toddler yet, darnit. Not till his Momma says so! Sigh...such a big boy!

Also, he drank from a regular cup all by himself today. No spills, until he got tired of drinking and tossed the cup over the edge of the highchair. But that was on purpose. :o)

And I also taught him how to say Cheese. Not as in "Ooooh, Mom's going to take a picture!", but as in "this gooey stuff I'm squishing in my hands is cheese, and now I'm going to eat it!" Babies saying cheese is very cute!

He's so much fun!

First Mother's Day

This is a holiday I've celebrated all my life, but it's kind of cool this year because it's my turn to be celebrated, too. Being a mom is such hard work, and sometimes I miss how easy life was before Ethan came into our lives. But then I see his gooey little smile or hear him babbling away in the little language that only he can understand, and my heart is so full of love for him that it almost hurts. There is nothing in the world I would rather be doing with my life right now...being his mom is a 24/7 job, but he is worth every second.

Ethan is growing up so fast! I've been busy planning his 1st birthday party and finding all the stuff we're going to need to create a fun and safe pool party for a bunch of little bitty kiddos. It's going to be a short party since little ones get cranky pretty quickly and it'll most likely be hot outside. :o( But still, I think we've planned it all out pretty well, so everything should be ok! I know he won't remember this, but Jim and I will, and we're going to take lots of pictures! I'm also planning on taking a picture of all of our guests gathered around the birthday boy and having them sign a photo mat so we can have a nice framed photo. If this goes well, I hope to make this an annual birthday tradition! If you can think of any other b-day traditions that we could start, please let me know...I'm looking for more ideas!

Anyway, Ethan got tooth #6 (next to the top right tooth). We saw that it had come through yesterday evening, but I'm not sure exactly when it did...top teeth are hard to see and it's hard to get him to let us poke around in there! But I had checked a few days ago and it wasn't quite through yet.

His latest feat...he makes kissing noises! I say "kisses!" and make kissy faces at him. He can't pucker up his lips, but he figured out that he can make the noise by sucking on his tongue, so he sticks out his tongue and starts sucking on it when I say kisses. It's hilarious!! This all started yesterday.

He's getting better about saying Hi appropriately. Dad will come home from work and come around a corner. As soon as E sees him, he lets out a big happy Hi! Very cute! Oh! And he learned how to High 5 last week! That's pretty neat! He doesn't slap hands very well yet, but he smiles and puts his hand on the hand you're holding up. Sometimes he claps afterward if he's really excited.

A couple of stories to illustrate E's personality:
Most babies grab anything near them and stick it in their mouths, or they dig into food and make big old messes. Ethan's not like that. He likes to check stuff out, but he's very cautious and would rather observe things visually instead of just diving in. So, we went to a birthday party at a playground last weekend. I put Ethan down in the gravel by the playscape to see what he'd do. He looked at me like I was crazy for dropping him into the weird stuff, but he finally started playing with the rocks. He stared for a while, then picked one up, squeezed it in his fist, dropped it, then got another one, pinched it, held it up so he could see it better, tried to eat it (I stopped him there), and then picked up another one. Meanwhile, our neighbor plopped his son right next to Ethan. Hamzah is a week older, and he immediately grabbed two huge fistfuls of rocks and just dove right in and started digging! His dad mentioned that he'd never been in gravel before, either.

A similar thing happened on Friday at lunch. A friend and I got mashed potatoes for our little ones (her daughter is 2 weeks older than Ethan.) Vivi grabbed fistfuls of potatoes and immediately smeared them into her mouth, hair, cheeks, everywhere. It was adorable! Ethan looked at his, stuck out his pointer finger, slowly poked at the potatoes, scrunched up his eyes and nose, and just looked at me as though he were saying "this feels icky, but I want to eat it...help!" Then he opened up his mouth so I could spoon them in for him!

That's our kiddo! He's just very cautious and he likes what he likes. Squishy things are just not cool in his mind...not yet, anyway! He will hold and eat a banana until he's squeezed it so much that it's become soft, and then he'll get mad at it and I'll have to feed him the rest with a spoon. He really is a funny little guy! But he's a lot like his dad, and I love seeing those similarities unfold. He looks a lot like a Garza, but he's definitely Jim's little boy!! It makes this Mommy's heart happy to see her two favorite boys playing together. :o)