It's Potty Time!

Ethan has been climbing onto our toilets and saying "I go potty!" every so often. But he's been mostly uninterested in whether his diaper is dirty or wet and hasn't really shown us any of the readiness cues. Still, since he's been pretending to go, we figured he might like his own potty. We got one this afternoon and he was SO excited! He'd sit on it fully clothed and say "Go potty!" while doing the sign for potty.

This evening, as I was running his bath, I took off his shorts and diaper and suggested that he sit on his potty while we waited for his bath to fill up. He did, and he went potty! It was just a couple of teeny drops, but he grinned at me and said "pee-pee!" and of course I clapped and cheered for him!

So, then we did his bath and brushed his teeth (and discovered that his second-to-last baby tooth is on its way in...last molar on the top right - one more to go!). After bath and toothbrushing, I asked if he'd like to sit on the potty again before bed. He said yes and hopped right on. Next thing I know, he's REALLY going pee-pee! When he was all done, he looked between his legs and then at me with this look of such pride. He was adorable!!

So yeah, even though I had fully expected a struggle and was not even thinking about actually trying to potty train now, it looks like Ethan has other plans. :oD

Happy Birfday!

Spring has sprung! It's gorgeous outside, so I bought a bunch of seed packets and a mini-greenhouse full of peat pellets. You add water to the pellets and they get all puffy like little chocolate cakes. Then you plant the seeds in the peat pots, put the plastic lid on the greenhouse, and presto! baby plants in about a week!

I thought this would be a fantastic little project for Ethan to learn about plants, so I was kind of disappointed (but not surprised) when Ethan had absolutely NO interest in what I was doing. He just ran around the back yard, chasing Daisy and playing in puddles. He did like the little round coriander seeds, though. He got a handful and threw some of them at the peat pots yelling "little balls!" That's my boy. :o)

Anyway, I got several colored toothpicks to mark out which herbs were in which peat pots, and I stuck a few into the sides of some of the pots. Ethan wandered over, pulled the colorful toothpicks out of the sides of the pots and moved them to the tops. After he had a nice little row of toothpicks sticking straight up, he sat down and started singing: "Happy Birfday to you, Happy Birfday to you..."

They DO look like teeny little birthday cakes with colorful little toothpick candles on top!! :oD

"Tatro"

I am often amazed how much these little people can absorb. We never know how much he actually gets, until little moments like this:

Last night we were watching TV when Ethan's bedtime rolled around. We randomly do count-downs when we're going to turn things off, or move on to the next activity. This time, I did it in French to see his reaction. He looked at me funny and said "takabaf?". Michelle decided to play along and started counting in Spanish.

Mommy: "Uno, dos, tres..."

Ethan: "Tatro!"

Free Bath

In these hard economic times, even water is a luxury. Use this great penny-pinching tip to keep the kids clean and the wallet fat: introduce them to public fountains.

Updates are way overdue!

Ethan is awesome! He's a little sponge and quite the parrot. He's talking up a storm now, and it's lots of fun to have crazy little conversations with him. He sings all sorts of songs to himself, and he climbs on EVERYTHING. He's pretty much going non-stop, which is great for him but exhausting for Mommy and Daddy! He's getting better about sleeping on his own, but he's still getting up a couple of times a night. Sometimes he'll go back to sleep with his blanket and his Nemo and it's all good, but usually he'll work himself into a frenzy and start screaming if we don't go into his room to reassure him that it's ok to lie back down. He has several friends that he's always asking for. I just think it's so cute to hear him ask to see Vivi or Jannah or Eliza! He has buddies! I love that!! :o)

Anyway, I have been awful about updating this because we had some family...drama. We started trying to have a baby in January and were delighted to find out in late January that we were expecting. But in mid-February, we started experiencing problems and we had a miscarriage at the end of the month. To add insult to injury, I got horribly ill with a bad stomach flu the day after the miscarraige and I ended up in the emergency room later that week. So, we're just kind of scrubbing February 2009 from our memory. There were highlights and good things, like Ethan's big cognitive growth spurts and some really great bonding moments between me and Jim over all of the stress. Having such a cute toddler and amazing husband has really made the loss so much easier to face, and I know that we're so lucky to have the wonderful friends and family that have been so supportive through all of this.

So, we'll try again for a baby brother or sister for Ethan later this year. In the meantime, I'll try to be better about updating this blog and will try to post some pics and maybe even some video soon!

What can Ethan do?

Ethan will be 18 months old in a few days, so I thought it'd be a good time to make a list of the things that he can do at this point. This is not an exhaustive list because I'm an exhausted Momma and am sick with a chest cold, which is NOT helping. Still, I'll add what I can remember and will update this if I remember anything particularly cool later.

Motor skills: He can...
walk, spin, clap, dance, give kisses, give high 5s, climb up and down things (including the stairs), tiptoe, tiptoe while walking, walk backwards, run very clumsily (but cutely!), feed himself with a spoon (though he still prefers his hands), throw lots of things (with distressingly accurate aim, unfortunately for Daisy), roll a ball, sometimes kick a ball, bounce on his bottom, and today he learned how to stomp. Many of these actions are accompanied by his narration: "I bounce!" "I stomp!" "Spinning, Spinning!" "Down stairs!" "Stomp!"

Other skills: Ethan knows (and says)...
the full capital letter alphabet (he points out letters every time we're out and about), a handful of lower-case letters, numbers 0-9, how to count to ten (and he can tell us how many fingers we're holding up for him to count), most basic shapes (star, oval, heart, circle, square, diamond, cross, etc.), names of people he sees often, his own name, most farm animals and their noises, lots of other animals, names of the foods he eats and many that he still won't touch, lots of verbs, nouns

Songs he sings (only partially, still):
Old Mac Donald
ABC song (he gets almost all of it right!)
My Bonnie
Itsy bitsy spider
Hello Song from music together class

Still working on:
Adjectives, colors, jumping, eating a variety of foods, patience. Ethan has a low tolerance for frustration right now, and he gets really upset when he wants to have/do something that he can't have/do. I know it's just a stage and that he'll learn how to deal, but it can be very trying sometimes. But he'll get there. :o)

Feedback

Ethan is getting really good at telling us what he's thinking.

Today, during a diaper change, he said "Brrr, cold!" and smiled when I used the wipes on him. They are a little chilly, but he'd never complained before! :o)

We also went to the outlet mall looking for little boy shoes. Ethan was a pretty good sport, but he eventually yawned and said "I tired!". Normally, he'd just yawn and I'd get it and we'd go home, but how cool is it that he can also acknowledge that his yawn means he needs his nap and it's time for us to head home?

He knows his name now, too. He's recognized his name for months, but now he finally says Ethan when we ask him what his name is. And when we ask him someone's name, he usually gets it right...assuming it's someone he sees pretty often.

Anytime we go anywhere, he chatters on at a mile a minute about everything he sees! There are some things that he is just REALLY into, so when we see/hear them, chances are good that he'll comment on them: Fans (anything that spins like one), the sun (circles with lines radiating out), stars, all things Nemo, water (especially fountains), wheeled vehicles (especially trucks and motorcycles...not so much plain old cars), airplanes, guitars, pianos, music of any kind, cats...and SO many other things. I think it's pretty cool that he's so curious and interactive now. When he sees something he likes, he tells us and gets so excited when we let him know we see it, too. Communicating with him is so much fun, and it's really neat that he can express himself to us and unveil more and more of his little personality every day!