Bye Bye, October

I had to squeeze in one more post before the month is officially over....

For those of you blog stalkers, I know that you've all been dying to see pics of Ethan's birthday party. There aren't many, but the few that are there are pretty cute. And messy....:) Ethan had a pretty casual party, with two playgroup friends (and their parents - I'm not crazy) and my parents in attendance. Much fun was had by all! (Though my folks left early - I think we wore them out. :)
I thought and thought about what kind of party to have for Mr. Ethan, and decided that at this age, any theme would be more for my enjoyment than for his. He had no idea what the big deal was...didn't know what to do with his gifts, he didn't want to eat anything while everyone was here...so I'm glad that I chose the easy way out when it came to his "cake".
The October fun didn't stop there, though, since Halloween came the week after! I found this fantastic monkey costume at a consignment sale in town about a month ago, and luckily it not only fit his growing body but his monkey-like personality. (Daycare folks: "Does he climb a lot at home?" Uh, yeah.... "He was climbing up the bookcase today, over the table, on the stacks of chairs..." Great!) Ethan's daycare had a Halloween party on Friday, where the kids paraded around the little playground in their costumes, then we all had treats inside and played games. This had to be tons of work for all of the teachers - I could appreciate it after hosting tons of Halloween/Christmas/Valentine's parties of my own - and the kids were obviously having a great time. Though just like at his party, Ethan was more interested in the grapes and whether or not we would let him turn the lights on or off.
His disinterest in the party goings-on may have been due to the fact that Ethan was already coming down with the second big bug of the month. :( We stayed home from trick-or-treating tonight because after a 10 day regimen of antibiotics, Ethan's ear infections were back and his fever jumped back up to 101-103 today. Poor baby. I foresee lots of snuggling in front of Elmo and Baby Einstein tomorrow for the two of us!

4 Reasons I Love Central Illinois

So it's Fall, my very very favorite season. I find myself in a much better mood as the leaves change, the temperature drops (but not too much), and the yummy fall foods emerge - apples, squash, sweet potatoes, soup.... So I'm dedicating this post to the fun things that we've been able to do in good old CU in the last two weeks.

Little Gym
OK, so the Little Gym isn't a local thing - it's a chain. But it's one of the most fun things we've done on weekends this Fall! Ethan is a wild man for about 45 minutes every Saturday. He is also madly in love with the teacher, Miss Angie. As we all introduce ourselves each week, he runs up to her over and over again for high fives. And he's getting pretty good at the balance beam, the parallel bars, and the little climbing wall they have there. I think my favorite, though, is the fact that he is now saying, "Go!" I'll get ready to help him do a back somersault, "Ready, Set...." Ethan: "Doe!"
Youth Literature Festival
There are so many benefits to being in a university town, and this is one of them. The U of I, along with libraries and local performers, put together this amazing day of creative fun for kids of all ages. I wasn't going to take Ethan, thinking that he'd be way too young to get anything out of it, but some of the moms in the playgroup Ethan and I enjoy were going, so we decided to give it a try. Wow. Puppets, crafts, books, resources for parents, and best of all - music. You'll notice a little towheaded boy standing in front of the stage in a tie dye t-shirt. That's Mr. Ethan. It's a picture taken about 5 seconds before he tried to get on stage to "help" the singer with his performance, and was almost pulled off by the nice man acting as toddler security. Ethan's first bouncer! (I was being a very irresponsible mother - I was cracking up so hard at the cute picture and emailing it to Brian that I couldn't get up to the stage fast enough. :)
Monticello Railway Museum
Ethan is in love with trains these days. So Brian thought that we should take him to see some really big authentic ones. It was so cool! The museum does short train rides from the station into the city of Monticello, about 10 minutes each way, and a conductor comes through the train cars and explains a few things for people who want to listen. Ethan really enjoyed it.
Meadowbrook Park
Also known as "Castle Park", Meadowbrook is a fantastic area about a mile from our house. I finally got our jogging stroller fixed, and now Ethan and I jog there together on the weekends, play, and then jog back. (One mile doesn't sound like a whole lot, and it's really not, but believe me, pushing a 35 pound kid in the stroller while trying to jog is really tough!)

What's for Dinner?

Ethan is a healthy eater. I don't mean that he only wants healthy food, I mean that he has a healthy appetite. He's certainly not starving - his weight is definitely working hard to keep up with his height.

(I know I post way too many pictures of messy-eating-Ethan - but they're so cute! Until he has to be hosed down....)

However, he is picky picky picky these days. We are so lucky that he loves fruit - he'll almost always eat lots of apple, banana, pear, grapes....it's just the other food groups that don't seem to exist. (Actually, it was hilarious tonight - I brought home some oatmeal cookies from a meeting I had been in, and he kept picking away the cookie part so he could eat the raisins!) And we're in a position of trying to get him to eat more meat...both Ethan and I had our blood tested recently for various reasons, and the two of us are drastically low in iron stores. So doctor's orders are to eat more red meat (and other iron-rich foods) as well as take supplements. Ethan's great about taking medicine, but it would be great to get his vitamins in some food as well! Proteins? Well, there's cheese. And then cream cheese.... and maybe cottage cheese.... He seems to really dislike the texture of meat, so he won't eat meat. And as far as veggies go, he's good with carrots most of the time, and that's all, folks. Not even sweet potato, squash, or other sweet vegetables!

So I'm opening it up to you all out there - ideas for getting your kids to eat a more varied diet?

In my blog-free weeks, we haven't just been sitting on our butts. Really. :) We've done some really fun things - the Little Gym just gets more and more fun every weekend, we're planning Ethan's birthday party - yeah!, and we still get together with our playgroup friends once in awhile. Unfortunately, we've also had some sad moments, too. One of Brian's best friends, Ed, has moved away from Champaign-Urbana to (so selfishly) live with his wife and cutie pie daughter in Columbus, Ohio. We got together with them on Ed's last day here so that Ethan could visit with his future wife one more time....but had a very difficult time taking a non-blurry picture! Two mobile toddlers makes for a tough photo op.