Eda's Friends

Just today, I realized a sad thing. Ethan's Mama and Daddy are just not quite enough for him. I'm afraid that somehow, two fairly shy people have created an outgoing, multiple friend-making, stranger-disarming little boy who wants to be around many, many, many other people besides his parents. Examples to follow:

1. Ethan's Grammy Barbara (aka "Mimi") came and stayed with us for the weekend. Besides being a wonderful guest to have, she put the Ethan-boy in a pretty delightful mood - so much so that he is still asking for her and checking Brian's study to see if she's there. We totally wore her out - our favorite outing was probably the "round and round" at the mall, but the car trip to and from was apparently just as fun for these two:
While she was here, Ethan could be overheard saying the following things, which I'm not sure we'll hear again until she comes back: "Sweetie pie", "Thank you", and "Eda is funny!" You sure are, kid. :)

2. Ethan loves daycare. I am still not working full time, so I do get to pick him up earlier than I might otherwise be able to, but it's so nice to know that he is incredibly happy there! So happy, in fact, that when I got him today, he was happy to see me...BUT cried all the way home when he realized I wasn't going to stay and play. "My friends...my friends!" The whole way home. (OK, not the whole way home. About a half a mile away from our house I started singing to try to calm him down. "No singing, Mama." Oh, well.) For those of you who are having babies in Urbana, or who know people having babies, OR maybe you just want to check out the snazzy new website they have:

http://www.theccdc.org/

There used to be the cutest picture of Ethan in one of the galleries, but I can't find it now.

3. Last but not least, Elmo is still a fave. This weekend, while convincing Ethan that he needed a new diaper, I was convinced by Ethan that Elmo also needed one. Since I wasn't about to waste a perfectly good disposable on a stuffed monster, Elmo is wearing cloth these days. (He's a very eco-conscious monster.) Elmo stayed with Ethan all day Saturday - diaper changes, naps, and we even took Elmo for a walk around the neighborhood. (That ended very quickly when Elmo kept getting thrown into the street, where Ethan wanted to lay down on top of him giggling. Yes, I said in the street.) Snack time was a little more relaxing:


(By the way, those are NOT Cheetos that Ethan is snacking on. Those are Gerber tomato crackers. Totally different. :)

Wait for Mama!

Our trip to Chicago - two nights, taking advantage of a little time when Brian isn't teaching - was great. Not relaxing, really, but so so fun! Here are Ethan and Brian looking at the big, big buildings from our hotel room:
After the Pack & Play trial, we had the hotel reserve us a crib. Unfortunately, it was smaller than the Pack & Play, and way easier to get out of! I had visions of Ethan climbing out of it in the middle of the night, unlocking our hotel room door (which he can do), and heading down the hall to the elevator (which he loves). So we super-locked the door, put a chair under the knob, and yelled at Ethan every time he tried to get out of the crib when we were getting our room set up. (Not really yelled, but let's say "strongly discouraged".) And it was absolutely fine. No headers out of the thing, no missing baby in the hotel, and everyone slept just great. Whew.

And here is my hotel review: Families, if you need a place to stay downtown, I highly recommend the Omni. Not terribly expensive if you stay Sunday to Tuesday, and it is sooooo kid friendly. The snazzy hotel restaurant has homemade baby food, they gave Ethan a little paper backpack with some fun toys when we checked in, there were cookies and milk in a bag the morning after our first night there, and the doormen and women greeted Ethan with smiles every time we came in and out of the hotel. So fantastic! And being directly across the street from the Apple Store didn't hurt, either. I tried to get Ethan excited about a Dora computer game, but again, all he wanted to do was climb the cool stairs. "Going Apple Store" became a favorite refrain of his.

But we spent a lot of time elsewhere - the Chicago Children's Museum, which had Ethan twitching with overstimulation after about 30 minutes, a jog out to Navy Pier that afternoon, and lots of riding the escalator and elevators at Water Tower Place before the stores opened. All were big hits. At the end of the Pier, there was this gigantic anchor from the U.S.S. Chicago, and Ethan was happy to pose for us:

When we left this morning, we were tempted to head to the Aquarium, that having been a favorite place of mine when I was a kid. But we all woke up early and were a tad cranky, so when we saw the crazy price tag on entry to the Aquarium, we decided to wait until Ethan was a little older and we could really take advantage of a whole day there. We did pack in a lot in a short time, so I didn't feel badly about heading home a few hours earlier than planned and making sure that all of us got a little nap. :)

The funnest and most frightening thing about Ethan in Chicago was his temptation to just take off. He fussed and cried every time we came back to the hotel room, and took off running at full speed every time we left the place. I did lose sight of him once in the museum, and Brian and I decided that we really needed to do a better job of making sure he obeys us when we stay, "Stop!" Right now, he thinks it's a game and wants to be chased. (And since when he runs, we do chase him, I don't think we are correcting that assumption of his!)

Back to Blogging

Sorry for the long absence, everyone! (All 3 of you who read this, anyway...:) I can't believe how fast March has gone. And my last post didn't even include any cute pictures of Ethan, so let's take care of that right now.

(Can you believe this haircut??? He really needed one, but I didn't have any idea that she was going after ALL of his hair until it was too late to stop her. We are not getting it cut ever ever again.)

I have to say that while Ethan is a perfectly normal 2 year old (with all that goes with that age), Brian and I are really seeing his personality develop, and it's so nice to see that he is a nice boy. From what we observe when we're with him, and hear from a variety of people (including strangers at the library!), he plays really well with other kids. He'll be assertive when he needs to, believe me - I recently heard him to tell a girl to "move" when "go, go, go" wasn't making her go go go away from where he wanted to take his train...(That was corrected to "move please" soon afterwards, Mom, don't worry. :) I do sort of cringe when he gets bitten or hit at daycare, because he is always on the receiving end of that rather than the giving, but I guess if I have to choose between the two, I don't want him being the aggressive kid.

We're doing some pretending games lately, and he has done one of the cutest things ever. I pretend to go to sleep in the living room, and he goes to get the blanket and stuffed animals out of his crib...covers me up and puts all of the animals down next to me. I love it! Sometimes now he'll lie down on top of me so we are going "night night together," and that's even better. I usually only get to "sleep" for about 9 seconds, but it's totally worth it.

He is getting so big now, though! He is not our little baby boy anymore, which makes us both proud and nostalgic. I'm so glad when my work friend Kathy talks about her teenage son and how much fun the two of them have together, because I'm so afraid that he's going to get older and want nothing to do with us! In preparing for our trip, we tried out Ethan's Pack & Play, which is the wonderful portable crib that we have used forever, and you can see that this era of travel is over:

You can see that he is appropriately contrite. (Sigh.) I guess it's better that we found this out now rather than in the middle of the night sometime somewhere, but I loved that Pack & Play!

New Conversations

As a sequel to an earlier post, here are the latest fun conversations that Ethan is coming up with lately.

(Scene: A gorgeous 40 degree day...Ethan is dying to go outside.)
Alexis: Ethan, we're going to head home to see Sarah.
Ethan: Sarah. Outside?
Alexis: No, honey, Sarah is going to be inside. We'll play inside with Sarah!
Ethan: Sarah. Mama. Outside?
Alexis: Um, no, baby. Sarah and Mama will be inside with Ethan. We'll play inside!
Ethan: Sarah. Mama. Inside. Ethan - outside.
Alexis: (sighs)
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Alexis: Ethan, it's time to go home from the park and make dinner. We're going to leave when I count to five, OK?
Ethan: OK.
Alexis: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. OK, time to go home!
Ethan: Nooooooooooooo!
Alexis: Ethan, should I carry you or do you want to walk?
Ethan: Nooooooooooooo!
Alexis: OK, carry you!
Ethan: No. No carry you! No dinner! No way, Mama!
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He is so fun right now! (No, really. These conversations aren't the only ones we have, just the most amusing.) He is interested in so much, and has strong opinions on everything. Naptime? No way! Fruit snacks? Yes! Finger paint? No way, Mama. But paintbrushes...