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.

Elbow Man

Well, I can't find Brian's camera, and every time I try to take pictures or videos of Ethan now he grabs the phone and wants to watch all the cute movies of himself....so no pictures this time. But trust me, he's still as cute as can be!

He is also about to turn two. !!! When did that happen?! He sure acts like it, too. If he gets in "trouble" (is told "no"), he'll do something to get back at us, like throw a Cheerio or Kleenex on the floor...and then look right at me, as if he's saying, "What are you gonna do about that?". It's so funny. Not so funny is the whining squealing noise that he shrieks when he's frustrated about something, or the fact that getting him into the car seat sometimes is enough of a struggle that I'm worried someone is going to call DCFS on me. It's good thing he's cute!

He's also doing a lot more talking these days. Below you'll see the latest words of the last two weeks, in order of helpfulness (best to worst):

1. Hi! (Said to just about everyone when we're grocery shopping. Pretty cute - I like to think that we're brightening the day for folks at Meijer.:)
2. All done! (This doesn't happen often, but when it does, it's adorable. He does the sign along with it, which is a relief since I've been trying to teach him that one for almost a year and a half!)
3. Apple ("Appo")
4. Bubbles (What's funny is that he's not even that crazy about bubbles most of the time)
5. Elbow (What?! How in the world is that helpful? This is one that probably won't come up in regular conversation a whole lot - how often do you talk about your elbow???)

Little Gym

Since swim classes are over, and we need something fun and active (i.e. long-nap-inducing) to do on the weekends, Brian and I decided to enroll Ethan in a class at our local Little Gym. It's an actual gym - parallel bars, balance beam, rings, and lots and lots of thick floor mats, thank goodness. When we tried a free class last year, Ethan wasn't too into it, but now that he's older and wants to go go go fast fast fast, he was in seventh heaven....I just wanted to laugh the entire time we were there, so it was lucky Brian had the presence of mind to bring the camera.
Now, before you think that Ethan played productively on each piece of equipment, waited until it was his turn to climb the stairs to the balance beam, and stayed in the circle for all of the songs and time with the parachute, think again. :) My parents were there, and my mom commented halfway through the class, "Wow, I think he likes the unstructured activities best." Yep. Luckily, at the Little Gym, it's ok if they head all over the classroom whenever they want - the entire place is padded, so it would take a huge effort to really hurt himself. He could not have had a better time! Even some of the other parents commented on how much he enjoyed himself!

Letter

Dear Daycare,

I would appreciate it if, in the future, you would not refer to my adorable, sweet, PERFECT son as "passive aggressive" when I am discussing his communication strategies with you. I understand that he tends to ignore you when you want him to clean up after lunch, and you have to ask him more than once. But in describing these situations, I would prefer that you use other wording, such as: "He ignores us", or "he's a tease", or "he's so cute and amazing and absolutely the best kid in the class".

Hearing "passive aggressive" makes me want to rip your face off. Of course I won't, but I'll think about it. For just a second.

After all, no one in Ethan's family is passive aggressive...I can't think of anyone who would, for example, smile politely as you were talking and then come home and write about the situation on her blog. :)

Love,
Ethan's Devoted and Completely Unbiased Mother

Ethan Reads!

This is a seriously proud moment for two parents. I know that this is almost certainly a phase, and Ethan may decide that books are annoying and uncool sometime in the near future, but until then...I'll revel in this.

One new development of Ethan's is wanting to take things to bed. Not stuffed animals - books. Our bedtime routine includes a book right before bed, and he now wants to grab a book and take it with him. (A pretty funny discussion ensued between Brian and me at this. Brian: "It's too dark in there. I think we need to give Ethan a night light." Me: "What, you think he's actually reading?!") It's just so sweet to see this little boy, who used to fight sleep tooth and nail, run (yes, run) off to bed at night with a little book in his hands. The video below shows Ethan's post-breakfast activity this morning. As we cleaned up the kitchen, he occupied himself for a little bit. (And you should know that I do occasionally clothe the little guy. It's just so hot these days that I can't see putting clothes on him until we go out and society expects it!)

Big Shoes to Fill

(OK, so how old will Ethan be when it's not cute that I let him run around in a diaper and post pictures online of him half-naked? When does it become creepy instead? I think it's pretty darn cute, but I'm the mom....)

I can't even explain all that we've been doing to keep us busy since the last blog post in JULY, for goodness sakes. But I'll give it a shot. The biggest thing is job-related rather than Ethan-related, which is why the gratuitous diapered boy picture is at the top of the page. :)

The last week in July, our history grant staff had our yearly Summer Institute. This year's topic - Civil Rights. We've waited awhile to do this one well, and I think we succeeded. That's our group standing next to one of the co-founders of the Black Panthers. Yeah, I'm standing right next to Bobby Seale. Had dinner with him, too. I'm just that cool. :)

Oh, and our Tuesday morning keynote speaker? That would be Ilyasah Shabazz. Name ring a bell to anyone? Malcolm X's daughter. Yep. That's her. Looking gorgeous (10 years older than me and she looks way younger) and professional and gracious...
Our Thursday keynote was none other than Julian Bond. For more information, check out Wikipedia. And when you read it, pick your jaw up off the ground, and come back to this blog, you should know that he really is just that cool. Smart, smooth, funny, amazing.

One of our special guests that week was Dawn BarbouRoske, my boss's sister-in-law. I was one of two people who got to go to dinner with her, and it was the most interesting, thought-provoking, and FUN evenings ever. You can check her out on MSNBC. And she's not just a leader in a movement that should and will be gaining more ground in years to come, she's a seriously cool person.

So with this caliber of speakers and amazing guests, we were just a tad bit stressed out. :) But the teachers all remarked on how this was the best institute ever, how life-changing it was, how they were talking about this one with family and friends....how can you ask for more than that?

We didn't actually get any time to settle down after July, unfortunately. Few people know this, but "summer" isn't really summer in the land of Staff Development. (Which is actually fine with me - I know it's practically sacrilege to admit this, but I always kind of got bored with summer vacations when I was a classroom teacher.) We moved right on to welcome new teachers, prepare for the return of all staff on Monday, outline Fall budgets, etc., etc.,....and in the midst of that, Brian and I both got the stomach flu (luckily it came and went very quickly). I write this in order to elicit sounds of sympathy from all of you, even though I can't hear them. Thank you. :)

But let's get back to the Ethan-boy! I've been hoping to catch these cute new developments on videotape, but can't seem to get him to do them when the camera's on.
1. He sings! Yep, the boy who is making his parents wait to hear more than a few real words can sing. "Da da da, da da da..." All to the tune of either Twinkle Twinkle OR our Clean Up song. SO CUTE.
2. He can drink out of an open cup. There is a reason there are no pictures of this. There are many towels involved in this process. :) Actually, he's really good at it. We're holding on to the sippy cup tops, but we don't use them very much now. (And I'm not embarrassed to admit that I'll be a little nostalgic when they go away altogether!)
3. He gives kisses. These are few and far between, but just precious when he actually does them. He'll grab a face with his two little soft hands and plant one right on ya. Which is when I ask him to do it again and again and again, which might be why he doesn't do it too often....:)