"Hug!"

We have a snuggly boy on our hands. I will never ever want that to change. Lately, he's been even more snuggly, and since his vocabulary is increasing, we are having even more fun with him.

Because we are a moderately touchy-feely couple, Ethan is becoming a touchy-feely boy. He knows several emotion words now - sad, happy, and mad, and can usually name them to the appropriate situation. (If he hears a baby crying in the store, he'll pay close attention and say, "Sad baby." And lots of pictures of characters in the books we read are "Happy" - especially the mommies of the babies who are using the potty - we are choosing a lot of those books these days. :)

His favorite word lately is "Hug!" This so sweet, though I am just beginning to realize that he is using the hugs to often times avoid things that he doesn't want to do - like get his shoes on, get his diaper changed, get his face wiped after a meal...But it is really hard to resist. We give him about a million hugs right before bed, and he is still holding his arms out for more as we leave the room - who can resist that? Here he is soon before bed (hence the half-clothed look) getting some much-needed cuddling and saying hi to Papa (Grampa) while mowing the kitchen floor:

Happy Birthday to Me!

Quiz: Think of a two digit number where the two digits add to 12, it's a multiple of 3, and the ones digit is three times the tens digit. If you worked through the math, congratulations, you know how old I am. If you didn't have the energy or simply didn't care, thank you. :)

Great weekend, though! My folks came over for waffles and bacon (yum) and brought my gift - an apple pie (yum) and Brian unveiled my birthday cake (yum!). So it's been good eatin' at the Jones-Jewett household for a few days here.
And Valentine's Day isn't a bad way to start a week, either. I was a little surprised when Ethan's teacher handed me a list of names on Friday - isn't the 2 year old room a little young for Valentine's cards??? But apparently they had made containers (fingerpainted on bags - kind of cute) for some treats, so I had to do something. Enter the crafty blogosphere, and an hour and a half later, Ethan's class had some cute little bags for fruit snacks! I've been wanting to pull out my sewing machine for awhile now, and this gave me just the perfect excuse. So easy and so fun.
(It's good that I'm doing this now when Ethan has 9 classmates as opposed to someday when he has 25 of them. :)

Digital Boy

SNOW DAY! Actually, that should be plural...we had two snow days this week, with the big huge winter storm that we got here in the Midwest. I was kind of looking forward to the 12-24 inches of snow that my husband promised me, but the atmosphere didn't deliver such joy...it was more like 7 inches of mix that was near impossible to shovel. Oh, well. Two days off in the middle of the week - I'm not complaining!

So Ethan and I stayed home together, and had an absolute blast. He is finally healthy, besides a little cough, so he is full of energy and ready for just about anything. (Brian and I shoveled out my car this morning, and put the little boy in the car - didn't turn it on or anything, just let him climb around turning on the hazard lights, finding stuff in my glove compartment, pulling out all the toys that I had just cleaned up in the car...he was happy for at least a half hour. Amazing.) One of his latest interests is my iPhone ("Upon"), and he can easily find an Elmo video to watch if I let him hold it by himself. He also loves the iPad, and you can see that he found a willing partner today (my dad loves his iPad) to play games with:
The problem is that if we let him play with gadgets all day long, I'm afraid he won't take a nap. And there is something required about a nap on snow days, so we are also trying to keep him as physically active as possible, within the confines of our small (but heated) house. Lately he has taken to "dancing", which for him is basically jumping up and down, though it does resemble Flashdance a little bit...(And what he is saying is "Eda, Eda, Eda's dance" - Ethan's dance. :)

Sick Again?!

Yep. The sweet cheerful boy is sick again. I hear that this is "normal" and "very typical" for a two year old who goes to daycare, but in my opinion, this just stinks. We are robbing Ethan of prime sledding and snowman-building weather since he has had a runny nose/watery eyes/cough/stomach bug for the last 10 days to 2 weeks. Brian and I have shared Ethan's joyful bug(s), putting all of us in just super duper moods. (Actually, as usual, Ethan has a better attitude about being sick than the rest of us...)



We've tried to stay creative in the midst of being a little homebound. The above video was the way we tried to help the little boy get used to his brand new sled. When he was healthy for a day, we tried to get him out in our backyard to ride on it, and he refused about a million times. Apparently he didn't have enough friends on the sled riding with him. :)

Conversations with Ethan

A few of these snippets may have been overheard at the Jones/Jewett household recently:

Alexis: Ethan, do you want some oatmeal for breakfast?
Ethan: No.
Alexis: Banana?
Ethan: No.
Alexis: Muffin?
Ethan: Nooooooo!!!!
Alexis: Teddy Grahams?
Ethan: No. (Sees the bears.) Yeah.
Alexis: How many bears? Two or three?
Ethan: See.
Alexis: Ok! One, two, three. Three bears!
Ethan: Nooooo! Moe beers! (Cries a little until he gets moe beers.)
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Alexis: Ethan, we are NOT watching any more Santa. (An Elmo Christmas movie with Kevin James as the groovy Santa at the end)
Ethan: Babies? (As in Baby Einstein)
Alexis: No more babies.
Ethan: Da da? (Baby Charlotte)
Alexis: No, we already watched some Baby Charlotte today.
Ethan: Tay-ta? (Santa)
Alexis: No, honey, we're all done with Santa. We'll watch Santa later.
Ethan: (thinks) One. (holds up one finger)
Alexis: One what?
Ethan: One. Tay-ta. All done!
Alexis: OK, Ethan, we'll watch Santa one more time and then we're all done.
Ethan: (smiles and jumps on the couch)
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For those of you who don't have kids or whose kids are older, I know this might seem like the most boring thing in the entire world. But for Brian and me, this is just amazing. Honestly. We are actually communicating with our kid. We are also getting ourselves talked into more snacks and more tv, but I can live with that for a little while. :)

New Year, Same Me

New Year's Eve! Brian and I celebrated Noon Year's Eve with Ethan at the library this afternoon. We can claim that our early partying was due to the fact that we have a baby, but honestly, I haven't been able to stay up past 11:00 for a good long time now. Yes, I am that lame.

I like New Year's Eve in one way, but kind of hate it in another. I like thinking of a brand new year beginning, one that is full of possibilities...but I truly hate the "New Year, New You" crap that is all over the place. I'm more aware than anyone that I have lots of room to improve myself, but I think it's kind of insulting to imply that we all need to drop 10 pounds every January, or that we have to reinvent ourselves somehow every year. Oh, well. I just thought I should let all of you know to expect the same flawed person come January 1. :)

Ethan, however, does have a resolution - to talk more! We are hearing so much more from him these days, and I think a ton of it is due to his new and improved tubes. He came through the surgery last week like a champ (again), and didn't even cry at all afterwards...until I took away his snacks so that we could go out and get some real food.
Here's a sampling of his new and improved conversational abilities:
"Mama....mo cheess!" Cheese is still #1.
"Appeesas...peess." Applesauce please. Usually with "sin" - cinnamon.

Happy Holidays!

I hope everyone has had a very merry whatever you're celebrating! We are done with Christmas Parts I and II - the Cinci version as well as our celebration here at home. Here are a few pics of Ethan's exciting weekend:
These are two favorites! Brian wanted to get him this big tent and tunnel, and the baby went totally nuts. We haven't actually opened the rest of his gifts yet, because he was just crazy in love with this one and didn't want to leave his new house. Elmo was my mom's addition, and it's the first time that Brian and I have seen Ethan get attached to any stuffed animal. Ethan put Elmo down for a nap today, fed him, and twirled him in Brian's office chair. Here's a little video of Ethan with his new love, though you'll find that the very patient cat is a little bit of a distraction:

Ethan also had a fantastic time with the Jewetts in Cincinnati. He was on incredibly good behavior, though I think I may have said the words, "No," "Careful," and "Be gentle" about a million times. He's a good listener, though. :) And totally charmed his Aunt Kim and Grammy Barbara. He will no longer let me pull on his little ticklish toes for "This little piggy went to market..." anymore. Aunt Kim does it way better. I tried today, and he went all through our house calling for her.
As I'm sure it's been with everyone else out there, December has been a little nuts. As I worked on preparing for our cookie party (which was great - thanks to everyone who came!), or making/shopping for small holiday gifts, or wrapping like a fiend, Brian reminded me, "This is fun, RIGHT?" And it is. Busy, but really fun. I kind of fell in love with the process of making or shopping locally for holiday gifts. I was in luck that my mom made me swear we weren't exchanging gifts this year, and that Brian's family is also really low-key. (One of his nephews wrote us a letter as a Christmas gift, and it was fantastic - one of the best things we received.) I think I'll do this kind of thing every year from now on, but I need to broaden my skill set. I'll work on it and keep you all posted. :)