On a Roll...

When I come up with something I want to tell you all about, but I've already posted that day, I usually put it off and then forget. Today, you just get to hear from me a lot.

Ethan's singing is just sooooo cute. He knows about half the words to "Teach Me to Walk in the Light" (or 'Teach me'), "Give Said the Little Stream" (or 'Stream'), and "Clean Up" (a song he learned in nursery, I don't know where it's from.) And he also makes up his own songs. Usually they consist of lyrics about trucks. Something like "garbage truck, garbage truck, garbage truck, dump truck, garbage truck...." I find myself singing and playing music more, just to get him going. It's just too cute. We need to try to catch him on video.

EDIT: The clean up song is from Barney.

Parrot with a memory

We have great new examples of Ethan's language skills every day, but I particularly like what I just heard. Ethan had been standing on the seat of his tricycle and then jumped, spreading his legs so that he landed standing over the seat. John said that he was a crazy man. Ethan looked over and said "Crasin mon." He kept repeating it until he got it right. The boy repeats nearly everything we say. And the best part is, we will hear it again later, usually in the right context!

(This was only a minute or two after Ethan said "I'm gnna ride my bike." So amazing!)

Family Resemblance

Ethan is constantly reminding me of my cousin Zach. He is a few years older than Ethan and one of the cutest kids alive. Several years ago, John taught Zach and his siblings to play 'Go Fish'. He was really too young, but we were endlessly amused by the many ways Zach could say, yell, or whisper "Go Fish". As Ethan has been learning to count, he'll whisper some numbers, say others, and always yells "SIIIIIIIIIIXX!" Loving this family resemblance.

EDIT: There are tons of other similarities between them. They are both such happy, fun-loving kids. They both would rather be running, jumping, and being crazy than anything else. They both have these heart-melting smiles. And they both have their moms wrapped around their little fingers. But this use of many voices is my favorite one.

Trees

Every time I drive down Rt 30, I'm reminded of why I love the Northeast. It's the trees. This particular road is like driving through a tunnel of trees. In the summer, the abundance of green makes me feel peaceful, invigorated, and puts a smile on my face. In the fall, the change to reds, yellows, and the occasional pinky orange is like watching a changing piece of art. In the early winter, the stark structures of the trunks and branches reaching for the sky are so complex and so simple at the same time. And when the snow falls, leaving each individual branch with a white frosting, I am simply in awe. Then spring comes, bringing new buds and the promise of green trees again.

Wherever we end up, there had better be a lot of trees. I simply can't live without them.

Almost...

Ethan is almost sleeping in his new bed. He's been jumping on it for several weeks now, and we've been talking about sleeping in the big boy bed. He'll even lay down on it on occasion, but we haven't really attempted sleeping on it until the last few nights. We took the chair out of his room so that he would get used to reading his book and such in bed. Today, John even tried to leave him there, but after several attempts, put him in the crib. When he woke up at 11:30pm (for no apparent reason), I went in and, not having a place to sit, put him into the bed. I sat on the floor next to him for half an hour, waiting for him to fall asleep. He was trying. Trying so hard. I finally decided to try leaving, and he got up and followed me. Because it was so late, and I was unprepared to do this in the middle of the night, he went back in the crib. But he didn't mind the bed. It was just new and different. No one sleeps well in an unfamiliar bed.

So we're almost there. I think we may try staying until he's really sound asleep for 3 or 4 nights, then gradually leaving earlier. It may mean planning to spend an hour or so on his floor, but we can do it. We'll just take a pillow.

Jabberwocky

One of our favorite poems. Go here to listen to our little 4 yr old friend. She is awesome. (Way to go Alissa and Matt!)

EDIT: I think she's actually 5. Sorry!

TV

So I've realized one of the reasons that John and I work so well together. We both agree that time to relax every day is really important. So after about 8pm, we don't do any more housework (unless we have visitors coming.) Our house is never perfectly clean, and sometimes the dishes just wait until tomorrow. But we are so much happier.

Lately, b/c the projects we've been doing in our relaxing time allow us to sit (mine is a christmas stocking and John's is writing), we've picked up a few new TV shows. We highly recommend Heroes. (For those of you overseas without regular TV, you can watch it online.) It's a new drama that is sneaking a little sci-fi into NBC's regular line-up. He he he. I'm loving it.

Not a Bad Life

I glanced at my posts for the last two months and was sad to see that all I mentioned was the hard stuff. Granted, there was more than I can handle thinking about all at once. But I missed all the good stuff.

There was great family stuff. Mom got engaged. Dad was sealed to his wife and her boys. Dorothy got married. And that's just the big stuff.

Ethan has just been a blast lately. We can have real conversations with him and he's becoming an independent little guy. He's exhausting to take out of the house now b/c I constantly have to chase him down, but he has so much more fun, so it's worth it.

John and I have been talking about when we need to leave Boston. It's an ongoing discussion and one that we've decided we don't like. Boston is not financially a good place for us, so we need to go, but we love it here. Our ward is amazing. Our jobs are ideal. We have great friends. And even with all the snow, this is my favorite climate.

All in all, we've got a pretty good life. As others have been suffering lately, we've been grateful that our happiness and stability has meant we could focus on helping them. So although my recent posts have made it seem as though life is really hard right now, we are actually doing great.

Who is this kid??

There is this kid living in our house. I don't really know who he is. He looks like Ethan, but he doesn't act like him. Ethan is shy and clingy. He doesn't like new people, or even friends, just mom and dad. In fact, he likes mom and dad so much that he won't even play by himself. He has to be involved in whatever we're doing, even if it means sitting on the couch folding laundry.

Not this new kid. He will spend hours running around the house, climbing, and jumping from ever increasing heights, regardless of what we're doing. He enjoys playing with other kids and doesn't shrink away from strangers. He even runs away while out shopping, off to explore new things and hide from mom.

We don't know who this little independent kid is, but we sure like him!

New words

John posted about Ethan's language explosion. He really is learning probably 50 words a day. It's crazy. But it's lead to some fun discussions. Yesterday he climbed into my bed, tucked himself in and said very emphatically "I don't see cats!" I responded that I didn't see any cats either. He said "I either! I don't see cats!". This went back and forth like this for a few minutes, all while I was laughing harder and harder. It's even funnier when he whips out big words. And we've learned that we not only need to keep our language clean (not so hard), but that we need to keep it nice (harder than you'd think!) You never know who Ethan might repeat your words to!

Not all Bad

Ethan said two things today that are so great. This morning, he picked up a block and said "twiangle". He was right! (Thanks Blue's Clues!) And just a little while ago, he was saying "two pen". I looked over to see that he had picked up the two pens on my nightstand. I've been asking him every few minutes how many pens he has and he says "Two!" He's very proud and so am I.

A Hard Day

It's 10am and already I want this day to be over. One of the women that I have direct responsibility for lost her baby this morning. She has been on bed rest for longer than I like to think about, and at 27wks gestation, delivered a baby that couldn't be saved. It takes three hands to count the number of babies she's lost, but this one was the oldest, and the doctors said that a baby born now had a good chance. As I spend the morning alternately on the phone and on my knees I am again so grateful for my wonderful husband and my healthy son. I just wish that this day would end sooner.

My Strength

Lately, I've been so grateful for John. When I've seen couples suffering from loss and trials, I have been constantly reminded of a post I made months ago. I can't imagine how I'd live my life right now without John, much less through these larger trials our friends are facing. I am so blessed to have him.

I Love You

Ethan won't let John finish the bedtime routine until I've come to say goodnight and give him a kiss. Tonight, he said "I Love You" back to me. It's the best feeling in the world.

Blessing in Disguise

Our ward has had more than it's fair share of heartache and pain recently. And several of the families still need almost constant care. As I've been serving these sisters who are struggling with loss, spending every possible moment at the hospital with a suffering child, or trying to maintain a good attitude while confined to a bed, I've been so grateful. Not only for our family's relative peace, but for the opportunity to serve. It makes my burden seem so much lighter. It helps me to refocus on what's truely important. Spending my days crying with, praying for, and serving other sisters has helped me remember why I am here, why I chose this life, and where my strength comes from. And for that, I feel blessed.

Proud Father

I must be the most proud father in the world. I was getting ready to give Ethan a bath on Friday and put him on the potty, like I've been doing the last few days. Except that this time he actually went! I clapped and cheered him on so that he would know that this was a good thing.

He was very proud of himself too. And then he reached back and flushed the toliet. Which is another thing that he likes to do.
((I know Mia already wrote about this tonight, but I got to be here for a first with him. I was so excited))

Also, his vocabulary has been growing so fast. He is really repeating alot of what we say now days. I guess we'll have to clean up our language 0_0

EDIT: See John's blog, which is where this really should have been.

"See ya pee"

That's what Ethan says when he flushes the toilet, after he PEES IN IT! Ethan started peeing in the potty on friday and hasn't looked back. He still doesn't tell us when he needs to go, but we've started asking him on a regular basis and he went 4 times today! Plus, he seems to be holding it until we make it to the potty! We couldn't be more excited!!!

Loss

John mentioned the death of one of Ethan's playmates. He was about 6 weeks older than Ethan when he was hit by a truck. I did want to make the correction for John that he didn't run out into the street. He was standing next to his mom, waiting to get into the car. A complete accident that no one could have prevented.

We've been reminded of how precious every second we get to spend with Ethan is. And of how glad we are to be sealed as a family. That we will be together for all eternity, even if our time here on earth is cut short.

6 years

Our 6th anniversary was Tuesday. We've made it past 95% of Hollywood marriages, so we must be doing something right! I don't think we did anything for our 5th, so we decided to at least get out of the house for this one. We decided on a picnic on Boston Common. There turned out to be a play on the common that night, so I sat to watch it while John ran over to PF Changs to get our take-out. The play was HORRIBLE! So after eating we didn't stick around. We walked over to the pond on the other side of the common and watched the swans and ducks. It's so nice to occasionally get away from all the immediate needs of the house, be able to look back at what we've done so far, and think about the future. We realized we've been saying 'just one more year here in Boston' for about 6 months now, so we need to think about what comes after Boston for us. Yikes! Here's to hoping that in another six years we're feeling more settled.

The Potty

I know that people think I'm crazy to consider potty training this early. Most boys aren't trained until they are well over two years old. But I don't want to change diapers for that long, and Ethan's a smart kid, so I don't see why I should wait.

We've been teaching Ethan the words he needs for a while. Then we let him come into the bathroom with us. Once he started telling us what we were doing, I knew he was ready. So today I took his diaper off, waited for him to tell me about peeing, and then asked if he wanted to sit on the potty. He sat there for 5 whole minutes! He didn't go, but he was talking about it the whole time and wasn't afraid of the toilet. I'm so excited!! We've got four months until he's 2, and I think we might be trained by then. Wish us luck!

(Just a note about Ethan's fear of everything. He ran through the tunnel of water at the spray park ALL BY HIMSELF!. I was jumping up and down and cheering, making a huge fool of myself. It was great.)