Indoctrination

While shopping at Target last week, Ethan decided it was time to sing. I love it! But I started to get embarassed when he chose to sing "Scripture Power" at the top of his lungs. After a few dirty looks, I wanted to shush him. But then I stopped myself. Should I be embarrased? Or should I be proud? I decided I was more proud, so when he asked me to sing along, I did! (Quietly.)

I've become aware of a movement (at least in the section of liberal America we live in) to let your kids make their own decisions. Great! I'm all for it! But for some reason, this movement involves not forcing the decisions that you've made on your children. I am constantly shocked by the people who are not teaching their kids about their religion at a young age. They say they are waiting until they are old enough to decide on a religion for themselves, and teaching them younger would be indoctrination. WHAT??? If it's indoctrination, I'm all for it. I can't imagine anyone learning to make good decisions without a firm moral grounding. One that religion is wonderful at teaching.

As I left Target that day, I realized that I was proud to smile back at the people giving me dirty looks. I am glad that my son already knows that he can gain power from the scriptures, and wants to tell everyone else. At least when I let him make his own choices, he'll know which ones are the good ones.

A Few Changes

Made a few changes to the blog. Still trying to figure out what all these options mean. Tell me what you think.

Good visit to the Dr

Ethan has managed to get even skinnier in the last few weeks. With all the vomiting and the yuck, I'm not suprised. But even the Dr found the change a little shocking. You can see his ribs, his little baby belly is gone, and even with a diaper on he no longer has a butt. Seriously. I had to drop him back down a pant size so that they wouldn't keep falling off.

So, we still had this follow visit scheduled to prove that he could gain weight. HA! I decided to keep it so that I could see where we were starting from now. Suprisingly, he had gained enough before the sickness that he is back to the same weight. Good news. (He is skinnier because he added height.) We will still follow up in another month to actually prove he gains, and will still push protein and some extra fats, but no more stressing about it. Except that I miss his baby fatness.

Can't Stop Giggling

I am taking an online scrapbooking class (my big Christmas present) that is more about sorting so that usable photos and ideas are visible than it is about scrapbooking. So I've been spending most of my evenings with photos spread out all over the living room floor.

I just can't stop bursting out laughing!! Both of our families are hilarious! My favorite pictures this evening are of Hannah at about four years old. Ethan makes the same faces! I'll scan them in and post side-by-side pictures later.

So anyway... sorting through boxes and boxes of photos has been more fun than I expected. My abs were sore last night from laughing.

Why won't he sleep!!

Ethan has decided that he doesn't need naptime or bedtime. They get in the way of playing. He literally screams "I NEED TO PLAY!!!" when we put him down. We've tried just about everything. Finally, last night, we just left him in his room. He played for 2 hours. TWO HOURS! Then he slept in until 9am. Such a weird kid. But I'm a night owl, so maybe he's just becoming more like mom. I don't know. I like the sleeping in thing, but John and I miss our quiet evenings and it takes me hours to stop clenching my teeth after putting him down for a nap. Anyway, he's driving me bonkers! (And not helping my stress level AT ALL.)

Solid!

If you are easily grossed out, STOP READING!

The most exciting thing happened today. Ethan had a solid poop! After nearly a week of nastiness, it was a welcome sight. It means we're done with this. Yipee!

A Variation....

Ethan just started singing "Jesus is coming..to town" instead of Santa. What a cutie!

New Years Resolutions

I'm trying to focus on something other than Ethan for a few minutes. (He's doing marginally better. Check John's blog for more updates.) So here are my New Years Resolutions. Hold me to them.

1. Sing more - I've already started this one by joining a production of "Savior of the World". I didn't actually audition b/c of my work schedule, but I've performed with the music director before and she asked that I join the ensemble to help out the altos. So don't expect much from me the next 3 months. I'll be busy.

2. Stick to a budget - Not just make one. Actually stick to it.

3. Go to bed earlier - It's nearly impossible to get 8hrs of sleep when you go to bed at 1am. So that needs to change.

4. Read more - This one will be the easiest (except when Heroes and Stargate start back up again!)

We're back! But not so good...

We have been back from our vacation in UT for a day or so now. Most of our trip was great. We spent it visiting family and friends, and just relaxing. Nothing is better than that.

But then, Ethan started throwing up. We ended up in the ER for an anti-nausea shot. This was the day before we were scheduled to fly home. So we tried to change our flights. We tried for hours. We talked to many, many different people. We even told them that if they didn't change our flights, we would be taking a very sick and probably very contagious boy onto the plane. They simply didn't care. We ended up flying while Ethan had a fever of 103 and didn't even have enough energy to stay awake. So, we will never be flying United again, and we are telling everyone we know about it. They have the absolute worst customer service in the business.

So now that I've gotten that off my chest, how is Ethan doing now? Well, his fever came down at home. I think just being a home is making it easier for him. But he has switched to explosive diahrea. The one upside is that he is asking to sit on the potty! (We have to look for a silver lining somewhere. This has been miserable.) And it's now Sunday morning. He made it through the night without needing a diaper change, so that's a good sign. And when he woke up he was hungry and thirsty. Not sure if the improvement will last the day, but we are hoping and praying for it. Keep our little guy in your prayers. He really needs them right now.

The end of the day

Getting Ethan ready for bed can be trying on the best nights. He just wants to play! But after he's in bed, you can't help but love him. Once you leave the room, Ethan lays in his bed talking about the day and singing songs to himself. He never gets out of bed to play (even though his room is full of toys), just talks and sings. John and I just sit and listen sometimes. He's just so darn cute!

Something New

I know. It's again been too long. So, rather than try to catch up, here's something new.

I just finished "The Road" by Cormac McCarthy. In this book, the US (and possible the world) has been completely destroyed, leaving only remnents of our current civilization. Few people survived the unnamed tragedy, and most have been driven to horrible things in trying to survive. The story is about a father and his young son, who was born after the tragedy. They are on the road, searching for hope and good people. As this father struggles to find food and warmth for his son, you can't help but dwell on what you would be capable of doing for your children. And the comparison between a man who remembers his life before, and a boy who knows nothing different is a striking undertone.

This was, hands down, one of the best books I've read in a long time. The images and simple discussions simply brought me to tears many times. And it is incredible well written. The ending is what you would expect, but it doesn't really matter. It's the journey that's important here.

My Great Provider

John's boss had a baby this last summer. So that meant maternity leave. During her leave, her son had colic. Since she's been back at work, he's had pneumonia and croup and who knows what else. The poor guy has just been struggling. And so has his poor mom. She's been trying to be at work as much as she can, but has used up all her vacation and sick time already. So this time, when her son was sick again, she decided something needed to change. No, she didn't quit. She just said she'd be taking a few weeks to let her son get really healthy. Way to go! I can't imagine how hard it is to split home and work life as a mom. (It makes me feel really lucky that I don't have to.) John said the best thing about it this evening (and this is why I'm posting). He said "She's the kind of person you want to work for. When she sets her priorities, her family is first." And he's the kind of husband I want providing for my family. His family comes first. I love this guy.

No Problems

All of the labs they managed to run came back normal. So rather than redrawing right now for the couple of very unlikely things they didn't get to run, we are going to wait. We have one month to fatten this boy up to prove that he's ok. What we are actually trying to show is that he doesn't have an underlying problem that is keeping his body from using the food he takes in. If he gains, we've proved there's nothing wrong. If not, it'll probably mean lots of tests that are much more unpleasant than a simple blood draw. So we're really pushing all that extra fat and protein! Keep our little guy in your prayers.

A 2yr Visit to the Doctor Means More Bad News

Ethan is 2! I love what John wrote on his birthday. Today, being 2 meant a visit to the doctor for Ethan. He's leaps and bounds ahead in his verbal and cognitive skills. Perfectly normal in his physical ones. The strange (and possible worrisome) thing about our boy is his growth. He spent nearly a year of his life off the charts for height and weight. He's now down to 75th percentile for height and 25th for weight. Not abnormal for an active kid with parents who were scrawny kids. But...

He's actually lost weight in the last six months. He weighs less than a pound more than he did a 12 months. He is getting taller, so we're not worried about a growth hormone problem like I had. But because he is taking in enough calories to be gaining more weight than that, we get to start the high fat diet and lab tests. What a laundry list of tests! A thyroid screen, iron studies, cbc, cmp, lipids, hormone levels, allergy panels, genetic screens, etc. I run these at work all the time, but it makes me sad that Ethan needs to have them done. They tried to draw enough blood for all the tests while we were in the office, but Ethan was too strong for us to hold still that long. He blew out a vein in his arm, so they are starting to test for the most likely issues. If they all come back negative, then we go back for more blood. If anything is wrong, then we go back to talk about what we do next.

The diet is disgustingly high in fat. If any of the rest of us ate like this, our cholesterol levels would skyrocket. They want me to add cream to his whole milk, use olive oil on his vegetables and pasta, push more meat, have him dip veggies in cheese sauce or ranch dressing and fruit in whipped cream, etc. She was particularly strong that I shouldn't feed him too many fruits and veggies. She wants to make sure that he gets the fat and protein he needs for growth. I'm disgusted just thinking about all that fat. But I'm going to make a grocery store run this afternoon. Yuck. Hopefully we only have to do this for a month or so.

Ethan isn't in a very good mood because his arm and leg hurt. (He got his flu shot too.) He didn't like the doctor's office before, but I think today will make it a much feared place. I'm pretty confident that he is just fine. Both John and I come from families that have big babies who often become scrawny little kids. But because it's such a drastic drop in growth, we are going to make sure nothing else is wrong. We wouldn't want to ignore it and later find out that there was a big problem.

I'll keep everyone updated as we know more. We'll have the first round of labs back by the end of the week.

Tithing

We had tithing settlement last night. The bishop had asked us to bring Ethan. Thinking it was silly, but knowing that he wouldn't have asked without a reason, we took him. And the bishop did it. He explained tithing in a way a two year old could understand. He and Ethan counted out ten pieces of candy. (They counted together. So cute.) Then he said Ethan could have them, but only if he gave one back. Ethan got it. He picked one up, handed it to the bishop, and grabbed the nine left. It hadn't occured to me to teach the law of tithing at 2, but now is a great time to start! We have a great bishop.

Hair-loss

Most of you have only known me with long hair. I can't really remember the last time it was short, but I'm pretty sure it was about 11 years ago, in high school. So I was a little sick of it. Two weeks ago, I made an appointment and had it chopped off. Literally. I walked in and said "I don't know what I want. I just want it cut off." And this amazing hairdresser, not only gave me a great cut, but also a lesson in how to use the natural curl. So my hair is short and curls into ringlets! I LOVE IT! It's really freeing to lose nearly a foot of hair. (Our camera is acting up (again), so no pictures of it yet. I'll get some from mom's wedding next weekend.)

Big Boy Bed

He did it! We'd backed off the transition from crib to toddler bed for a few weeks. Yesterday, John decided Ethan was ready and we took down the crib. Gutsy move, I know. But it worked. Bedtime took about an hour longer, with Ethan coming to his door and crying. John was great and immediately figured out what it would take to keep him in the bed. We had expected to be up several times during the night, but he did it. Once he was down, he stayed down. YAY! What a big boy!

Too long

It's been too long since I've posted. I know. I'm a bad blogger. I will try to make it up to you by posting some pictures. Yay! I uploaded photos going back to June, so I don't know when some of these are from.

He just never stops reading!

The new haircut (new as of august)

They just have so much fun together

Snuggling with mommy in bed

At the butterfly garden

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!)