What a little stinker

Ethan is definitely a character. Yesterday after returning home from a bike ride Matt ran upstairs for a minute & I sat down in the living room with Ethan. He was playing contentedly with one of his toys so I read the news. I saw him go & use the gate to stand up then next thing I know Matt was greeting him. Apparently the gate was not latched & Ethan crawled up the stairs by himself. We told him good job & never do that again unless he's with someone. It was impressive. I have been letting him climb the stairs all day today as long as I was with him. He has pretty much mastered going up now he needs to master going down. I took a video of it that I will post at the end of this entry. We attempted a bike ride tonight but got caught in the rain. Luckily Ethan's trailer is water proof so he was nice & dry when we managed to get back home.

Here are some new pictures & a few videos.

Ethan swimming in his pool

Mom! I'm swimming put down the camera!

Ethan put the camera bag on himself 

Ethan in his pool

Ethan Climbing the stairs (Sorry this one goes sideways)

Mr. Sociable

What a week this has been with Ethan. For most of this week he has been Mr. Krabs. He has been all about throwing temper tantrums over being told no. He wants whatever it is we happen to have in our hands & he won't let it go. He has thrown tantrums over the tv remote, cell phones, the house phone, poking the cats is the eye or pulling their fur (poor cats), & whatever else we have to tell him no on. Each morning after breakfast I get down on the floor to play with him only to be completely ignored. So I stay on the floor but will turn on GMA that I DVR each morning to listen to the news while I continue to try to play with Ethan. This is when he thinks he should get into all the no-no's. Somethings are just to big to put up out of his reach like the floor lamp. He got really aggressive with poor little Peek-a-boo the other day ripping her fur out, tugging her ears & hard as she tried since she won't jump the gates she just couldn't get away from him. He got really upset when I rescued her. I know it's just a phase he's in between the independent & dependent play with me stage. Some days it's just exhausting though. I guess we have reached Toddlerhood huh?

Yesterday we took Ethan on a few errands with us, then he went swimming in his pool, then he went over to his Aunt Cindy's for a cookout & watched the Point Place fireworks after that. We got home a little after 10:30 from the fireworks. Today we all took a trip to the zoo. Since we have a membership we were able to get in a hour earlier (just this week only). I think we covered every possible area except the aquarium & of course the Butterfly house. We took him to the new petting zoo which is more of a discovery area now but there were some goats for him to pet. He was a little timid with the goats, not really sure what to make of them. He got up close & personal with a Fox snake as well. There was one out in the open for people to touch. I was a tad disappointed that he wasn't allowed to touch it. Gov't says that b/c snakes carry E. Coli & other diseases children under the age of 5 are not allowed to touch due to their immune systems not being strong enough to handle it. But he was allowed to look. Ethan also was right up to the Tigers. We got the oppertunity to watch them feed the Tigers. They were right up against the glass chewing on rats. He was fascinated by that. He had a fun time at the zoo so when we got home he went down for a nap. Now he's in bed for the night talking himself to sleep.

I took some pictures & a short video of Ethan in his pool on Friday. They will be posted soon I just have to get them loaded onto my computer. Be on the lookout for them.

Father's Day

Daddy,

I am so glad that you are my daddy.

We have so much fun when we are

together. You make every day fun.

Each day I look forward to you coming

home so that we can play. You make me 

Laugh & smile the evening away. I enjoy 

our time together so much. I am the luckiest

little boy to have you as my daddy.

Happy Father's Day daddy

Love,

Ethan

Matt had a great day today. We attended a wedding this morning, then we had lunch with my dad, & when we got home Ethan gave him his gifts. For Father's Day Ethan gave his daddy a WWF magazine & a new book. I gave him a picture frame for the pictures we took with Ethan a few weeks ago. Now Matt is having a relaxing evening watching Harry Potter & doing things on his computer while Ethan is napping. This year was special because this was Matt's first Father's Day with Ethan home with us. Last year we celebrated Father's Day in the NICU so I wanted this year to be better. 

Happy Father's Day to all our dads.

Mr. Busy Boy

Ethan has been keeping me busy all week. He is all about being the center of attention. Sunday Matt, Ethan, & I went for a bike ride in the evening that ended with Matt blowing a tire & having to carry his bike home. I had to ride home from Detwiler Park to get a wrench to transfer the trailer from Matt's bike to my bike. That turned into a very exhausting ride. Monday Ethan went with me to visit some high school friends that I haven't seen in 5 or 6 years. He had fun playing with their little boys toys. There is only a 7 month difference between the 2 boys. Ethan is older. Tuesday Ethan & I took a bike ride in the morning after he had breakfast then came back home & he took a nap. Yesterday we went to the post office for stamps so I could finally get the Thank You cards mailed. There was a reason it took me so long but I can't say why you'll have to find out on your own (wink, wink). Then today we went for a ride & took a dip in his pool when we got back. I think I wore him out this time. My sleepy little guy did not wake up this morning till 11. I actually had to go wake him up. Usually he rouses when he hears my alarm go off in the morning.

We will probably be taking Ethan to get his blood drawn for his hyperphe either tomorrow or beginning of next week. We were told that they didn't want him to take in more than 50g of protein per day but he seems to only take in 20g-30g per day anyways. As he gets older he might take in more but right now we are only feeding him the amt that he will actually eat. 

An Exciting Day

Ethan had a fun & exciting day today. He watched Matt put together his bike trailor, then he had lunch with us, then he went with us on a bike ride, then he watched us empty his pool when we got back home. Now he's playing with Matt. What a day!

Last night we had gotten his pool all inflated & filled hoping that it was going to be a nice day for a swim. Unfortunately it turned out to be too cool. Didn't matter anyways. After all the work to inflate it we find that the bottom tier has a leak. So we had to empty it & deflate it. Tomorrow we are going to look for the leak. I don't have the receipt so I don't really want to go through the hassle of having to try to exchange it through receipt look up. If we can seal the leak we are good to go.

Ethan started saying another word today. All day he has been going around saying "Bop" We think that he is trying to say stop. A word we have to tell him quite often. He started saying it when I was changing his diaper. He was turning his body every which way & trying to stand up. It was a poopy diaper so I really didn't care to see it get smeared all over b/c he wouldn't lay still. I kept telling him to stop, lay still, hold on, ect. He just started saying "Bop" so then I would tell him I'm not Bop I'm mom. He still hasn't said mama yet. So for the rest of the say he goes around saying "Bop". It's very cute.

He loved his bike ride today. He was laughing, talking, & squealing while we were out. Poor Matt wore out quickly. Guess he wasn't in as good of shape as he thought. That just means we'll have to ride more often. I had forgotten hoe hard the seat on my bike was. I haven't ridden in 2 years. Last year I was preggers so I couldn't ride. I once had a padded cover but it was stolen off my bike a few years back while I ran in & dropped off a movie at the video store. I will have to get another one. It's really rough on the caboose.

Here are the pictures I took today:

(I took these a few days ago)

Excitable Ethan

Adorable Ethan

I have no title for this one

Watching daddy

Sitting in his chair

Raiding the fridge

You can never start beer drinking too early

In his bike trailor

Going for a ride

Ethan enjoys his ride w/Grover

Relaxing while dad does all the work

Watching the pool being emptied

 

Matt bailing out the pool

Ethan's Video Debut - (took me long enough)

I did it! I got the video on his blog! I had one more trick up my sleeve & it worked. This video is not in it's original format. I had to made a few minor adjustments to make it fit right to the music when I broke it up into parts. Make sure when you watch this you have your speakers on. Please make sure you turn off the player in the side bar too you wouldn't want it to interfere with the video music  :-)

                                    

Here it is. The debut of Ethan's Video:

Pt 1 - Ethan from birth to 2 months

Pt 2 - Ethan from 3 months through Christmas

Pt 3 - Ethan from New Years to Easter

Pt 4- Ethan from Post Easter to 1 year

1 year check-up

Ethan had his 1 year check-up today. He weighs 19.6lbs & is 28" long that puts him in the 5% for both height & weight. He's pretty much right on track with his development. The only thing that at this age he should be doing is starting to help get himself dressed. But he's actually a tad ahead with his walking. He should be getting about 16oz of milk a day, & we are giving him no more than 8oz of juice a day. She was very happy with the level of engagement that he shows & with his level of energy (he sat for her as well as he sits for us). I talked to her about his energy level regarding how we repeatedly tell him no to the things that he shouldn't be getting into & how he persists in getting his way. I also mentioned that he is really into hair pulling, biting, & yanking glasses off our faces. We have tried swatting/slapping his hands away but it doesn't phase him, & we are currently giving him warnings then putting him in his playpen but he doesn't forget about the no-no. As soon as he's released he goes right for it. She said the next thing we can do is if he goes right back for it he gets 1 maybe 2 warnings then back into the playpen. If we stay consistent on it then we should be able to get the point across. She said that it isn't too early for us to start disciplining him. He's testing to see if we give in. She said the persistence is good in one way yet bad at the same time. We just have to remain persistent. She also said that if we feel that he's ready to potty train then to go ahead esp. since he is starting to walk. She recommended starting out sitting him on the potty before his bath & just have him sit there, entertain him with a book or toy. Once he actually goes on the potty then we can gradually bring him to it more often. The fact that he is making diaper changes so challenging it wouldn't be a bad thing to train him early. It should be easy to do since he doesn't really like messy diapers. He gets fussy as soon as he poo's in his diaper. So all in all he's right where he should be. He got his vaccines & is all up to date. 

I made a video for Ethan for his birthday but unfortunately I am unable to post it on his blog or youtube. It's 35 min long & if I post on youtube or esnips I need to break it down into segments which I will be doing as soon as I can figure out how to do that.

I took him outside yesterday since he was seeming to want to get into everything in the house. I figured he could burn off some energy in the backyard. So I took pictures of him playing outside.

Honking the horn

What do I touch next

Sitting cute

Driving?

Nummy fingers

Where'd it go?

Found it

How big is Ethan? So big!