Hide and Seek

So we've been starting to play hide-and-seek.  This is what I found when I was looking for Zoe one time.  Gee - I have no idea where she is.  Do you???!!

Won...tooo....tee...

Just recentlly, Ethan learned to count to ten.  He's quite proud of himself and loves to go get random numbers from his puzzles and tell me what they are.  I love this age...they learn so much so fast. 

The sickies

Well, the stomach bug made a not so welcome stop at our house last week.  Ethan woke up early last Friday morning just after midnight having thrown up in his bed.  I almost lost it when I walked into his room...there were smells coming from there that should never come from a little boy's room.  He threw up on and off for the next three hours and then just like that slept from 3am till 9am the next morning and was fine as far as keeping bodily fluids in his body.  Other than being really fussy and lethargic, he was fine.  We seemed to coast through the weekend....UNTIL...2am Sunday morning.  I woke up and knew it hit me.  My new pillow became our toilet.  Less than an hour later, I heard Zoe's door open, a few whimpers, and a blahhgg.  She threw up all over herself and the floor.  Needless to say by that point I was so sick I couldn't held Darin at all.  He cleaned her up, cleaned the floor, got her back in bed, and she did it again....until 5PM the next afternoon.  He was on his own the whole day, after having only 3 hours of sleep or so.  By the time she had a semi-long break between episodes, he laid down on the couch and shortly thereafter Ethan woke up for the day.  I couldn't help him at all...I felt totally helpless.  Mine was so bad that if I even rolled over in bed, I would throw up again.  Mine lasted for about 12 hours and Zoe about 15.  Once we were finally able to hold things down, even just a sip of liquid, we started on the road to recovery...which in our case was twice as long as the illness itself.  Miraculously, Darin never caught it...even after taking care of three others who had had it.  Looks like he'll miss it this year...or at least this time.  Phew.  I could definitely think of a better way to spend a weekend, though...like scrubbing our kitchen floor with a toothbrush perhaps. 

I'm actually sort of glad we had it before the holidays.  We did the whole get the stomach bug during travel over the holidays three years ago and it was not what I would call fun.  Our Christmas festivities included nothing but upchucking.

Look at these poor babies.  Ethan just laid down on the floor on Friday and moaned.  Poor guy.  Zoe's picture was during her recovery period on Monday...she laid on the couch most of the day trying to regain energy.  Are these not the most pathetic faces you've ever seen?

Leaves, leaves, leaves

What's fall without a little playing in the leaves?  One of my favorite memories as a kid was jumping in big piles of leaves.  The not so favorite memory of that comes from the scratches all over your body afterwards.  :) 

And what's better for a mom who likes to play with her camera to take pictures of her kids playing in the leaves?  It's a blast for the kids and a natural photo scene for the camera crazy mom. 

Zoe loved jumping and sitting in the leaves.  Ethan, not so much.  He enjoyed it after a little while but it took some promting from his big sister. 

A year and a half later...

One day you get this. 

A year and a half later, you get this. 

A goofy kid full of personality and charm. 

Ethan, you are 18 months now.  A year and a half!  Doesn't seem like that long.  But then again, in some respects, it seems like forever ago.

At eighteen months, you are a busy little guy.  People to see, things to do, places to go.  You rarely sit still.  If you're still, you're most likely on your way to sleep.  Because that's what you do when you get still...unless you're being read to that is. 

You are now catching up to your peers.  You are 32 inches, about the 50% percentile in height.  Your legs are finally catching up to your body and you're now solidly in 18-24 month pants and 18-24 month shirts (you still have a longer torso) instead of 12 month and 24 month.  I guess you hit a growth spurt sometime during the month.  You weigh only about 23 pounds (24 with clothes and shoes on).  That means you've only gained 2 pounds since before you were a year old.  That puts you in about the 25th percentile in weight.  Your head is about the 25th percentile too.  We never did have the babies that went through the big head syndrome. 

You sleep 1.5-2 hours during your afternoon nap and sleep from 8:00PM until between 6:45 and 7:30.  You're like an alarm clock.  Seven o'clock and you are awake.  I'm a little nervous about what will happen with the time change this weekend. 

You are still working on those molars and having a really rough time.  You have two, and are SO close to a third.  But then again, you've been close to that third for almost a month.  They take f.o.r.e.v.e.r. to come in.  Poor guy. 

 

You are learning so much these days. You talk in lots of short, and several full sentences. You have a vocab of a few hundred words. You are a good communicator. You told me and your daddy you loved us the other day. It came out more like "I wuv wu", but it was so sweet and followed by a big hug. My heart melted. Your most frequently used sentence is I want ____________. You fill that word in with dozens of words. Juice, milk, up, wanna get down, wanna get up, go outside.... Our favorite is when you grab our hand, and say, "Hand. C'mon." (then you drag us into the kitchen where you say), "I want a poptart". Yes, you do this. A lot! If you could live off poptarts, yogurt, and cheese, I think you would.
You know about 5 shapes. You can count to 3, and know the numbers 0, 2, 3, and 8. You know the color red. You know all of your body parts including things like elbow, knee, and cheeks. You love to have me ask you where something is in a book and you point it out. You also are beginning to recognize a few letters. You can pick out A, B, X, and O. You LOVE to sing the alphabet song. Most of it's just mumbled, but you have the tune down and you always get the first part right. You start off this way. "A B C D E O P". Then you randomly mumble and say letters and sounds.

You drive your sister bonkers. You love to torment her. Poor thing.

You have started to talk on your "wewo". That stands for hello, and usually refers to a calculator. I'm not quite sure where you got that association, but you grab it, put it to your hear, and say, "wewo" followed by lots of mumble jumble.
You have developed a love for Elmo and Diego. Anytime we see Elmo decor in a store, you shout, "ELMO!".
 

You eat with a fork and a spoon...fairly well.  You've mastered eating yogurt and applesauce with a spoon but have trouble when it comes to scooping things like peas.  You use a fork for other things...including trying to eat a poptart with a fork.  Ahem.  You refuse for me to feed you these days.   You have to do it all by yourself.

You still but your head, though now days it's just when you get upset or angry.  Hopefully you'll break that habit soon. You haven't had a bruise on your head (from headbutting anyway) for almost a month, so maybe we're making progress.

You are my big guy and have such a sweet heart. 

Until next month....