Me: Let's eat, Eleanor.

Ethan: No! Don't eat Eleanor!

Apparently, Ethan didn't hear the comma.

Life as usual around here. Eleanor sleeps like a champ, Ethan sleeps like a chump. We're dealing.

Eleanor with her boyfriend, Andrew. I love her face here. I wonder what Andrew just said to her - something scandalous, no doubt.

Lovely.

That's better.

Daddy's little weed-puller helper.

Lovin' my sleepy girl.

Lady Gaga

Me: You have an ice cream face.

Ethan: No, Mama. I have a poker face.

Life

As I type, both kids are napping, Ethan in his bed and Eleanor is her crib. While I read to Ethan, Eleanor sat happily in her swing and didn't make a peep. Then, the two of us played for a bit on the floor. Shortly thereafter, I put a paci in her mouth and put her in her crib for a nap. I had to return once to stroke her belly for a minute before she fell asleep. Needless to say, life is good right now. Of course, not all day every day is so peaceful, but I am really enjoying my time with both kids.

What helps is that Eleanor is a great sleeper. Other than her first couple of nights home, she's always only been up once in the night to eat, and for the past two weeks or even longer, she's slept through the night. I feel like I am being rewarded for all the difficult nights with Ethan. He wasn't a bad sleeper as an infant, but he got progressively worse and still has issues with night waking. Of course, I'm not naive enough to think that Eleanor will always be a great sleeper, but I do have hope that she'll have fewer issues than Ethan. I've paid my dues - now it's time to live on the other side. Getting enough sleep is vital, for me, to take good care of my kids. The past two nights, Eleanor has gone to bed later due to some gas issues, but I still feel a lot more refreshed than I did with just Ethan at this point, and I was able to take naps then!

Really, the major challenge right now is discipline with Ethan. He responds pretty well to the 1, 2, 3 method, but we still get frustrated when he does naughty things on purpose. I know a lot of it is attention seeking, but I also feel like he still gets a very good amount of attention. It's also simply age appropriate stuff, too. The only time I lose my cool (well, almost the only time) is when he is doing things that endanger Eleanor somehow. He loves her a little too roughly sometimes, and we are constantly telling him to stop squeezing her, stop laying on her, etc. It's cute that he wants to be near her (sometimes), but it is also a bit scary. :) The miracle of parenthood is that even on days when Ethan takes me to the brink, all it takes is a cute question he asks or a little snuggle, and I am madly in love with him once again. Which brings me to another Ethanism. Yesterday, during our picnic, Ethan saw an ant on the blanket. He was quite concerned about his lunch, but I told him the ant would not get to it. He said, "Yeah, Mommy, the ant won't eat my yogurt. It doesn't have hands! Just legs!" He seemed so proud of himself for realizing this.

First (unplanned) bath together. Ethan was taking too long. It was a little scary when Ethan tried to pour water over her head, but we survived.

Ethan used to LOVE his bath but lately it's a struggle to get him in. Once in, he's typically fine, but he does not like having his hair washed anymore. He used to pour the water over his head by himself with no problem. Hope he gets back to that soon.

The new basement! This is the play area - duh.

And here's the adult area. Ethan is in the picture, running around. I'm glad it's still open enough for him to be able to do this.

Our new couches. We will one day have a coffee table, but for now the train table works fine.

We are in the process of moving our books to the shelves.

This is the view to the left of the adult area. Our desk fits into a little alcove and I set up some baby things, too. Will's "gym" is behind the white door. And our laundry room is behind the wall to the left. I cannot say enough about how great this basement is for us.

Here is a super smily Eleanor before her nap today.

More smiles! She's really starting to smile more and more. Love it.

And here's the live version.

Ethanisms

Fairly often, people tell me that they love Ethan's little voice. I guess I take it for granted, hearing it daily, but enough people have said how cute it is that I have been trying to get him on video more often so that we can remember his voice later. These videos aren't the greatest for featuring his voice, but I will keep trying. Along with his voice, Ethan - like all kids - says some pretty goofy things. I wish I could remember every single one of his funny little Ethanisms, but there are just too many. In an effort to get a few written down, though, I am going to try to keep a log of his funny sayings or conversations and record them on the blog every so often. Here are a few of his latest goofyisms:

The other day, when I was helping him cut up his ham at Gram and Pop Pop's, he leaned over, grabbed my arm, and said, very earnestly, "Don't worry, Mama. It's all going to be okay. I'm right here. There's nothing to be afraid of." I really don't know what prompted this at all. I'm guessing he heard us saying things like this to him at night when he's scared about something or has had a nightmare. But it was so random in the middle of brunch.

Something he says often, when he wants something of mine and I tell him he has to wait until I'm done, is, "It's my turn, Mommy. Your turn is broken."

We saw three garbage trucks all in a row the other day. When he asked where they went I said that they had turned the other way. He shouted, "Oh, Mommy! They went east! We need to go east, too!" What was so funny was that they did, in fact, turn eastward. This he gets from our discussion of the train in downtown LG since it's always going either east or west.

Sometimes in the car, I will notice Ethan talking to himself, as I did the other day. I discreetly turned the radio down so as to hear him better. This is what I heard: "So Daddy said, 'Do you want to go in the aardvark house?' and I said, 'Oh, yes, I could go in there.' So we opened the door..." He was not speaking to me, but merely telling a story outloud.

We love our little oddball!