We're Home!!!

I could write pages and pages about our trip to Colorado (as well as a pamphlet explaining why one year olds and vacations don't mix), but I won't. I'll let you look at the pictures, complete with captions, and allow them to tell the story. Honestly, we really did have a lot of good times on the trip. Ethan was a pretty good sleeper the first few nights but stopped sleeping the last few. Paired with the fact that we then shared walls those last few nights, it made for some stressful times. So asking us about our trip at the end would yield a different answer than in the middle. Being home now, though, and with a lot more sleep, I look at the pictures we took with fondness. Colorado is so gorgeous, and I was glad to, for once, show Will someplace he had never been but I had. I posted just a few teaser pictures, but the rest can be seen on the following link:

http://ethansantics.shutterfly.com/action/

I Love You, Stinky Face

There's a really great children's book called I Love You, Stinky Face that I just have to get for Ethan. You see, Ethan has a reputation for being a very serious kid. Since he was able to make facial expressions, of his own volition that is, his expression of choice for strangers and family alike has been a furrowed brow. Early on, we nicknamed his favored facial appearance The Stink Eye. (This term was coined by family in reference to a funny grimace my nephew Drew loved to make, much to the entertainment of us all.) As Ethan has aged, The Stink Eye has become more and more advanced. Ethan is definitely an equal opportunity Stink Eyer, but he practices it the most on strangers, making trips out in public particularly funny.

While I will certainly not dispute Ethan's affinity toward frowning at others, I am here to tell you that really, most often, he is a very happy kid who smiles and laughs quite a bit. I'm not sure why I feel the need to defend this fact. I guess I just want everyone to see him as Will and I see him: as a very curious and adorable little man. If you do not see him often, or when there are many others around, you may not get to see the true Ethan. I assure you, though, that especially with his newly acquired walking skills, he is a hoot.

To illustrate, I've posted many recent pictures, from his birthday party, our trip to the lake house in WI, and some at home. I've also posted a video of his now famous "fridge hump" dance. I could watch him do this all day long. While at the lake, Ethan perfected walking, and has thus changed our lives at home. We moved our leaning (aka climbing) shelf to where he can't get to it, turned all our tables to have drawers facing walls, took most things off of any reachable surface, locked some cabinet doors, and started keeping all doors to bathrooms/bedrooms closed. Thanks to our circular floor plan, Ethan is having a ball walking round and round the house. He's discovering many new things to play with, too, such as my pots and pans and the remote. His higher vantage point gives him reign over a lot more territory!

Though his walking causes us to be on our toes even more (didn't know it was possible), we're enjoying watching him toddle around. Plus, he now has a choice about crawling on hard surfaces. No more dirty knees...or at least not as much. Walking also comes with other advantages. Today was his last physical therapy appointment and Miss Pat gave him flying colors and pronounced him a Children's Memorial PT graduate. I admit to being a little sad, as I really looked forward to these appointments because his therapist was so nice, as were the other people in the office. Those appointments, as well as the ones with his orthotist, helped break up my week during the winter/spring. But, of course, we're glad he no longer needs any kind of special services.

That's all for now, I think. My next post will probably be with stories and pictures from our trip to Colorado. Keep us in your thoughts for our plane ride (this coming Monday morning and the next week Tuesday) and the entire trip. Let the adventure begin!

Will had a harrowing ride back from the party store with all of Ethan's party balloons!

New cousin Matthew slept through most of the party.

Ethan loved playing with Auntie Spooner.

Here's Grandma posing with her great cake, complete with a Little People plane.


Ethan's not a fan of cake...yet.
What a haul!


Here's Ethan playing with one of his new toys.

What a smart kid, working on his puzzle.

Here's his post-party hairdo the next day.

On attempt number 3, we finally got Ethan to stay in his floaty.

Mr. Jake loved playing in the sand.

A born sailor.

Jake and Ethan got matching Fourth of July rompers from Aunt Laura. They wore them on their first boat ride.

Ethan did surprisingly well on his boat ride, despite the uncomfortable life jacket. We have hope for our plane ride next week now!

How cute is this picture?

Ethan had his own place to play.

The parents with their "penned" kids.

Here's Ethan showing off his muscles, the ones he gets from his Daddy.

This dance is what got me through a sleep-deprived week at the lake. No matter how tired or grumpy I was, watching Ethan do his fridge toy dance melted it all way. He now does this dance when any music is playing and even while sitting or in our arms. It's hilarious.

Birthday Boy

One year ago today, the most wonderful thing happened...

Brittany Spears went to jail.

Oh yeah, and Ethan was born, too!

My little man is one year old today - can you believe it? So far, we've celebrated with a trip to Jewel (the lady at the bakery gave him a cookie before she even knew it was his b-day), playtime with his new blocks, lunch with Grandma and Grandmama (great-grandma), and a nice long nap. Dad is at a conference all week in the city and won't be back until 5 or so. We will have dinner and a birthday cupcake later.

Presents in his crib this morning.

Here he is in his "I'm one" hat.

Playing with his new, eco-friendly blocks.

SO BIG...really, he is. :(

Ethan the Hollywood stuntman

Guest Appearance by Will

I have never written on a blog before (as having one of my own would be pretty ambitious for me right now) and Michelle just so happened to leave this page open so I thought I would do some reporting of my own.

I'll limit myself to one of the things Ethan did that made me laugh today. The man was in his little car today and managed to tip the thing over while he was inside. I held my breath as I awaited his reaction (the Jedi manual says to let younglings figure things out for themselves to a certain extent). The E man escaped his wrecked car by rolling out and then crawling away from the vehicle before it became engulfed in flames and exploded (this last part is exaggerated for the Hollywood movie script). After he crawled 10 feet away, he turned around in the middle of the lawn and then just sat and looked at the car. He had a contemplative expression as if he were reflecting on his narrow escape and near brush with death. Then he looked at me as if to say "I know I scared you dad, but I live on the edge...it's what I do."

Thanksgiving in June

Though I thought about blogging a few times this past week, I kept avoiding it because I knew it was never going to be a positive post. The truth is, I was feeling pretty sorry for myself all week. After the weekend fever fiasco, Ethan's sleep was still bad; I got called to jury duty on Tuesday (I didn't get selected); and then Will came down with strep throat. By mid-week, I was thinking I had a much better week the week before when Will was still in school! While everything is not back to the status quo around here, I was thinking today of all of the things I have to be grateful for, so here's a few things:

My family is healthy.

Will is still recovering from his virus, of course, but, comparatively, he is very healthy. Last Friday evening, I participated in LT's Relay for Life, which is an all-night walking event that raises money for cancer research. At the opening ceremonies, an eleven year old boy with a malignant brain tumor gave one of the best speeches I have ever heard. I was doing my best not to start bawling while I listened to this incredibly brave little boy speak, all the while thinking about my own little boy, whose worst illnesses so far have been a little fever/irritability. We are so lucky!

We live close to the zoo and have a membership.

The Brookfield zoo is about a 10-15 minute drive from us. My mom and dad gave us a family membership for Christmas, which saves us $40 per trip. (We wouldn't be going without this membership, needless to say. Thanks mom and dad!) I took Ethan there Friday so Will could get some rest, we all went yesterday, and I'm meeting my mom, Ben, and Drew there tomorrow. Now that Ethan is more aware of his surroundings, it's getting more and more fun to go with him. Tomorrow, we hope to see the dophin show. Having a great attraction so close to us and to be able to go for free gives us a great family fun option on nice days.

We had Will's family over for Father's Day.

Will was still feeling a bit under the weather, but his whole family came over and helped us christen our new patio with a small party. The two youngins played in our little pool, and the adults feasted on Lou Malnatis and other goodies. It's nice to have family close.

Our summer is terribly busy!

A few days ago, this fact was one that was making me feel a bit overwhelmed and sad. Our summer really is very busy, busier than it's ever been, which is not always easy with a nearly one year old. But then I got to thinking about what our summer was busy with, and all the events are happy ones. The summer is full of weddings, birthday parties, bridal showers, graduation parties, weekend trips, and vacations. Those are all happy occassions, right? So why not be thrilled with all these fun things? That's what I will be from now on: thrilled.

I officially belong to a playgroup.

I went to my first playgroup this morning. My neighbor invited me to join. It actually started a few weeks ago but I had to miss the first two meetings. But even before today, I met one of the other mothers at the park near our house. We got to talking and discovered we were both going to be in the same playgroup. She is very nice, and her son Derek is only a month or so older than Ethan. In fact, the playgroup is all boys except one little girl! The moms seem very nice, and I am very happy to finally be meeting more moms around here. I will be especially happy come fall when Will is back at work.

And, saving the best for last, I am most grateful because:

I have a new newphew!

Matthew Joseph was born this morning, by cesarean, just before 10am. He weighs 7 pounds 13 ounces and is 19.25 inches long. He's just cute as can be and I had a nice visit with him today at the hospital. I cannot wait for Will and Ethan to meet him. Congratulations to my Lisa, Brian, and big brothers Ben and Drew!

Not So Great Weekend

While Will's and my weekend started off very fun with the Dave Matthew's Concert with Hammond and Courtney, Ethan did not have a very fun weekend at all. On Friday, the day of our concert, he was quite irritable all day and then had a fever. It got up to 102.9, which is his highest by far. Luckily, my sister-in-law Laura, a pediatric nurse, was our babysitter for the evening, putting me at ease. She did great and got him back to sleep after a little wake up. Later that night, though, he was up a couple more times. Saturday, his fever was up and down and he really was not himself at all. He didn't want to eat or drink and was just a bit sad you could tell. Saturday night was pretty horrific but Sunday during the day was a bit improved. He was definitely grumpy again, but his fever was either low or gone most of the day.

Since his fever was gone, we decided to take him out of the house for a trip to Target. He got a new pool, swim trunks/shirt, water shoes, imitation Croc shoes, a sun hat, and a toy boat from the dollar section. It was like his birthday a few weeks early! He did start running a slight fever again, but after his nap it was gone. We decided to let him try out his new pool since it had stopped raining for a bit. He liked it but didn't want to sit down, despite the fact we added hot water to it, making the water lukewarm. We got some pictures of him playing it with before water and after. We don't have an electric pump, so I inflated the pool with a small hand pump or my own lungs. Boy, am I glad we didn't get the bigger pool! We had hoped his pool party would tire him out even more, making him more likely to sleep through the night. I'm happy to report that it worked. Although he had a rough time getting to sleep, once he did, he did sleep through the night, making for a much happier Ethan in the morning. My boy is back! We're not sure if he had a little bug or is teething or what. I didn't think he was teething because his fever got pretty high at one point, and he also was fairly congested. Plus, he didn't seem to be bothered by his first set of teeth coming in. But, he does seem to have some symptoms of teething, so we'll see. I don't see any poking through just yet.

Here's the new pool:

Great Weekend

Now that another one is just about upon us, I am getting a chance to post some pictures from last weekend. We had a WONDERFUL weekend, with great weather and a lot of fun play time together. And...we did not use the car one time over the weekend. Not once. Not bad.

We went to the LaGrange Pet Parade on Saturday, and Ethan's cousins Ben and Drew came. The Pet Parade is a LaGrange tradition, yet we've never been. It's actually a very large parade, with over 100 different groups walking in it. My favorite were the alpacas. They were so cute! The money raised from the even goes to help animal shelters. It was definitely something we will be taking Ethan to every year, so it was neat to start a new tradition. Ethan liked looking around at everyone/everything. Pictures are below.


Sunday we hung around the house and park and then had my mom, dad, and grandma over for dinner and mojitos (grandma LOVED the mojitos!). Now that Will is done with school, as of tomorrow, we'll have even more fun days like this ahead.