Progress

Ethan has finally readjusted to normal life (aka - life without 24/7 grandparents) slowly and painfully. He's back to sleeping normally, and is beginning to realize that he cannot do whatever he wants, whenever he wants. This has been particularly painful in regards to ice cream. When not on vacation, it is not appropriate to simply eat ice cream for dinner. This has been a tough concept for him to grasp, but after a few days of whining, he's stopped asking for it 1000 times in a row.

The meal Daddy chose was not much better...

We can also thank vacation for his NEED to play in the car. He throws a complete fit when we don't let him in the front seat to press all of the buttons. This has made going anywhere NOT fun. Thanks, grandparents...

He's spent two days with his baby sitter, which has allowed us to do a few things. AJ has taught a lot of voice lessons (which makes Ethan say, "Daddy at piano?"), and I have been busy around the house (or, "Mummy beesy."). I am tackling the entry way. I have finished everything except the giant two walls. It is a total chore - pulling off the top layer, steaming off the bottom (which is VERY messy), sanding the destroyed walls to take care of the glue, puttying any gaps, then sanding again (not to mention the insane clean up process required after the sanding), priming, then painting. It's looking great, but I am dreading dealing with the two big walls. The only solace I have is that we are using this special suede textured paint on them. We used it on a wall in our previous living room and it looks great. It also means that I won't have to sand - the texture will cover any imperfections. Nice!

Isn't this shirt awesome?!?!

When Ethan has been home with us, we've spent a lot of time outside. His new pool has been fun - I've even jumped in there with him. We got the great idea to put his slide in the pool - he just LOVES this! He goes up and down hundreds of times in a row, delighted each time. He is quite the dare devil and goes down backwards, head first, etc. It's the perfect size for him. And, me, too!

We also have begun potty training boot camp. We are putting him on there once an hour for a few minutes at a time. If he goes, great; if not, we try again. We had some success yesterday. Right after one of his unsuccessful potty stints, we put him in a diaper and were playing. He looked at us and said, "Poop?" We checked him out and there was nothing in there, so we put him back on the potty. Sure enough, within a minute, he pee-peed. The kid still doesn't differentiate - everything is 'poop' to him. I don't care what he calls it, as long as he does it in the potty!

We got all excited, so of course, he got all excited and high-fived us and started clapping. It was pretty cute. He got 3 M&M's. That's about his sugar limit or he spins in circles for hours ;-) We have also been putting his favorite pals on the potty. You'll be happy to hear that Bert, Ernie, Big Bird, Oscar, Mickey, Cookie, Ernie, and Grover are all potty trained.