This afternoon I had a photo session with our cousins. The session ended pretty early, so I brought Ethan out to take advantage of the rest of the wonderful afternoon light. We had a beautiful day today and I didn’t want to waste the opportunity.

Here are my favorites from Ethan’s 13 month mini portrait session.

Today is exactly one year after Ethan’s due date. That means that he is now one year adjusted age!

Exactly one year ago today, Ethan was in the hospital for RSV and I was exhausted. He weighed right about 7 lbs and he did little more than sleep, eat, and poop.

Now, Ethan weighs somewhere around 18 lbs and sleeping, eating, and pooping are some of the lowest things on his priority list. He is too busy doing fun one year old activities. He’s still really skinny for his age, still not gaining any weight, but it obviously hasn’t affected his development. He does everything he is supposed to do at this age, and some extra things too.

Ethan says a few different words now: mama, mommom (when he wants to nurse), dada or daddy, kitty, Eris, doggy, hey, bye. Those are the words that we are certain he says. There are others from time to time, but we aren’t quite convinced of his full vocabulary. Its so hard to tell sometimes because the words aren’t terribly clear, but these are the words that he has said frequently enough in the correct context for us to believe that he is truly saying them. He doesn’t say dada too much anymore. Now he says “Da-deeeeeeee”, LOL.

He isn’t walking yet, but he can stand steadily without holding on to anything. He can even dance around and drum on his new drumset while standing. He walks behind his walk behind toys and he pushes other items (such as the kitchen stool) around with no problem. He just hasn’t worked up the courage to take too many steps on his own. On occasion, he will take a step or two, but usually he just sits down and crawls or scoots wherever he wants to go.

Ethan has 9 teeth now. 4 on bottom and 5 on the top. I think number 9 came through while we all had the pukey virus.

Ethan loves to put his toys in containers and baskets. He will carefully place every toy in the basket, then take them out again one by one. This seems as though it would be a useful skill and that he might learn to put his toys away, however, he always wants to take the toys out of the basket when I place them in the basket. LOL.

Ethan loves to play with a ball. He loves to toss the ball around the room, then crawl after it laughing. He especially finds it funny when the cats join in on the fun and chase the ball after he throws it. If you tell him to throw you the ball, he will try to toss it in your direction.

He likes to give kisses and hugs. If you tell him “Give me a kiss”, he will plant a big juicy one right on your lips. If he’s not in the mood for kissing, he will at least give you a big hug instead. He is a very affectionate little guy. If his kitties sit still long enough for him to catch them, he will lay down on them and give them a big hug. He also crawls into Eris’ dog bed and gives her hugs and kisses her back (yuck!).

Ethan helps us put his shirts on and take them off. He will stick out his arms to go through the holes and he will pull the shirt over his head. Generally, he is quite helpful, but there are times when he would rather do the opposite of what we want. He will try to pull the shirt off his head while we put it on, etc. And sometimes he gets too excited about getting dressed and wants to stick his arms through the head hole. Then he gets really mad when you have to correct him. He still does not like to help us put on his pants or diaper. That is always a challenge.

He knows how to use a spoon to feed himself. He’s not very good at scooping food onto his spoon, but he does try. Once I put the food on the spoon, he is very good about getting it to his mouth and he makes sure that every drop is gone before you have to pry the spoon from his fingers.

Ethan likes to read his books. He has decided that books are good for more than just chewing. He will sit down with a book, flip through the pages, and point at the pictures. of course, he still thinks they are fun to chew from time to time, but at least he’s starting to get the right idea.

Ethan’s favorite things:
* mommy and daddy and his grandparents and his aunts and uncles
* music and singing and dancing
* his pets and other kitties (but not other dogs, he hates pretty much any dog other than Eris)
* climbing
* cookies and crackers (he would live off of cookies and crackers alone if we let him)
* pointing at his reflection

Our trip to Dallas….

Ethan slept on the way to the museum

Awake and happy after his nap

Downtown Dallas

Amazed by Auntie Vicky’s beautiful singing

Or maybe he was a little afraid…

Yep, that’s our whole Texas trip in pictures. What a bummer….

We went to Texas this weekend to visit Victoria and Patrick. Unfortunately, it was a miserable trip. We are still recovering from the disaster…

All of us were looking forward to the trip, very excited. Our plan was to stop in Jackson on Friday and pick up Uncle Matt as he was riding with us to visit his friend in Dallas. We would leave Jackson at Ethan’s bedtime so that he would sleep for the trip. We ate dinner at Grandma and Grandpa Head’s house and everyone seemed to be feeling fine. Ethan had a blowout diaper, but he didn’t seem like he felt bad. I got him ready for bed and nursed him, then he had explosive vomit all over the place. All over me and himself and the bed.

After taking a bath and changing clothes, we decided that we should continue on to Texas as planned. Ethan has had the stomach bug a few times since starting daycare and it has never lasted more than one puking episode. And he has never passed it on to an adult. So we thought we were safe to continue our vacation because we knew he’d be feeling fine in the morning.

Morning rolls around and everyone is feeling just fine, aside from being tired and sleepy from driving all night. We went to lunch at the Angry Dog in Deep Ellum, and everyone thoroughly enjoyed themselves. Ethan even sat in his high chair without argument and ate a ton of food for lunch.

After lunch we went to the King Tut exhibit at the Dallas Museum of Art, and unfortunately, it sucked. It was a very poor exhibit. There weren’t a lot of artifacts and they didn’t do a good job of explaining the significance of the various pieces on display. The exhibit wasn’t just about Tutankhamen – it was also about Akhenaten, the pharaoh prior to Tut. This was a really fascinating time in Egyptian history as Akhenaten attempted to completely change the country’s religious views to a monotheism. This had a huge impact on the culture in many ways, and is very noticeable in the art from the time. I’m getting off the main topic here… my point is that the small amount that I remember from my Archaeology of Egypt class was vastly more information than was presented during the exhibit. The average visitor to the exhibit probably learned very little about the cultural significance of the items in the exhibit. Oh well.

Back to the story. We were disappointed in the exhibit and still tired from the drive, so we decided to head back to Victoria’s to take it easy for the rest of the day. We played Rock Band for a while and then went to the AWESOME Central Market grocery store.

Right after we got back from the store, Aaron started to feel really bad. Then he got really sick and slept in the bathroom. Ethan was hysterical that dada was not in the bed and he kept me up for most of the night. Victoria and I made a pallet on the floor in the living room and lay down with him to try to keep him quiet and happy so we could all sleep. Somewhere around 3am, I started to feel really bad, and I started puking too.

The next day was horrible. I think all I did was lay on the floor all day long and moan. Terrible body aches and nausea. Then we get a call from Grandma and Grandpa Head that they were really sick and Matt was really sick too. His friend took him to the doctor, then brought him over to Victoria’s apartment to meet back up with us. We all just laid around and cried all day.

Sunday night, Victoria started puking. And she puked all night and into Monday morning. She was still in the bed Monday night when we decided to leave to beat the terrible storm that was headed our way. Victoria ended up making a trip to the ER on Wednesday because she started puking again and was really dehydrated.

We all agreed that it was probably the worst stomach bug any of us had ever had. We are still feeling crappy and not completely back to normal. I haven’t eaten a full meal since Saturday’s lunch. BLAH.

Yuck, we are sick. Ethan was sick Friday night, and now Aaron and I are sick. I hope it goes away soon. I am hopeful because I haven’t puked since 3am. But I haven’t really eaten much either.

BLAH.

Did you vote today? We did! Well, Aaron and I voted, not Ethan. Ethan showed his support for election day by wearing his I Vote for a Change onesie. I tried to take his picture, but he was not cooperative. His shirt says “I Vote for a Change. My Diaper is Wet”.

Ethan was not cooperative because he had a flu shot and some of his 12 month shots today. He also was not in the mood for lunch at daycare and I picked him up from daycare during his nap. In short, he had a really awful day. After his shots, I gave him some ibuprofen and put him down for a nap, then the stupid dog woke him up. I knew he would not be in the mood for pictures, but I had to try anyway. I was optimistic, I guess.

So here is the picture:

As you can tell from his pleasant expression, he is ready for election day to be over so we can all shut up about it. At the moment, Obama is ahead by 100 electoral votes. At this point, honestly, I could care less. I am ready for it to be decided and done. My candidate won’t win. I even had to write him on the ballot. Maybe my attempt to prove a point will be heard by someone and next election we will have better candidates.

Today was another activity filled day for Ethan. We made another trip to the street fair, and this time we made several purchases. Ethan got a new wooden rocker that is just his size. And I bought him something else too……

Can you guess what it is?!

It is something that he REALLY needed……
something very cool and exciting……
I can’t believe we found this item in his size……
its………
a…….

BABY BELT!!! YAY!

I bought Ethan a leather belt to hold up his pants over his skinny little butt. They even stamped his name on it! It fits him perfectly and he has plenty of room to grow. Its a very well made belt, so it should last him for quite some time.

His rocker is really cool too. He is just tall enough to climb in and out of the rocker. He likes to sit in it and he likes to stand in it too.

After the exciting day at the street fair, Ethan had a nap, then we went to visit Granny Rita and Papa Jack. We picked some radishes in the garden and Ethan crawled around on the thick, green grass. I got a TON of cute pictures, so I had to put some of them together in storyboards as to not have another picture overload on the blog.

Trying out his new chair

Handing over a leaf he found in the yard

Picking radishes from the garden

Investigating the radish

Hanging out with Granny Rita

Hanging out with Papa Jack

Enjoying the grass and generally being cute

Crawling on the ramp to Papa’s shed. Check out that awesome belt!

Little baby belly peeking out

Here are some pictures that we have taken in the last week.

Ethan is learning new things at an astounding rate. Today he tried to put his shoes on by himself. And he also wanted to put the lens cap back on my camera.

He is very curious, always trying to figure out how things work.

hmmm, is this the right foot?

Forget the shoe… I found something more interesting

Granny, do you want the lens cap?

Mom, do you want it?

I know where it goes!

He also wanted to help Granny tend to the yard. He tried to find every stray leaf.

And he pulled up a lot of grass as well

Ethan was a good boy and handed Granny all of his leaves and grass

He tried to hand me some as well

Ethan also walked around with Granny

Yes, a day late, but Happy Halloween anyway!

Ethan had a lot of fun yesterday. We went trick or treating and he had his first taste of candy and chocolate. The candy was a big hit!

Ethan dressed up as a skeleton in his PJs that Auntie Vicky bought him for his birthday. He was going to be a monkey if the weather stayed cool, but it was not cool enough for his monkey costume. He made a good skeleton with his skinny little legs.

Our first stop of the night was to see Granny Carolyn and Papa JC. They were at a Halloween party, so Ethan got to meet all of their friends also.

Next we headed to mom’s house so that Ethan could hand out candy to trick or treaters. He loved answering the door for the kids. He yelled and squealed for everyone who came to trick or treat. I didn’t take any pictures, unfortunately. This is the best picture from the ones I did take a mom’s house and it is almost definitely the WORST picture you will ever see on this blog EVER. It was almost completely dark in the house and I couldn’t focus the camera. Here is Ethan enjoying his grape flavored tootsie roll pop.

Mom and I took Ethan trick or treating at a few houses in the neighborhood and we stopped by my friend Rachael’s house for her Halloween party. Ethan had never met Rachael, but as soon as he saw her he squealed and tried to leap out of mom’s arms to get to her. It was really funny.

After trick or treating, we made one last stop before heading home. We stopped at Pam and Tony’s house for some coffee and snacks. Ethan chowed down on some pepper crusted cream cheese on crackers, honeydew melon, chili, and pretty much everything else we put in front of him.

We went to sleep almost as soon as we walked in the door. I didn’t even take Ethan out of his costume and I fell asleep with him in the bed with us.

Aaron got up early and he and Matt went to the gun range for his gun club meeting and shooting match. Ethan and I went to visit Granny Carolyn again. Ethan had a lot of fun crawling around Granny’s kitchen island and playing with the butter churn. He also tried to put his shoes on his feet all by himself. We took him outside to enjoy the nice morning and he kept pulling up the grass and handing it to Granny. She would tell him Thank You every time he handed her the grass and leaves. Finally he started trying to say Thank You as well. He learns things so quickly. I took a lot of pictures at Granny’s, but I haven’t had time to work on them yet. I’ll post those later.

Ethan is taking a nice long nap now. When he wakes up from his nap we are going to head over to the street fair. We were going to go to New Orleans for a birthday party, but his nap is taking too long and I don’t think we’d make it in time. So we’ll head to the street fair instead. We’ll try not to buy too much junk.