16 Months Old!

Ethan turned 16 months on September 13! WooHoo!

We have quite the little character on our hands. Everyday Ethan does something off the wall that just makes me want to laugh out loud. He is the funniest little guy. The other day he was walking down the hallway backwards. It was so cute. He would take three or four steps, stop, look backwards, and then carry on until he walked into the wall. He was smiling the entire time as if to say “look mom… look what I can do”. It is so funny, at this age, something I feel like I can read his mind just from the facial expressions. For example, the other night we put Ethan to bed at 8:00pm as usual, but around 8:30pm he started to cry and cry and cry, so I went in his room and tried to get him to sleep, long story short I ended up bring him into the living room and let him lay on my chest and watch TV. This worked for about 15 mins. then he rolled onto his belly, so we were chest to chest and he looked he in the eyes, paused… and then gave me this sweet little grin like “mom, I’m going to test you here… I am going to get off the couch…” and sure enough he wriggled his way off the couch, turned around and looked at me again (at this point I was curious to see what he was up to), he gives me another little grin… “ok… how far can I take this…” and he walks to the end of the couch, turns and grins again… then he makes a dash for his toy box, outs his back against the wall and slides down it. He was so precious I couldn’t dare interrupt him. He played so quietly. Then daddy joined him and they played cars and catch for about 15 mins. before daddy put him back to bed…

Here is a picture of Ethan walking on mommy's feet.



New Words!
As I have mentioned before, Ethan loves the vacuum. Every evening it is an event in our house to get the vacuum out (Ethan’s job) and watch mommy vacuum. When we are done mommy tells Ethan “All done… All Done” and one day Ethan started to repeat me “Al da… Al da…”. Now this has become part of our routine, mommy says “All done…” and Ethan repeats, “Al da”.*



The past two weeks have been so exciting. Ethan said “juice”!!! We were so excited. He actually said it at Daycare earlier in the day, but we were so thrilled to hear it for ourselves. Let’s just say he got a lot of juice that day.. “Say juice Ethan…”*



Then a couple days later Ethan and I were playing with his Mega Blocks and our tower of blocks fell. All of a sudden Ethan points and says “Oh no!” “Oh no!”… It was priceless, for course my reaction was over the top. I am just so proud!

Our independent little man pushing our cart to the car, on our way to the grocery store!


Teething
Ethan’s first molar is still working itself the rest of the way out. Now we have another one on the opposite side that has broken through a bit, poor boy. He doesn’t really have too any “symptoms”. When he has trouble sleeping we give him some Tylenol. But all in all we have been very lucky so far!

Oh! Oh!
When I picked Ethan up from daycare the other day, I was informed that our son is a bully! Apparently Ethan hits the other kids! It has been a few days and our daycare provider has said that he is doing better.

Having Fun
We like to have fun at our house. Ethan usually initiates most of our games, like the other day. We were wasting time waiting to go pick daddy up from work. Ethan started playing with the patio door curtains. It was so cute. He was sitting on the step, you couldn’t even see him behind the curtain. So I snuck up and moved the curtain and startled him! The game was on. He would sit behind the curtain anticipating my next move. I’d surprise him on the right, then the left, and then sneak up the middle, he never knew what to expect, it was so fun. I love hearing him laugh so hard.

Another thing that makes him laugh is when I smell his feet and make an exaggerated expression, boy does he ever laugh.

Hercules
Ethan is so strong. The little turkey pushes the coffee table across the room! So now I get him to help me. When I vacuum and make a big scene “Oh Ethan, can you help mommy move the coffee table?” and he helps me push it out of the way. What a little helper.

(Press "play" to watch the VIDEO!)


Fun at the Park
We walk every night after dinner, and when we have extra time we head to the park. Ethan loves the park. He is so funny, he tries to climb the stairs at the park like a big boy, he holds onto the railings and his feet start to go, and go and go… but he forgets that his hands need to move too. It is so funny because now you have him with his feet at step two or three and his hands still at the bottom, and he can’t figure out what the problem is. I have even tried holding his hands, but he is so eager and so fast that his feet are still a mile a head of the rest of his body!



Usually mommy goes down the slide with Ethan, or I at least put him at the top and let him go alone. We found a new park to go to, it has a small play structure for little ones, and a BIG play structure for the bigger kids. We play on both, but for the first time ever, on the small structure; Ethan sat on his bum and went down the slide all alone.





Last Friday we thought we'd walk to the mall and treat Ethan to a ride on "Bob the Builder's" bulldozer. He loved it. We let him ride it twice, and when it was time to go he cried and hugged "Bob" because he didn't want out!

(Press "play" to watch the VIDEO!)



*For the record… Ethan said “All done” and “Juice” at 15 months.