Ethan's First Haircut

Unless you're talking about bank accounts or stock portfolios, it's never a good thing when you can compare your baby to Trump. Over the past fourteen months Ethan's mop top has turned into an unintentional tribute to the Donald. If we had waited much longer, our little boy would have looked like a mini Billy Ray Cyrus or an itty bitty Dog the Bounty Hunter. Ryan and I finally decided to say goodbye to his wild locks and took Ethan to get his first haircut. It was time, don't you think? Even Ethan agreed, as evidenced by his saucy post-haircut grin.
The salon was equipped with fun seats, TV screens at each station, snacks, and wall murals. Ethan got to sit in a snazzy red car that just so happened to match my dress.


Ethan seemed very interested in the whole process, and when the shininess of the situation wore off he (thankfully!) was very interested in his snacks. The stylist remarked several times that his first haircut stamina was quite impressive.


It only took about ten minutes for Ethan's mullet-in-the-making to disappear. It's definitely a huge improvement, and I'm so glad we did it! Still, a little piece of me is sort of hoping that I'll get to see those cute little curls again one day...

Charts and Graphs (not PHOTOgraphs)

When Ethan was a newborn, I kept data on everything. Perhaps I went a little overboard, but hey - occupational hazard. I tracked his feedings, recorded his diapers, and tallied his sleep hours. As he's grown up, the era of presenting his pediatrician with such detailed information has passed. All I have left now is counting his teeth and tracking his weight and height stats at his checkups.


After graphing the "normal" stats, I started to think about what else I could visually represent. I was right in the middle of a good train of thought when Ethan let out a blood-curdling scream, followed by a satisfied chuckle. It was then that inspiration for the following graph struck:


I figured Ethan's volume has ranged from 0dB (the weakest sound that can be heard) to 95dB (the level at which sustained exposure may result in hearing loss). Don't bother yelling at me for making a graph using estimated instead of empirical data... I can't hear you.

Ooh, this is fun! Should we try one more?

Ethan and Max are pals. Most of the time. Some of the time. Well, Ethan likes Max, at least. Unfortunately, Ethan's form of lovin' is shown in swats, tail pulls, and eye pokes. Usually Max is pretty tolerant. Considering the fact that Ethan plays with the dog's toys, crawls into the dog's bed, and has taken away most of the dog's attention, Max has the patience of a saint. Dogs will be dogs, though, and sometimes he can't resist teaching the boy a lesson:


You'll see that Max does get in a few good licks here and there. While much more infrequent, the dog's wallops pack a bigger punch. On Friday, Ethan fought the dog and the dog won. Ryan is calling Ethan "Scarface" while his wounds heal - though he assures me that the scratch on my baby's face will not result in a permanent mark. I guess you can call this our first taste of sibling squabbles.

So what does the analyzation of this data show me?

1) My boy is growing fast.
2) I need to invest in earplugs.
3) Maybe we'll wait a bit longer before thinking about baby #2.