Merry Christmas!

(*Note - Yes, we are partaking in a Christmas pajama theme. It's a lovely tradition that I'm stealing borrowing with permission from a friend. Next year, I may just order adult footy pajamas so that Ryan and I can be as comfy as Ethan!)

Thankful

I am thankful for so many things. Countless things. But for this post, I'm going to focus on just one...


That guy.

I'm thankful that he's happy and healthy - incredibly thankful that he's happy and healthy.
I'm thankful for the way he shouts, "Mama!" and throws himself into my arms when I get home.
I'm thankful for all of his little quirks, the inflection in his voice, and the silly expressions of his face.
I'm thankful for his amazing sense of humor, and how it's always so easy to make him laugh.
I'm thankful for the time I get to spend watching him grow and learn new things.
I'm thankful for the way he makes my heart melt every time he gives me unsolicited snuggles.

I'm thankful that I get to be his mom.

A November Post (that's actually about Halloween)

Ethan "helped" me carve a pumpkin. His version of helping was digging around in the bowl with his shovel after I scooped out the pumpkin guts. As I predicted, he wanted nothing to do with the scooping process. He was, however, super into playing with the shovel. He was not so into sharing the shovel with me so that I didn't have to use my hands.
Ethan: 1, Mama: 0


Ethan also "helped" me with the actual carving process. Sort of. He really wanted to use the sharp, serrated tools, but with some slight of hand and clever distraction tactics (and a little bit of bold-faced lying), I convinced him that the sharp tools were boring, and that this dull plastic punch was where it's at.
Ethan: 1, Mama: 1


I agonized for weeks and weeks over what to do for Ethan's costume. I was looking for a robot, but struck out on all of my searches. I thought about making a robot costume, but that plan had two fatal flaws: 1) All of my ideas involved things like dryer vent hose for arms and cardboard boxes for the body, which Ethan would probably not keep on (if he even let me put them on in the first place), and 2) As much as I love being crafty, I'm crazy busy right now and simply didn't have enough time. Ethan took matters into his own hands by choosing his Tigger costume on an unrelated outing to Babies R Us. He saw it, shouted, "Tigger!!!" and gave it lots of hugs and kisses. Problem solved. Win-win.
Ethan: 2, Mama: 2


After suiting up in both costume and glow bracelets, we headed out to score some free candy. Our neighborhood was filled with trick-or-treaters, and Ethan seemed confused by all of the ninjas, princesses, and pirates walking down the street. With a bit of hesitation, we were able to get him to walk up to doors, though he usually asked me to knock on them.


Can you see the hesitation on his face? I blame it on the Grim Reaper door knocker that had flashing red eyes and an evil "Mwah ha ha" kind of laugh that we encountered at the first house. Towards the end of our night, Ethan insisted on riding on my back, burying his head in my shoulders whenever a door would open. He'd quickly become brave when he caught sight of the candy bowl, and would dart his hand out to grab some goodies.


We had to work on the "thank you" response to being given a treat - he wanted to eat his candy right away and defaulted to excited shouts of, "Open! Open!" followed quickly by a singsongy, "Bye!" to the person/creature at the door. Learning a lesson from countless other "firsts" we decided to head home while we were still on top (and tantrum-free), and turned around after about five or six houses. Our Tigger became very ♫ Bouncy, trouncy, flouncy, pouncy, fun, fun, fun, fun, fun! ♫ after we let him finish all of his non-peanut butter, non-choking hazard pieces of candy before going to bed. And after he went to bed, I may or may not have finished the ones deemed too hazardous for toddler consumption. We both came out on top in the candy department.
Ethan: 3, Mama: 3
By all accounts, Halloween was officially a success.

A Halloween Post (that's not about Halloween)

Of course it's not, because in order for the post on Halloween to be about Halloween, I would have to be up to date with my blogging. Which we all know is just not the case. At least this post is about events that happened in the month of October.

Or, as I have renamed it, the month that Sarah was wrong about everything. Allow me to explain.

1) I stated with authority that the San Francisco Giants would not make it to the World Series. Wrong.

2) My dad and I took Ethan to the zoo, sure of the fact that he would love the animals. Wrong. The morning was spent deflecting shouts of, "No [insert animal name here]! Bye bye, [seriously, insert ANY animal name here]!" He did love the petting zoo, so technically I was only half wrong.

3) I thought that Ethan would get a kick out of the planes during Fleet Week. Super wrong. He was terrified. Thankfully, Ethan did get a kick out of splashing in the frigid waters of the Pacific while Ryan and my dad watched the air show, which distracted him from crying every time a plane zoomed and sonic boomed overhead.


Despite being full of failed predictions, October was a really great month! My dad came to visit for a week, and stayed with us for the first time. Ethan was able to wake up to his Pa-Pa every morning and see him until the minute he went to bed. As usual when we have visitors in town, we packed the week full of activities. One of my favorites was a trip to the pumpkin patch. As my long time readers may remember, I've been waiting years for Ethan to be old enough to enjoy Halloween. From dressing him up when he was itty bitty, to taking him to a pumpkin patch when he wasn't even old enough to sit up on his own, and the trick or treating plans that were ruined by a nasty bout of H1N1, Halloween has always been filled with good intentions, most of which just didn't work out for us.

I don't want to jinx it, but this year may be different. The pumpkin patch trip started us off on the right foot. Ethan had a blast "splashing" in a pool full of beans
and running through the hay mazes and tunnels.



Ethan picked his own costume this year, and we're going trick or treating for the first time ever tonight. If we're lucky, all will go well and Ethan will have a fantastic time. If you're lucky, I'll have fodder for another post about Halloween mishaps. No matter how it shakes down, it's kind of a win-win situation.

And unlike the over/under on the Giants winning the World Series, I like those odds.

A Lot of Catching Up

Wow. It's been over a month since my last post. Bad blogger. Bad! Can a super cute photo of the boy put me back your good graces?


Excellent. Now that we're pals again, let's get to the catching up part of this post!

You may notice that Ethan is sporting a new, shorter 'do. We took him for his first cut since the hair pulling incident. We've been waiting for the hair to grow back enough to justify a trip to the salon. He hasn't pulled any hair since back in April, and I *think* we're in the clear and successfully broke the habit. Whew!

My new job has me out of the door before Ethan wakes up, and home about an hour before he goes to bed. Well, that is if I put him to bed on time... I've been letting him stay up past his bedtime quite frequently to steal a bit more time with him at night. It's made our weekend time together so precious, and we've been trying to have as many adventures as we can.

One recent adventure was taking Ethan camping for the first time. We went with our amazing friends, the Hokes, who had their little one in tow as well. After setting up camp we took a hike in the woods with the kiddos and the pups. Ethan loved running around in the woods playing with sticks and rocks and dirt and bugs. Though we intended to have him sleep in a tent on his own, we ended up setting up the Pack 'n Play in the back of the SUV due to 1) lots and lots of bedtime protest in a crowded campground, and 2) the fact that it was much warmer and safer in the car than it was in the tent.

The windows were cracked, don't worry.

All in all, it was a pretty fantastic and successful experiment! Exhausting and dirt-caked, but successful!

Another exciting event was Ryan's recent gallery exhibition. He showed pieces from his Tasteful Torment series to a crowd of more than 500 art enthusiasts! It was such a great night, and a wonderful opportunity to catch up with some friends that we haven't seen in way too long. You can read an interview about him and his work here, and check out the full series on his website here.

Coming up this week is a visit from Ethan's Pa-Pa. We've planned a lot of activities, which includes hitting Fleet Week in San Francisco, going to a pumpkin patch, and taking Ethan to the zoo. I'm off from work for the duration of my dad's visit, and am so excited that I'll get to join in on all of the weekday fun!

Now if I can just remember to post about the aforementioned adventures in a timely fashion...

Mondays with Ethan

Now that I'm back to work five days a week, Ethan and Ryan have a lot more guy time together. They've been getting into all kinds of trouble adventures.


Days with Dada are SO MUCH FUN!

What I Did on My Summer Vacation

- I spent a ton of time with my little family (I only worked a total of TWELVE hours this summer! Not per week - total!)

- I spent not enough time with my extended family (This is due both to being ridiculously far away and being ridiculously busy. Keep reading.)

- I learned that we would be moving to a new house - a beautiful, mid-century modern Eichler house (...and not to a new state, as we discovered in the eleventh hour. Seriously, our bags were practically packed for Texas. Oh, but to that point...)

- I learned that there's no such thing as packing ahead of time when you have a toddler. (Unless your family lives in the area and can spend some QT with the cutie, while you tackle the packing. But I suppose I've already addressed this in an earlier bullet point.)

- I witnessed countless selfless acts from some pretty incredible, super fantastic friends (Friends who will stay up until two in the morning helping you pack and move and paint - several days in a row, friends who will drive over ninety minutes one way to help with heavy lifting and baby wrangling, friends who will wake up early and meet you at your old place at 6am to help you clean before the move-out inspection, and friends who recognize that the process of moving will suck the life out of you and offer to babysit so that you can recharge. I love, love, love each and every one of you!)

- I did more painting than I've ever done, collectively, in my entire life (We painted the entire house a cool-toned gray color, with a great deal of help from the aforementioned amazing friends! It was a lot of work, but definitely worth it. The previous color was a terrible shade of peachy yellow.)

- I did a lot of celebrating (Ryan's grad school graduation, his thirty-somethingth birthday, our sixth wedding anniversary, Ethan's second birthday...)

- I learned how to keep my house immaculately clean and showroom-ready at all times, and I have the pictures to prove it (Or, maybe we did a super duper cleaning job before Ryan took pics of our new place - and staged the dining room table. Guess you'll have to drop by unannounced and see if the table is set when you arrive to find out the truth!)






I start my new job on Monday, marking the end of what I think was a pretty fantastic summer. It was fast and furious, and not always (or hardly ever) relaxing, but it was perfect.