Ethan's stats

Just a brief update on Ethan....he is 33 inches tall (about 75th percentile) and 25.5 pounds (about 50th percentile). And he has an ear infection. again. in the same ear as last time. Poor kid.

Ethan is 18 months old!

Ethan turned 18 months old yesterday! We celebrated by attending his friend, Luke Freel's, burthday party. He did a lot of jumping in the bounce house (even with the bigger kids which he loved but nearly gave me heart attacks). And he really loved seeing the pet turtles.







Gommy and Laura came to visit on Sunday and stayed through today. Blythe went with Braden to visit Grams and Peep in Cashiers, NC on Friday and came back on Monday. Blythe stayed with Grams while Braden and his dad headed to Atlanta for the big VT vs Alabama football game. Sounds like Blythe and Grams had a really fun time shopping, painting, playing, swimming, and watching movies.


Ethan was home without his sister, which I think he really liked for a few days. No one threatening to take his toys away. It was like having freedom for the first time. And oh, all the attention! (especially from Mommy!) We did a lot of running errands...he was quite the trooper.

Anyway, let's see if I can think of some 18 month milestones for Ethan (and he hasn't gone to the doctor yet, so will have to update later on height/weight stats).

• These are the days of expanding vocabulary. He's not quite at the point of being able to always tell me what he wants, but he gets closer every day and things get easier. Good thing because, "eh, eh...mommy" get old after a while.
• He's starting to sing his ABC's. Sounds a little something like this "A, eh, deh, bah..yay!"
• His favorite toy inside is probably his big tonka truck. He loves pushing it around the house. His favorite toy outside is probably the Little Tikes Cozy Cruiser. Either that or the "gator" at the house next door (electric John Deere kids car). He will go straight over to their garage, sit in it and just honk the horn.
• When we go to the playground, he still likes the swings the best
• Still eats like a champ most of the time and isn't too picky about what he eats. I think his favorite food might be bananas.
• He's starting to drink from a regular cup instead of a sippy cup. I usually fill it only a little because he's easily distracted and will then spill the whole thing if not paying attention.
• He has the BEST laugh and it's so contagious. It's so cute when you get him laughing. He loves to push the buttons on the phone base and thinks it's hilarious every time he hits the message button and it says, "No messages". You think he's mocking us because no one ever calls us?
• He's teething. Still.

• He hates to have his teeth brushed and will yank the toothbrush from my hand while I try to do it. And then, of course, he cries when I don't let him have it.
• He's wearing size 6 shoes and staying true to size as he is growing out of his 12-18 month clothes and starting to wear 18-24. His spiderman jammies are actually 2T.

Happy half-birthday Ethan! A day late...a dollar short.

Bonjour!

Blythe's class has been learning about France this week at school. I've been very impressed with her learning and amazed she's actually been paying attention. On Monday she told me the french flag was blue, white, and red with stripes. Tuesday her class went to the store and bought french bread and cheese. So now when I ask her what they eat in France, she says, "lots of bread and lots of cheese". I asked her if they eat french fries, and she said no. Wednesday I asked her if they learned any words in french. She said, "hello is Bonjour". "Goodbye is Au revoir". Both times she pronounced them perfectly. Yesterday she tells me they learned about the Eiffel Tower.

They'll be learning about other countries all month long. Maybe she'll come home and teach me a thing or two!

Words of the day

The "Blytheism" of the day is....Shplush.

"Mom, you forgot to shplush the potty after you went".

And the first thing I heard Ethan say this morning while talking in his crib was "Whoa Buddy!". Yesterday's word of the day was "apple do", otherwise known as "apple juice".

China School

Blythe can say a whole lot of words, but as she expands her vocabulary sometimes the words don't come out just right. Though I find myself amazed sometimes I get what she's saying even on the first try. "China School" took a little bit of thinking on my part and I only got it because it was in line with what we were doing at the time.

"Mom, look - I drew a rectangle!"
"And a circle...."
"How bout I draw a square"
"I can't do a China School"

Hmmmm......ah - a 3-sided shape = China School, aka Triangle.

So I taught her how to draw a triangle.

Back home

We made it back just fine from Myrtle Beach. About 5 and a half hours again. What's significant is that on the way there and on the way back, we never stopped. No potty breaks. No food breaks. No doggy potty breaks. Straight on through. That's because Blythe has a bladder of steel. I'm sure once Ethan is potty trained (no we have not started...a ways off from there), he'll probably have a wimpy bladder and those trips will take us twice as long.

So it was back to school and work today. I missed the kids today, remembering the good times we had. Then when they got home from school, they were back to their old whiny selves and so I'm once again grateful for day care.

Myrtle Beach Part 6

Well, we headed over to Dick's Last Resort last night for dinner. Not quite as fun with the kiddos around as the waiters are quite toned down as are the comments on the condom hats. We still had fun though. We explained to Blythe about the atmosphere at Dick's before we got there and she kept repeating it, "the waiters are mean, but they are sposed to be cuz it's funny".

Here's Blythe and Braden with their condom hats:

Blythe's says "Future Hooters Reject". Okay, so that's probably true.

Braden's says "Who knew something so small could actually make 2 kids?"

And here's Ethan and I with our hats:

Mine says "I should have taken the Pill"

Ethan's says "Sandbox Pimp". He wore his hat only for the picture, then off it came. He also didn't want to wear his bib. Funny, the only one of us who normally wears a bib while eating refused to wear it.

Anyway, we had a good time, then walked around Barefoot Landing and bought nothing. Saw some tigers though. They had an area with 3 large caged tigers and a bunch of baby ones. You could pay $59 to have your picture taken with a baby tiger. Um, no. Blythe said, "tigers bite", then Braden said, "no, they just swallow". Today she tells me that tigers don't bite. I said yes they do, she says, "no, they just swallow". So I said, "first they bite your head off, then they swallow". I don't think she'll be wanting to go near tigers for a while.

Where we're staying is right near the Apache Pier in Myrtle Beach. Apparently it's the longest wooden pier on the East Coast (about 1/4 mile long). Learned that today when we decided to walk over to the pier and walk down it and have lunch. They also have an arcade, so we did that first then walked all the way down the pier and back. Ethan fell asleep on Braden's shoulders during the walk, so we had to wake him for lunch. All the swimming and sun really tires these guys out.

We'll be heading home tomorrow and then it's back to the real world. Boo. Will be quite a while before we're on vacation again. It's been a blast and we had a lot of fun spending the whole week with our kids. Back home I feel like they don't get enough of our attention with the grind of daily life, so I'm really thankful for times like this. Adios Myrtle Beach.

Myrtle Beach part 5

Not much to report on for today, but the grandmothers will get mad if I don't post something. I have taken no new pictures since the last post. We headed back to the beach yesterday after nap where we attempted to dig a really big hole, but just like Ethan won't let us build castles, he also won't let us dig a hole. What he wants to do is sit in the hole and then he loves for us to bury him with sand. Because he's a boy and he loves to be dirty.

More pool and beach time this morning and today after nap we'll head over to Barefoot Landing and have dinner at Dick's Last Resort. I'll be sure to bring my camera there in case they decide to make us some condom hats. If you've never been, you have no idea what I'm talking about and you're completely missing out.

Myrtle Beach Part 4

This morning we took a break from the beach and the sun and headed back over to Broadway at the Beach to visit the aquarium. It was a pretty neat aquarium, definitely not my favorite one though. Not that you care about my list of favorite aquariums, but my favorite is Chicago, then Charleston, then maybe Atlanta. Atlanta was quite crowded and not stroller-friendly. I heard the one in Chattanooga is pretty good, and amazingly even though we lived there for a year, we never went. There were just SO many other things to do...NOT. Anyway, getting off subject here.

They did have a neat exhibit of babies with little tiny seahorses and even a display of chickens in process of hatching. They had a cool tunnel with moving walkway similar to Atlanta's. Anyway, some pics from the aquarium:

Here's Blythe trying to escape this bubble.

And here's Ethan and Braden INSIDE an aquarium.

After the aquarium, we decided to head over to a different area of Broadway at the Beach with more kiddie rides. However, Blythe established she was hungry on the way there, so we had lunch at Johnny Rockets at 11:20am. We left there $40 poorer after a meal of just burgers, a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, and a grilled cheese sandwich. Not even a milkshake! On the way to the rides, we got a short random rain shower, so we ducked into this cowboy store and had a little fun with hats.

We finished up our Broadway at the Beach experience with some more kiddie rides - airplanes, NASCAR racers, a train, a carousel, and a ferris wheel.

Ethan fell asleep almost instantly after we got in the car. Blythe was tired too, but waited til we got back to take a nap.

Myrtle Beach part 3

We headed over to Broadway at the Beach last night. It was a lot bigger than it was the last time I was there...in college...um, like 10 years ago. Right away we found one of the ride areas and bought our 9 tickets for $20. Total rip, but we are on vacation so whatever. So 9 tickets means 4 rides (with 2 riders each) and 1 single. First up was the cars. In this video Blythe is being the spastic driver, but actually Ethan was more the spaz than Blythe.

Next up was the tea cups. Ethan wasn't big enough to ride by himself and I would have puked on him if I had to ride, so Braden rode with him (Braden didn't need a ticket though). After a while Ethan looked like he might puke, but I still think he liked it. And of course Blythe loved it.

Let's see, next up was the carousel. Nothing all that exciting about it, pretty standard. We tried to convince Blythe to ride the one that looked like Juni, but she wanted the horse with the pink ribbon. Such a girl.

Then Blythe really wanted to ride the caterpillar. It was really fast and went round and round, so again I punted to Braden. He did have to use a ticket this time though. Check out how fast.

After they went round and round for a while, it stopped and then went BACKWARDS round and round just as fast. Blythe loved it!

So we had just one ticket left. Ethan got to ride the boats by himself.

We finished up the evening with dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe, which is really more about the atmosphere than the food. The really nice thing about this trip is that it's not crowded anywhere. We're past prime season, school has started in a lot of places, so we have not-so-crowded beaches, no wait at the Hard Rock, and rides we're riding by ourselves. Only one more year that we get to go on vacation the first week of school. Then Blythe will start kindergarten...ah! getting ahead of myself!

Myrtle Beach Part 2

We did get that kite out yesterday late in the day. Kind of a pain, it was an inflatable kind with Elmo on it. Got it all ready and the wind was going pretty well. Braden got it up in the sky fairly easily, but the kids had about zero interest in it. They were more interested in it while we were filling it up. Oh well. So we had more beach and more pool time.

If you really want to wear your kids out, still them in the sun most of the day and have them swim and build sand castles and run on the beach. Then they sleep GREAT!

I was a little worried about going on vacation with just us as there is no one else to help with the kids, but so far it's been very nice. Cooking dinner last night with 2 tired children was a little rough, but overall not so bad. We're planning to have several dinners out with the kids so we don't have to cook every night. Today after nap, we'll be heading to Broadway at the Beach for dinner and entertainment. We'll be targeting the overpriced kiddie rides. I'll take some pics and let you know how it goes. For now, here's a few more beach pics from this morning.

Look! Ethan hasn't knocked over the sand castle yet!

Blythe's trying to escape the sun...

Myrtle Beach vacation part 1

We made it safely to Myrtle Beach yesterday and are enjoying the BEAUTIFUL, sunny (not raining) beach weather. Took us about 5 and a half hours of driving. We timed it so we would eat lunch, then get in the car and go so the kids would nap for a large portion of the drive. Ethan fell asleep almost instantly. Took Blythe about an hour before she fell asleep, which was about the time Ethan woke up. Because he can’t be quiet for more than 2.5 seconds in the car, Blythe only got about a 20 minute nap in. But she’s easy in the car. It was Ethan who drove us all nuts with his constant “Eh” “Eh, eh” “Mommy, mommy” (imagine that for 4.5 hours in the most

whiny voice you can think of). So the trip itself was not all that fun.

Braden unloaded and then took the kids to the beach while I put stuff away. As is now the tradition every time we go to the beach, the kids didn’t put their swimsuits on, but came back wet and sandy.

We also brought the dogs on this trip. Braden woke up early this morning and took Juni to the beach so she could swim in the ocean. The saltwater didn’t seem to phase her one bit and apparently she even gathered herself an audience pretty quickly.

Later in the morning Braden, the kids, and I headed to the ocean. Well, actually the beach. Hurricane Bill is causing some rip tides along the east coast, so no swimming allowed today. So instead we built sand “castles”. We can only fill one bucket, flip it over, and then Ethan knocks it down instantly. That’s his favorite thing to do. Well, that and throw sand.

Then we went to the pool for a while and then nap time. Ahhh! I have a feeling this will be our regular morning routine for the next 7 days. Fine by me!

Supposed to be breezy later…maybe we’ll get to fly the kite we didn’t get to fly down in Hilton Head.

Our visit to Baton Rouge

Our trip to Baton Rouge ended up being really nice. We did a lot of swimming in the warm pool (which Blythe loved!), ate some really great food, and got to see just about all of Braden's extended family.

When we first got there, Braden's Uncle Jon was there and was able to spend one night with us and hang out for a while on Thursday. The kids loved hanging out with Jon and showing him all their tricks in the pool.

Here's Blythe going down the "now completely illegal for any home swimming pool" 14 foot high waterslide.


And Ethan decided to give it a try too. Over the course of the trip, Ethan went down many times and Blythe even went down head first.

We were sad to say goodbye to Uncle Jon.

But the next day, we had the rest of the extended family over, including Blythe and Ethan's great grandmother, Mommee.

The kids also got to hang out with other kids! We had Braden's second (or third?) cousin Hunter and Tyler (who flew in from Boston with his parents).

Blythe tried to keep up with Hunter's crazy tricks on the diving board, and although he was 2 years older, she did a pretty good job!

Saturday the guys played golf and the kids and I relaxed some more by the pool. Sunday it was time to head home, which unfortunately didn't go as smoothly as the trip down there thanks to some thunderstorms in the Charlotte area. Sorry to the full plane of passengers who had to listen to Ethan scream for an hour. He was tired and hungry, so what can I say?

Anyhoo, it was a really nice trip. Here are some more photos to recap:

Trip down to Baton Rouge

I'm a big girl. I can admit when I'm wrong. Ethan has croup. So, it really was a good thing day care was proactive so he couldn't go to school on Tuesday. We didn't send him Wednesday either even though he had no fever. He had a cough, but it wasn't the tell-tale croup cough until Wednesday at naptime. So someone infected him, but hopefully he didn't infect others.

We flew down to Louisiana last night. Drove all the way to Charlotte, then flew to New Orleans, then drove to Baton Rouge. The kids were exhausted! But considering how long it took us to get here, they did great. Both were good on the ride to Charlotte, Ethan slept on the plane (after a brief episode of trying to fight the sleep), Blythe watched a movie on the plane, then both slept on the car ride to Baton Rouge. Then no trouble at all getting them to go back to sleep in beds. Nice!

Ethan feels a little better today. Though no one really likes the hot and humid weather of Louisiana during August, the humidity certainly helps with the coughing.

They both swam in the pool this morning and Blythe went off the diving board. Actually Ethan went off too (or really I just lowered him down into the pool). Then it came to an end after Ethan was walking around and got stung by a wasp on the top of his foot. Ouch! Poor kid can't catch a break!

Looking forward to some fresh fish tonight for dinner...yum!

Eating is so tiring

Ethan is home today "sick". He hasn't had a fever, but has been a little cranky. Apparently he doesn't like it when I try to sit in front of the computer and ignore him. Fortunately I have great next door neighbors who took him for about an hour while I had a meeting. I picked him up and fed him some lunch and then my plan was to put him down for a nap around 1:30 so I could make it through my next 2 meetings while he was asleep. But apparently he couldn't wait that long.