Easter Sunday

We spent the day at the Jawdy's house and I posted all of our pictures here. Enjoy!

I hope you all had a blessed Easter. I only have three more weeks of class at Master's Monday and six more weeks of work! Expect more blog posts then....

Nanny visits and Easter Eggs

Helping Daddy in the garden!

So my Nanny came to visit this week and we had so much fun! Last Saturday Ethan helped Philip and I in the garden and then we dyed eggs! I figured I would not try to stop him from making a mess. I just gave him two eggs and set the two least-stainable colors in front of him. He had a great time and this fingers were yellow until that night when he took a bath.

Then our neighbor Abbey helped him hide eggs in the backyard. I took video of his hunt but they are on my camcorder and they are not easy to download. I've uploaded pictures from my Nanny's visit onto our Shutterfly site, so you can see more pictures there! What was really sweet about her visit was that she got to stay home with him a few times while I worked or when Philip and I went on a date. Since Ethan has a Nanny Sara, we were telling him to call my Nanny "Nan Michelle" (just like I call my Dad's Nanny "Nan Ruby"). I haven't gotten it on tape but what he says comes out more like "She-shell". It is really cute!

Potty Report: We have gone #2 in the potty once and for that he got a Cars notepad that he can use to collect future #2 stickers (Thank you Allison for the sticker idea). We also peepee in the potty about twice a day and he is still enjoying getting M&Ms for that.

P in the Potty!

Well, we are yet again moving on to another step towards becoming a grown up boy! This all started when we had my pediatrician Dr.Brice in to talk to our MOPS group. He mentioned that a lot of the milestones that we take for granted (walk by 1, potty train by 2 or 3) are very culturally influenced. He mentioned that his last practice was located in a real rural town and that there babies were expected to walk by 8-10 months and potty train by 1.5! Then, two Sundays ago on my "run around town with out a kid" trip I picked up a potty ring at Target for about five dollars. I figured that we had talked about the potty for long enough, let's actually potty!

For the first couple of days whenever I was changing his diaper or clothes I would offer him two mini M&Ms if he would just sit on the potty. "Mnms?" Anything for those! So for a couple of days we just sat on the potty, talked about peepeeing, got our two "mnms" and grunted a little bit. Then I went to Duck Duck Goose on Wednesday and I got a Baby Bjorn Potty Chair for $5.00! When I got home Ethan was really excited to sit on his new potty and low and behold he actually went peepee. For this he recieved five whole mini M&Ms. Since then he has gone on the potty about once a day at least and I have transitioned so that M&Ms are only earned if something is produced. I don't consider this potty training yet, I like to think of this stage as more of a training for our training! Until the actual traingin begins I will continue asking and rewarding (I figure this part can't hurt) and when we are home in the mornings I will especially try to catch a number 2 in the potty (#2 in the potty = great)!

Here is what I have in mind for the actual training: PLAN A (I guess I'll call this one ambitious.) I will have a free week at the beginning of the summer and I think we can use that week to start our ambitious plan! Here are the keys to my plan: I have about a package and a half left of regular diapers to use up and then I plan to transition to g-diapers whenever he is not at preschool. These allow Ethan to feel wetter right when he goes and they have cloth exteriors so they seem like a logical tranistion tool. Then on May 30th Ethan will put on big boy underwear and I suppose we will hang out at the house for that week! My friend Allison just posted about her progress and I think I will steal her stickers idea for the actual training. I see some Cars stickers (or temporary tattoos for #2s) in my son's future! We could even get some bonuses for accident free days or half days!

I'll keep everyone posted on our progress....this could get really interesting!

Camping and a Big Boy Bed!!

So when Philip and I got back on Thursday he offered to take Friday off to be with us. We decided to take this opportunity to go camping with Ethan for the first time. What stinks is that my camera had died sometime on Wednesday at the Boudreauxs and so the only pictures I got were from my phone. What really stinks is that I didn't know how good the pictures from my phone were and so I only took two pictures. We went camping up at the Obed wild and scenic river campsite. One of my favorite things about this campsite is that it has a river that runs right near most of the campsites so there is a nice white noise effect (more on that later). Philip and Ethan walked down to the river and Philip was showing Ethan how to skip rocks into the water.
He could have thrown rocks into the river for hours. He even pitched a fit when we told him it was time to go back to the camp site.

Here he is by the fire with his sippy cup.

We did buy him a sleeping bag before we left Knoxville and he did great in it! When it was time for bed I changed him into his pajamas and told him to lay down in his sleeping bag. I think that the noise of the river helped him, but within 15 minutes he was fast asleep. The only problem with our little excursion was that the low that night was 31 degrees! I barely slept because the whole night I kept thinking that Ethan was cold. In the morning when he woke up he did not want to get out of his bag and when I stuck my hand in he was nice and toasty! Of course then we had to get up to eat breakfast and such. I dressed him all the clothes that I had brought with us but we still couldn't keep his little hands warm. Finally at the end he would stand by the fire for short periods of time, but ultimately we packed up and went home.

Even though it was cold and we had to leave early we had so much fun and we are looking forward to our next camping trip! When we got back on Saturday I decided that with such great sleeping habits it was time to move to a big boy bed. Try as we might, we could not find the guard rail for the crib. I know that it is in the house somewhere, but we have yet to find it! I went ahead and converted his crib anyway and he did fall out the first night, but he hasn't since. For those who think that sounds barbaric please know that his mattress is less than two feet high.

Spring Break

Ethan and I took a little trip down to Louisiana for my Spring Break last week. We flew down on Sunday and I did learn what not to pack (like 6 books) and what to definitely have (one train book). I used my emergency bag check list to create my carry-on bag and it was great! My parents and Nanny took us to lunch at Popeye's where Ethan ate his first chicken leg! I wish I had a picture but I was also eating fried chicken....

Then we went with my parents, sister, and Nanny to the zoo. I planned on buying a membership there and then using the reciprocity with the Knoxville Zoo to get in for free for the next year, but alas, you have to actually live in LA (or a surrounding state) to be a member of the Baton Rouge zoo. I guess I'm not the first one to think of this :) Pop and Ethan had a great time together. Here they are in the prairie dog tunnels. There weren't any prairie dogs but I think they had fun just being in the tunnels.
Ethan's favorite part might have been the snack that he enjoyed while in his stroller.
I take that back, his favorite part was riding the train around the zoo at the end of the day. I didn't get any pictures but he was so tired he just sat there in a daze once the train started moving.

On Monday we spent the day at my Mawmaw and Pawpaw's and Ethan enjoyed his first crawfish boil that night (notice the newspaper on the table). He ate a few crawfish, but mostly he enjoyed the boiled potatoes:
Tuesday my sister spent the day with us and after we got Ethan's hair cut we went to the Children's Museum. It hasn't changed much in 10+ years and I was worried that Ethan wouldn't have much fun, but he had a blast! At the first station when you come in you can build a bug with little magnetic pieces.
Then we went on to the grocery store where Ethan got a cart and picked out 4 items to buy (we helped him with the counting). Then he unloaded his groceries at the register.
Next he waited patiently while I rung him up! Two heads of lettuce, a lemon and a box of rice =2.19.
He took the receipt from me, but then he just gave it right back! Of course then he put up all the groceries and put the cart back where it belonged. We then went down to Cafe des Enfants where he worked "behind the scenes" in the kitchen.
Notice the hot dog on the oven burner. When we got there another child had left some dishes in the sink and before we left Ethan had put them all up. I love this child!

The bubble station was next. I didn't get one good picture with my camera which stinks, but I bet my dad did. Danielle did get this good video:

Wednesday we went to Duson to hang out with Philip's family. Ethan had fun hanging out on the front porch. He also loved walking around with the family in the back yard.
Our flight back was also great. I had less things in my carry on and he did just fine! My next post will be about our first camping trip!

No paci!!!

So I have a whole lot to share including our recent trip to Louisiana and Ethan's first camping trip this weekend!

Until then though, I have to share our big news! A couple of weeks ago I picked up Ethan on a Thursday afternoon from Preschool and his daily report said, "Congratulations to Ethan, one whole week without a paci!" I turned right around and went back to his room to talk to his teachers. Apparently for a couple of weeks before that he wasn't even using his paci to go to sleep, he was just throwing it down by his mat. Then on the Tuesday of that week Jessica couldn't find his paci in his bag before he was already asleep. She assumed I had taken it away and they didn't even look for it on Wednesday or Thursday of that week. Even though Ethan was not using one at preschool I didn't even try to take it away at home.

Then last Friday Ethan spent the night at our friend Betsy's house. I had related the above story to her so she took Ethan's paci from him for his nap the day that he spent at her house. I couldn't believe he just went to sleep with out it so when we got home that day I did not return his pacis to his bed for his afternoon nap and he went right to sleep! He also went right to sleep that night. Incredible! Since then we have been paci free. He has only asked for it a couple of times and he has started to put his fingers in his mouth when he is idly doing something (reading or watching TV) but we are staying on top of that. Half the reason I gave him a paci as an infant was so that he would not suck on his fingers.

Although I'm making this sound easy it definitely wasn't (for me at least)! It is really hard not to give something to your child that you know gives him comfort. I even teared up when I had to tell him "There are no pacis, they are all gone." We rejoice whenever our children reach a new milestone; crawling, walking, feeding themselves, etc. but to watch Ethan give up his bottle and now his paci is bittersweet in that he is a little less of a baby now. Do any other moms out there struggle with these steps? I want him to grow up and I definitely am grateful that this hasn't been a really bad struggle, but I still mourn the loss of his infanthood.

Happier posts to come! In the meantime I have created a new site on shutterfly. It allows us to post an infinite number of posts and projects that I have created. If you can't view the site let me know.

Picture taking

At our last MOPS meeting we had a guest speaker. She was a local photographer and she had great tips including some I put to use today. First of all, find the LIGHT! Go outside or at least to a room that has a lot of sunlight streaming in. When your camera flashes it usually washes out the people you are taking a picture of. Second, take a ton of pictures instead of trying to wait for the perfect moment to take one. I love this idea! Several times I have gone to get my camera and thought that the "perfect moment" was lost. Instead today I took over 30 pictures in just over 10 minutes and I got several keepers and I got to delete the rest without feeling guilty that it was the "only one". Here are some of my keepers:

This is a "Whatchadoin?" face for Daddy.

Pushing his "pick-up" truck.

I love this one!

She also talked to us about using black and white. A good time to use this feature is when the colors in the picture distract you from the subject. Here is my example (I just used Microsoft Office Picture Manager to edit the color):

You can see some of my others on flickr.com

After dinner we all enjoyed some pudding. Some of us enjoyed it more than others.

This was the face we got when I asked him to
show us his mouth, "Ahh!"

I had to strip him down before we went up to take a bath.

That's all for now!