Just wanted to give an Ethan update for everyone out there. The update is that he's doing great. He gets bigger every day and is learning so much.

I'll share a few examples of his current behavior.

At night when we start getting ready for bed he loves to run around trying to escape from me while I take his clothes off for a bath.

Then we use the potty, and he nearly always "makes a pee" before getting into the water. He also likes to help throw away the toliet paper that I clean up his splashes with and he likes to flush the toliet.

In the bathtub Ethan likes to scoop up water in his cup and splash it around. I'm trying to teach him to splash towards the wall and not on the bathmat. We are still working on that.
He likes to play with his toys, especially the ones with suction cups that stick to the tub. He has fun pulling those off.
He doesn't like getting his hair wet, but that's mostly because the water runs down his face and gets into his eyes. He won't look up and let us do it either, so that part of bath time is a problem still.

Then, we clean up the toys, get out, and brush teeth. Ethan likes to get the toothbrush for himself and suck the toothpaste off. Sometimes he'll do a little brushing, but we usually have to help me make sure it happens. The molars he has now would never get cleaned if we didn't intervene.

After brushing teeth I pick Ethan up and ask him what time it is. Then we do a little pajama dance that gets him all excited. When I put him down in his crib he squirms around, and sometimes runs back and forth.
The diaper can be tramatic some nights but once that is on, he does fine with the rest of the pajamas. He really likes seeing what is printed on his pajamas too, espeically if it's a fire truck.

A bottle is still part of the bedtime routine (I tried to skip it tonight and he started to cry. I didn't feel like dealing with that today, so I went and got the one I already had made). We only give him 2 ounces and we need to start weaning him off that. Bottle happens after the lights are out and we are sitting in the reading chair.

Then, by the light of his blue nightlight, we read a book. Usually we read about trucks, sometimes Bob the Builder, or Blue's Clues. He doesn't have a preference on books so long as he can point at things and turn the pages. We say goodnight to the main character (or the trucks) at the end of the book and put it away.

Next I tell Ethan to fold his arms for a prayer. This is one of the few times that he does so consistently. I say a short prayer with him then carry him over to his crib.

He currently has a baby doll (dressed in blue, we refer to the baby as "him" or "baby") and a rubber duck. He grabs both, waits for me to put up the blanket and snuggles his legs up underneath himself.

I have been holding his hand for a minute after he gets into his crib, but with a thing for each hand, he doesn't need that so much these days. That makes me sad.
However, when I leave the room, he still cries for a minute. Then he just talks to himself for a while. Sometimes we can tell what it's about, but usually it's just gibberish to us. After doing this for a while, sometimes up to about 30 minutes, he finally falls asleep.

And then I hit the couch.