Yarr!

Ever since our Halloween party last week, when I dressed up as a pirate, Ethan has been trying to get me to put the pirate hat and eyepatch back on. Then he also yells out "Rarr" just like a pirate.

In fact, one day he was in the kitchen holding the eyepatch up to his eye and saying "Daddy Rarr, Daddy Rarr".

So, we figured that we should get some video of him doing his best impersonation of a pirate.

Weekend Work

Not my work... not entirely anyway.

Mia was working this weekend, which means that I was home with the boy. It rained on Friday and Saturday so we didn't get out much.

On Sunday we had late church so Ethan missed his nap (he did sleep a little in the car on the way home).

And in general I was tired after long days of playing with him (and Play-doh).

But, I have some video to get posted and I think you all are going to like it.

Likes: night air

Dislikes: walls

At the Park

The boy and I went to the park on Sunday. He loves to get outside, and we took his bike.

Since all the leaves are turning and falling off the trees, there were leaves piled up around the edges. He rode his bike into the leaves, then, with another little boy that was around, they both started falling down in the leaves. Then sitting in the piles and hitting the leaves to cover their legs and just stir them up in general.

I really wished that we had a yard that he could go out back and do that kind of playing in. But, at least he got to get out and enjoy the foliage.

Too bad I didn't have the video camera on me.

Smile

Mia's been talking about all the changes that Ethan has been going through lately. But, let me just tell you that he is really amazing. I can't believe how many things have started to change just in the last month or so. He talks, he runs, he climbs, he does everything that a real person would :)

This latest video is just a little clip that Mia took as she tried to get the boy to smile.

Crayons

One of the fun things that Ethan likes to do is color. He has a couple of coloring books, and even if he doesn't have a coloring book he's got some blank paper, and even if he doesn't have paper he's got the walls. :)

Actually, he doesn't write on the walls yet. He also knows how to say 'broken crayon' for the couple that he has broken in half. Maybe he'll grow up to be an artist!

Short and sweet

Not much to post tonight. I'm just checking in to say that we've got more video! And it will be coming shortly.

It's great posting video. Means I don't have to write nearly as much.

Bike

Ethan is so cute. He loves bikes. Loves. Loves. Loves.

Any time he sees a kid riding a bike, no matter how big, he wants to go over, and try to ride it himself. This is a little clip of a tricycle that he has played on before, but is now old enough to reach the ground and move himself (kind of).

I should also mention, this was taken by my friend with the video camera on his cell phone. Isn't technology amazing.

Give and take

Give with the right hand

Take away with the left

I don't even know what to say about getting both pieces of news at once.

I Jump

So, I didn't actually record this video. But I'm going to take the credit for having another video on my blog.

This is the toddler bed that we got for Ethan, but of course he's having a rough time right now when we leave him at night, so we are still putting him in the crib. But that's not to say he doesn't like his new bed.

Debating

The videos are now working.

I discovered that when I set the videos to private on YouTube.com they cannot be viewed even if I post them here.

So, for now, I have made them public. But that means they can also be found on the YouTube site. Unlikely, especially since I don't allow them to be rated, and I'm going pretty minimal with description and tagging.

The debate then is this:

1. Leave them public and realize that YouTube is ginormous and no one is going to find my videos. (And wouldn't really know what they were watching if they did)

2. Make them private and post a disclaimer in each post (for anyone joining mid-stream) that they need to sign up for YouTube, then let me know their user name, so I can add them to my list of friends.
This seems like quite a bit of work and definately delays the instant gratification of seeing the videos I've posted online.

3. I suppose there could be an option 3 now that Google owns YouTube.

EDIT: Actually, I don't need to wait on Option 3. I checked out Google Video and you can set a video not to be indexed, but still post it to a Web site. So, I'll have to check how it would look in my blog but I might just do that.

A Long Walk

Ethan and I took a walk today, only about a mile down to the local auto store so I could get some adhesive for my car mirror. On the way back we stopped by and got some homemade Sorbet down near the Waltham Commons. Ethan and I sat on a bench, he had a little taster spoon and I had a regular one. We just sat there eating sorbet, I had to help Ethan get some, but he kept reaching over with his spoon saying "scoop".

I know that I'll remember this afternoon. I hope when he's a little older, I'll still make time to do things like this with him.

Snack Time

Here's the second installment. Ethan didn't really doesn't eat much more cupcake than you see in the video. But he sure was cute eating it.

First video

Not only did I update my archives, update some blog links, and add titles to my posts... I decided to go all the way and get some video.

It was actually very easy, so I want to do more and I'll be sure to keep posting them here when I do.

So, I was reading through my own archives, while I was checking some pages to make sure they worked and stumbled across a post from last year.

I am happy to report that Ethan still loves to see me come home after work and still runs through the kitchen to give me a big huge when I get come in.

Then he drags me to the front door to take him to the park.

The archives are updated. It wasn't easier than I expected... until I got it done. I'm sure my dad knows what I'm talking about.

The trouble was that I have my FTP settings (so the server folder path) for Blogger defined in one part of the settings and I was trying to re-state the folder structure in the archive settings. Blogger didn't like that and wasn't creating archives.
So, the easy part was changing it to just a relative path from where my blog.html page resides.

Except that, I couldn't get the URL path upto my archive folder working. Blogger says it will append the archive file name to the path I provide, but it wasn't. So, I just had to copy all the archive pages the system created and paste them into my main folder. I was really hoping to keep these in a sub-folder, but that doesn't look like it's going to work. Oh well.

Anyway, you can now go back through all 3 glorious years of my postings.

BUSY! Life is busy, always. Doesn't matter when, something keeps us busy.

Mia and I were talking yesterday about how she's always looking forward to the weekends (cause I'm around to take care of Ethan) but then, once it arrives, she's just thinking about how the next week is coming up.

I am fortunate(?) to have a pretty consistent schedule 7 days a week. I wake up, get Ethan out of bed, change him and start feeding him breakfast.
Then I either go to work, or go to work taking care of Ethan.

After work-day work, I come home and take care of Ethan usually by going to the park, sitting on the porch, or playing with him in the living room.

On an Ethan-day work, we usually spend the morning lounging around the house. Sometimes I'll watch Xaiolin Showdown. Then we go to the park for about 2 hours before lunch.
Ethan takes a nap, usually 2 hours (or at least when we are lucky).

In the afternoon, it's more park time. We do something to get outside because he gets so stir-crazy when we keep him inside all afternoon.

Then, after work (work-work or Ethan-work) I make dinner for all of us. Then I give Ethan his bath. Bath time usually requires a lot of chasing Ethan around the house trying to get his clothes off. After bathtime he loves to go jump on his bed while we put on pajamas. Then, after I put him down and leave the room Ethan cries for a while. Actually he cries out for Daddy (and Mommy) but unfortunately we have to leave him to fall asleep.

UPDATE: Mia's rebuttal here :p

The Class

How I Met Your Mother

Heros

I think that Mia has posted this, but in case we haven't told anyone yet, Ethan is going through another development spurt.

It's kind of like a growth spurt except that he isn't getting any taller. He is, however, learning new words at a rate of about 100 a minute. I guess that's a little fast, but he is repeating everything we say and then using those words later. It's really incredible to see this language boom. I think that something in his little brain has clicked and he is really starting to connect what he says to ideas and objects.

He is even learning how to be polite. When he gives us something (or we give him something) he says his version of 'Thank you' and then immediately afterwards says 'welcome'
It's very cute (another word that he knows and says)

We are listening to Conference right now from home. It's great since Ethan is napping right now and we would miss it otherwise.

Also nice because it's raining and we get to just stay inside today.

Oh, and we are sooooooo excited to go to CO for Christmas :-p