Post!

We have some great pictures of Ethan that I'll bug Mia to get up on her blog. :P

Or maybe I'll take some time and do it myself. I've been pretty lazy about that for the last few months.
But, that's not what I want to talk about today.

Actually, the fact that I am posting at all is pretty amazing. I spent nearly the entire 8.5 hours that I was at work writing an article that we are going to get published in a trade journal in the workflow process and remittance payment industries. I pumped out 1000 words of the 1200 that we are alloted, though I saved the room for a customer quote that we are hoping to get tomorrow.

If this doesn't seem like a feat, which it didn't to one of my friends as I chatted with him after work, let me just tell you that it was. Mentally it was exhausting as I had to research some fairly technical topics (Check21 standards for example).
However, I did get through it all and hopefully got enough of our messages in to make the article worthwhile to us.

On the other hand, with my manager being away for the last 10 weeks, my other co-worker in marketing and I have been handling all our work and the administrative aspects of our department that she normally deals with. I have to say that I would rather rack my brains for 8 hours writing up 1000 words than chase people around for the same amount of time... or most likely longer.

Anyway, when we get published, I'll post a link (if the article is available online) and you can see how I spend my days.
Actually, you can see some of the fruits of my labors if you check out the newsletters for my company. I write the feature article every month.

Ok, that's about all I have the energy to muster tonight. I'm off to bed.

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.

Since Monica doesn't have comments turned on...

The way that Mia and I found was best to get Ethan sleeping through the night was just to set up a bedtime routine. Having a consistent bathtime, storytime, and bedtime made a big difference in getting him to sleep through the night.

I'm writing this as I sit in front of an open window in our living room. Today has been so cool thanks to some passing rain. Which surprisingly hasn't made teh whole city humid, just pleasant.

Our house is actually cool and getting some fresh air into our house is quite refreshing too.

Ethan has been going through a good time lately. He's so active, talking so much, learning new words. In fact, he's recently learned the concept of "my" and now instead of asking for "cup" he asks for "my cup". It's not gotten too far beyond cup, there are some other words he attachs my to, but not everything yet.

Today, he was so happy just being home with us. Normally he wants to go outside, which we couldn't because of the rain, but Ethan didn't seem to mind today. Sunday's can sometimes be hard, the 13 hour days including 3 hours of church can be very exhausting.

Also, as I write this, Ethan is in his room talking to himself. He's been having a tough time going to sleep at night. Not trouble really, he just doesn't want to leave us. So he sits up talking for a while, then cries for a while, then falls asleep. We've thought about keeping him up later, but we don't want to set that precedent. He still needs lots of sleep, and we want to keep an early bedtime for his health and our sanity.

I must be the most proud father in the world. I was getting ready to give Ethan a bath on Friday and put him on the potty, like I've been doing the last few days. Except that this time he actually went! I clapped and cheered him on so that he would know that this was a good thing.

He was very proud of himself too. And then he reached back and flushed the toliet. Which is another thing that he likes to do.
((I know Mia already wrote about this tonight, but I got to be here for a first with him. I was so excited))

Also, his vocabulary has been growing so fast. He is really repeating alot of what we say now days. I guess we'll have to clean up our language 0_0

I received a call from Mia today while I was at work. She told me that some friends of ours from church had just lost their son. He was only a few months older than Ethan, he would have been two in October.
While getting ready to go out to the beach yesterday, he had run out into the parking lot and was hit by a truck.

I tried not to think about this during work but since the drive home I've had a hard time thinking about anything else. We live on such a precarious line between life and death. Especially thinking about such young children. I have a difficult time coming to grips with the loss of so much exuberance for life. Little boys, especially Ethan and this little boy too, have so much energy. They laugh about everything and want to explore the world. Having a son of my own, I feel a personal sense of loss because I know the parents. I can't imagine what they must be feeling.

Fortunately, with the gospel in our lives I do know that they have the comfort of looking forward to re-uniting with their son after this life. The missed chances to be with him now are not missed chances for eternity. I hope that this knowledge will give them enough comfort to help them through this tough time.

Ok, Ok, I know that it's been a loooooooong while since I posted. Really not much excuse for it, I've just been bad about loading up this site.

So, what's been happening to us in August? Well, Mia and I have been married for 6 years. So we are offically out of the "dangerzone" for marriages that fail in the first 5 or so years. We are going strong so I'm not worried at all about hitting 10 years and then it's all just smooth sailing :)

Ethan is also growing up every day. His current vocabulary consists of:
Fire Truck (for anything that moves)
Bike (Ok, he does differentiate this one)
See ya pee (and then he flushes the toliet)
buckle (for the buckles on his high chair and car seat that he then plays with, but wont' climb into either on his own)

And he's learned that jumping is fun. Off of everything. Espeically if someone is holding his hand.

Just thought I'd do a quick update here.

It's Hot! Yes, with a capital 'H' and an exclaimation point. That's how I feel about the weather.

And Humid. You can judge my level of dislike for the humidity using the same cues as above. It's not been too humid lately, but we've been getting lots of rainstorms (with thunder and lightening) that keep the air wet.

However, all this miserable weather has a good side. When we take Ethan out to a spray park, or just to a playground, he gets really, really tired afterwards. We can put him down for a good nap, or a good night's sleep at the end of the day.

And, it still beats the winters! (note the punctuation)

Dislikes: Yeast
Likes: Icepacks

This is my first blog post on my laptop.

What? Yup, that's right, I now have a laptop. Finally.

It's great, I can now do my editing for WFM (World Forge) while still getting to be with Mia in the living room. Normally we spend our evenings apart (mostly because the office is still being cleaned and there's just not a space for a second person to sit down right now) while Mia watches TV and I do my editing or other work on the computer.

We also set up a wireless network (and secured it) so I can do this post from the living room. Sweet.