Memories of Ethan

--Ethan is so obsessed with trains, it seem that's all he thinks about. He has started watching train videos on You Tube now instead of playing his educational computer games. He hasn't stopped learning, though. He is continually learning new words and different ways to use them. He can read a few words and when he's in the mood he can spell some, too. (September, 2008)

--Ethan has just started calling bugs "buggers". One day he was playing behind the couch, building his train track and we heard him saying, "Excuse me, bugger. Bugger, excuse me." over and over. Shaun went to investigate and saw a little ant crawling on one of the track pieces that Ethan was trying to play with. What a polite boy, I would have smashed the thing. (April, 2008)

--Ethan has really become quite the artist. He has always loved to draw, but his drawings have much more purpose to them now. He has started drawing faces (which are the cutest little bunch of circles I've ever seen!) and he has surprised me with drawing letters already. I don't know if this is all that early for that, I just can't remember knowing any 2 year old that could write letters, so I was surprised the first time he drew an H and it wasn't accidental. (March, 2008)

--While learning his lower-case letters, Ethan has decided that the lower-case K is a "broken K". Every time he sees one he says, "uh-oh, broken K". He has had us "shake" the house to break K's, and will then say "oh, no we broke the K". While we were driving the other day he saw a capital K on a sign and told us that that K "works". Well of course it works, it's not "broken." :) (January, 2008)

--Ethan really likes piggy banks. While we were visiting my sister in November 2007, I left him watching "Super Why" with Spencer on the couch just for a minute to put some laundry away. Ethan came running into the bedroom and told me something about a pig. There is a pig on "Super Why" so I didn't think much of what he was saying until Spencer let out an unusual wail. I went running and saw Spencer lying on the couch with drool all over his face, but he had stopped crying. He looked like he might be choking on spit-up so I sat him up. He was still trying to cry and looked like he was in pain, so I flipped him over and gave him a few pats on the back and out popped a penny. I then realized that Ethan was trying to tell me that Spencer was a piggy bank. Scary!

--At 2 1/2 (Jan. 2008) Ethan has started calling Mommy and Daddy 'Mom' and 'Dad'. Isn't he too young for that?!

--At 2 1/2 Ethan also loves to learn. He can recognize all of the letters of the alphabet (capital) and knows their sounds. He is learning the lower-case letters, too. He can also recognize all of the basic shapes and knows the colors red, green, orange, and blue. Ethan can count to 10 and can usually recognize the numbers 1-10 also. It seems like Ethan learns 5 new words a day. He surprises us almost everyday by using a word or phrase we didn't think he knew.