Rocking and Talking at Home

Winter Morning

Nothing says "good morning" like bed head, mismatched socks, rummaging through Mama's wallet and carrying around a deodorant from Papa's gym bag. Hello toddlerhood!

Note that Ethan is walking down the stairs all my himself here. Two days after this video was taken he slipped while descending these same stairs and got a sweet rug burn on his face. I'm sure he will be glad that that fine moment was not captured on video.

Hannukah

Ethan loved-loved-loved the candles, though he looks indifferent in these photos. I think he is pictured here conniving a way to touch the flames. He never did manage that one.


On the fourth night we almost burned down the house when a couple of candles fell out of the menorah. The remaining scortch marks on the dining room table will hopefully serve as a reminder to discuss fire saftey with young Ethan in the years to come.

As Hannukah fell in the midst of an intense week of study for Jody and at the end of Jeremy's independent student-teaching at a local middle school, our celebration was low-key. However, on the final night we did make time to fry up some sweet potato latkes and hang out with med school buddies. It was a perfect way to begin a nice long vacation for our busy family.

Baby Doll

BabbleTalking

Ethan has been a little slow to start talking. He makes all kinds of exciting and emphatic babbling baby sounds but has not found many words. Considering how terrible I am at predicting his needs ("Do you want water? No? Do you want to go outside? Are you hungry? Tired? Do your teeth hurt? Do you want a banana? Crayons? Oh, you want me to turn on the radio!"), I am surprised that desperation didn't motivate him to start chatting sooner. But for whatever reason, we have been hobbling along with the words "No" and "Mama" and a few signs. However, I am starting to feel changes afoot. This week he started saying:

Cheese ("eeze" with a hand on the fridge door)
Book ("boo" with two hands on top of each other, a new variation of the baby sign for book)
Down (while grabbing at the highchair buckles and feverishly trying to unclip)
Ball ("baa")
More ("mo" with a dainty finger pointing into the empty bowl)
Done (sounds just like down and occurs at about the same time...)

I hope this is the beginning of the language explosion I've heard so much about. A toddling talking troublemaker is just what the doctor ordered.

Happy Halloween

Ethan and I went trick-or-treating in the rain in our little grad student neighborhood with two of our little buddies from the playground (who were unintentionally dressed in identical lion costumes!).

Our little lobster loved ringing doorbells and picking candy out of bowls/cauldrons/baskets and dropping each shiny little packet into our pumpkin bag. His dexterity was somewhat limited by the fistful of candy that he refused to let go of all night. A sad peanut butter cup met its fate in the lobster claw. The melted chocolate can be seen below.

Ethan had never eaten candy before and thus has no attachment to the sweet morsels other than to hold onto them. In the spirit of unhealthy indulgence, I let him have a cherry lollipop, which only managed to keep his attention for a few minutes. I have no idea how we'll manage this gluttonous holiday in the future, when he really understands the sinful deliciousness that is the Butterfinger. For now, it's up to mama and papa to keep our sweet teeth under control.

A Busy Autumn

Fall in New England is an incredible sight to behold. In between naps and snacks and laundry and studying and rugby matches and baby dance parties (see below), we've been taking in the beautiful autumn leaves. There are many lovely trails behind our neighborhood that have provided wonderful respite for myself and sometimes my little buddy in the backpack.

These pics are from a little hike across the border in Vermont up Gile Mountain. It's mighty windy on the top of the fire tower and the view is awesome.

Here are some of the other things we've been up to:

White Coat Ceremony

I got my first white coat earlier this month. The ceremony featured a brief but excellent speech by my new hero, Dr. Jim Kim. Even though it looks pretty spiffy, I don't intend to wear the coat again for at least another year and a half, when I start my rotations through the hospital.

Teething

Ethan has been insane with tooth pain as two more molars and his top canines work their way through the gums. None of these new teeth are fully in, but once they break through the surface, everything seems to cool down. He now points to the Tylenol whenever he is sad. I hope it isn't habit-forming.

Dancing and Daycare

Ethan loves it at daycare these days. He still cries at drop off (perhaps just to give the impression that he loves us) but has a ton of fun playing throughout the day. They play music on the stereo and all the munchkins dance around like little, uncoordinated animals. Now Ethan insists that we put on music whenever we're home and breaks out his sweet moves (video forthcoming!). We're taking suggestions for good kid's music.

Learning

Jeremy spends four days a week in the classroom and he is rapidly learning how to engage the tweens. He's also reading tons of young adult fiction.

I spend many hours a day memorizing the names of arteries, cell cycles checkpoint proteins and mucus glands. We're jut about to start the pelvis in anatomy and reproduction in histology, which I think I will like a little better than the gallbladder.

Ethan is learning to talk. He has been saying "no" for months (what does that say about our parenting?) and babbles on in very emphatic but unintelligible baby talk. To my delight he just added two gems to his vocabulary: "baby" for the bald dollies he likes to feed during snacktime and, my personal favorite, "mama". Oh, sweetness.

Bare Bottoms Rule

Clap Your Hands

In the last couple of weeks Ethan has learned to clap whenever we say "Yeah!", receive high fives (still no active giving five), make the sign "eat" - sometimes frantically, as though he cannot go on without another handful of raisins - and feed himself sloppily with a spoon. Cuteness.

Apple Picking

This morning we went apple picking at Poverty Lane Orchard in Lebanon. It was an absolutely stunning fall day. Ethan ate his own pint-sized apple and Jeremy and I had a few too many Macouns. Ethan had such a hard time standing in the tall grass that we even sat around together as a family for a half hour without having to chase after him. That is a treat we have rarely experienced since the little man went bipedal in July!

I am thankful for some quiet, family time. My medical school coursework has picked up in intensity (although I am experiencing what many before have said - that the material is not particularly difficult or intellectually challenging, just voluminous) and Jeremy is taking on some more responsibility as a student-teacher at Richmond Middle School. We are on the go so much these days - shuffling off to school, daycare, rugby practice, studying, laundry, dishes. It is lovely just to sit in the grass together and eat apples.

Squeakity Squeak

Mike and Amanda Kruse brought Ethan a pair of squeaky sandals back from India. They are fun and silly and really annoying. He only gets to wear them on special occasions.

Squeakers in action:

Sneaky tooth 2.0

While coping with a high fever from some mysterious (day care associated?) virus, Ethan also managed to bust out another tooth. Symmetry and sanity are restored.

Family Fun

The Epsteins and Mitchells rendezvoused in Sachem Village, our new (and bizarrely Stepford) grad student housing development. Unfortunately, Ethan was fighting a wicked virus and was feverish and quite crabby throughout the visit. We were able to have a little fun (and snap a few pics) after the Tylenol kicked in.

Sneaky tooth

Ethan got a new tooth! Neither of us had any idea he was working on it until a few days ago, when I went on an exploratory mission around his gums. Lo! I found a half-emerged molar. No wonder he's been so crabby at night...

Emma and Maisie

Emma and Jody went to high school together
and Maisie just celebrated her 4 month birthday.
So nice to have new-old friends to help us settle in.