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.