Halloween 2012

Ethan took these next two shots (plus about 40 extreme close-ups of his own face, the top of our heads, grass, the siding on our house...)

En route to the Halloween Party, Sam chews his tail...

... and Ethan works on his princess coloring sheets.

Notice the toes

 Notice the cute monkey

Back in the neighborhood...

A parade wherein Ethan mostly just pokes our neighbor, Woody, and burns with anticipation for candy.

 

Jody: What does a dragon say?

Ethan: Claw, claw, breath!

CANDY!

I wore an awesome pirate costume (complete with sword and lone hoop earring) created from found material at home 10 minutes before trick-or-treating.  After seeing my sword, Ethan wanted to smuggle his own weapon up under his costume.  That was forbidden, so instead he began bolting from house to house at top speed, hauling in the sweet stuff.  He was not so pleased to take a break for photos.

So, in summary:

Duck Bath: Then and Now

A Few Days of Peaceful Play

Look!  Sometimes Ethan is not trying to smother Sam!

 

 

Little Bug

New Friends

It has been a challenge for us to build community here. Rarely a day goes by that we don't miss our many dear friends back in Madison with their crazy kids and similar values and bike-freindly neighborhoods.  Here, we live in grad student housing, so there are other families around but there is often something in the way of us making deep freindships: the kids are mostly younger than Ethan or on a different schedule than us (how often have we seen buddies go out to play exactly when we sit down to eat or lie down for a nap!) or we don't connect at all with the parents or we love the parents but our kids fight and try to smash each other with trucks, driving grown-ups to the brink of insanity.  The few buddies we've really connected with in our neighborhood (here's your shout-out Nidhi, Morgane and Jenny!) have moved away.  I have quite a few good friends in medical school but nearly none of them have children so they can't really fulfill Ethan's profound desire to play with other kids and our endless need to talk/vent/commiserate/revel/joke/go-on-and-on about our kids and the crazy world of parenting. 

So it is no surprise that we are REALLY excited to have a new family of friends just down the block.  Ethan pretty much spends all day asking when he can play with four-year-old Donovan and his little brother Quinn.  There are many squabbles over toys and who will be first and Ethan is rough and controlling with Quinn but there is much sweetness too.  And sometimes we even get to chat with their awesome mama Marcy for more than two sentences!  So, here's to new friends! 

(Thanks to Marcy for the photos.)

* Footnote: Ethan relishes the one-on-one, high-energy attention some of my childless friends lavish on him - so please keep swinging him around by his ankles and playing chase and croquet with him at Emma's parties!