June Update

Sunglasses and his favorite food right now... chocolate donuts.

Little nerd.

Hanging out in the front yard

Playing catch with his velcro/tennis ball contraptions

Crazy hair

Big wheel!

Again!

Today is June 26th and its a cool 95 degrees with 80% humidity bringing the heat index to 105. Awesome. It went from 70s to this in two days. Really Mother Nature?! That’s how you’re going to play things? Needless to say I’m miserable, tired of this weather already and contemplating a move to an arctic latitude. The next 3 months are going to be wretched.
Anyway… in the last update I failed to mention we had Ethan’s first visit to the ER. As you have probably figured out he’s fine, but it was kind of scary there for a little while. We were at Ben and Ellen’s for a afternoon of grilling and when we returned home we noticed Ethan’s eye was red and almost swollen shut. Kari checked his eye and it looked like there was something growing over the eyeball itself. Now, the internet is both an incredibly useful tool and a great way to scare the crap out of yourself at the same time. The closest thing we could find to what looked like what Ethan had was some disease I can’t pronounce and basically leads to a lifetime of surgeries to keep the growth back. Sweet. Anyway, we called and they told us to bring him in so they could check it. To make a long story short his eye was fine, he doesn’t have that disease and they believe something actually got into the eye tissue itself and his eye couldn’t wash itself out. And the part that looked like it was actually growing over his eye was actually the eye tissue itself swelling up. Anyway, the irrigated his eye and gave us a prescription for drops to give him the next week or so. What started out as a rather nerve wracking experience ended up being pretty tame. I almost forgot the best part of the story… they had a TV in the exam room so I didn’t have to miss any of Game 5 of the Pittsburgh/Detroit Stanley Cup series. In our mad rush to leave I forgot to set the DVR to record. Whew… that was a close one.

The other week I had a work picnic and Ethan did really well. He was quick to warm up to complete strangers and had a great time playing with a bunch of them. Its nice to see that he’s not like his daddy was at that age and doesn’t need to be surgically removed from his mother’s hip when strangers are around. Speaking of strangers… we were outside last week and a couple neighbor kids came over and told us a rather unnerving story. Apparently they were out the night before and a guy in a car kept driving by really slow, then he’d turn around and drive back by again and he had his cell phone out and aimed at them. Thankfully they told their parents and the parents cornered the guy in our cul-de-sac, checked his cell phone, and got all of his information. His explanation was that he was just ‘looking for his friends and messing with the kids’. Hopefully getting caught by the parents scared him off regardless of what he was doing here. You hear these stories all the time but you never think you’ll have to deal with it. It was really disappointing to hear about something like that happening in our neighborhood which outside of the fact its all old people has been really good to us.

Ethan also attended his second I-Cubs game last week. He had a really good time and sat with Papa Smith most of the game. He did really well. The first time we went it was 1 million degrees and Ethan wanted no part of sitting in his chair. This time he still didn’t pay much attention to the game but was content to sit on Jim’s lap and play. We probably could have made it the entire game but it was getting late so we bailed after 6.5 innings. I was really impressed though… he’s maturing more and more each day. People say the same thing about me.

This past Friday Ethan spent the night in Winterset with Papa and grandma. Ellen, Kari, Ben and myself had dinner and then watched the movie ‘The Hangover’. Everyone who happens to read this that isn’t named Mike Brett should go see it. Hands down the funniest movie I’ve seen since Old School. Anyway, Papa actually spent a majority of the night with Ethan cause Linda had to get ready for a wedding that was taking place on Saturday. I’m fairly confident Jim missed the opportunity to brainwash Ethan into cheering for the Yankees. Not that it would work cause I’ve spent 2+ years preaching to Ethan the evilness of that franchise. Anyway, I believe the highlight of the evening was Jim taking Ethan for a ride in the big tractor. He showed Ethan how to go faster by pushing the handle forward and they took a trip to visit Aunt Vera. I believe he had a really good time doing that. Last year he was intimidated by the tractor’s size but this year he got right in. Before we got there Saturday morning Ethan spent the day with Linda. I have no idea what they did though. We got there while Ethan was napping so I took the opportunity to do the same. Before you judge me you have to know that while Ethan was gone and I should have been able to sleep in I instead had the dog up in my grill whining at 5:00 AM. Yes, its true… I can’t win. So, you can clearly see a nap was deserved. Anyway, nothing real excited took place while we were there. We had the annual Father’s Day picnic on Sunday. Thank goodness they had a shelter with shade or I may not have made it.

Tonight we took Ethan to the Altoona Aquatic Park for the first time. He had a great time! Our friends Jill and Alex came with and brought their daughter Sarah and son Asa who is 1. Ethan played with Asa some last weekend and he was excited to play with him again. He showed no fear of the water and, against my orders, ran in and out of the pool countless times. I asked him several times not to run but I’ll let you figure out how well that went.

Here are some random stories from the last two weeks or so:
One night Ethan and I were playing in his room and he kept saying ‘Daddy, cry!’ So, I’d fake cry and Ethan would lie down next to me, give me a hug, pat my back and say ‘its ok, daddy’. Other times while I was ‘crying’(I put that in quotes cause I’m too manly to cry for real) he would hand me a stuffed animal and ask if that was ok. It was pretty cute. That same night he asked me if I wanted some milk or a vitamin and when I said yes he’d hand me imaginary milk to drink or an imaginary vitamin to take. That is the first time I’d ever seen him use his imagination that way. It was pretty cool. Apparently he’s worried about my health or doesn’t think I’m getting enough calcium. Do I see Ethan Robert Brett, MD in the future? I hope so… as long as he doesn’t think I’m paying for it. : )

Lately Ethan and I have been playing a lot of hide and seek. Usually I just duck behind doors or in closets or something easy like that. Then I jump out and scare him, he screams, then laughs and yells ‘my turn!’ He then proceeds to hide in the place where I just was and I have to pretend that I don’t know where he is and ask ‘Where’s Ethan?’ He then jumps out, I scream(the manly way of course) and then we both laugh. I’ve noticed sometimes he hides in plain sight and adopts the Homer philosophy of ‘if I’m not looking at him he doesn’t see me.’ So, I pretend I can’t see cause ridiculing a two year old’s hiding places is below even me.

We spend every nice night we can outside playing in the yard. Ethan and I play some basketball and I pick him up so he can dunk it and he really enjoys that. We also play some hockey(which I of course love). He enjoys using my full sized stick more than his little one. Though, the other night I wasn’t paying attention and Ethan wound up for a monster slapper and whiffed on the ball and got my shin instead. That hurt more than a little… now before you all laugh at me I still have a bruise today and the area around the bruise is all green so it had some force behind it. At least I know Ethan will be able to take care of himself out there… he’ll be the first mite enforcer ever.

Ethan is really proficient with his truck now. He backs it up and steers with no problems. He’s still learning his big wheel, but he’s making progress. The biggest problem is he can’t easily reach the pedals. Someday soon he’ll be cruising down the cul-de-sac though. Another thing Ethan really enjoys is helping us pick weeds in the yard. Finally he’s doing his part to earn his keep! Its only taken 2.5 years but we’re making progress!

Not only is Ethan enjoying playing/watching hockey he now gets excited about cars!! Woo hoo! He loves pointing out mommy and daddy’s cars in parking lots. He recognizes Ellen, Linda and Jim’s cars as well. We were in the front yard one night and the same make/model car as Linda’s drove by and Ethan said ‘that my grandma’s car.’ A while later the same thing happened with Ellen’s car and he yelled out ‘Ellen!’ And he hasn’t seen Jim’s car all that often but as soon as Jim got to the picnic yesterday he said ‘papa’s here.’

The latest song to be added to Ethan’s repertoire of songs is ‘Wheels on the bus.’ He loves singing along and doing all the motions. In the last couple weeks he has also learned to sing the entire ABC song by himself. Its really fun to listen to. Along those lines he’s getting easier and easier to understand. He seems to use new words each and everyday. Its so much fun to see him take part in conversations he probably didn’t understand even a month ago.

I think that’s it for now.

Cheers,
Joel

Video of Ethan driving his big wheel: