Professional Liar

This is once again long overdue… but, here is an update. Sorry for no pictures too. The computer at home is acting up so I’m posting this from work.

So, as Ethan continues to develop it appears one skill that he’s ahead of the curve in is lying. My mom says it’s genetic because Nick and I supposedly recreationally lied growing up. This is 100% false. Anyway, he lies about anything and everything. Last week he got in trouble for hitting a kid at daycare and when my mom asked him about it he said he hit the kid because the kid bit when he was trying to go down the slide. Things did not happen that way… they were two separate incidents. He did get bit by a kid… but that was at McDonald’s; not daycare. He also likes to blame Homer when he passes gas. That’s pretty funny… not sure where he picked it up. Probably Kari. It’s fun when you catch him doing something he’s not supposed to be doing… the tales he weaves are very entertaining sometimes. Last night we were playing hockey in the driveway with the new street hockey stick I got for him and at one point he had wandered off and I looked over and he was beating the beejeezus out of a bush with the stick. I said ‘hey! Knock it off!’ and he gave me one of those ‘oh crap I forgot you were there’ looks before saying ‘There was a weed, daddy… I was just trying to get rid of it.’ I have to admit that was really quick thinking on his part though. Even random times provide great opportunities to work on his ‘skill’. The other week he was lying with me in bed and we were talking about the smoke detector cause he asked me what it was and after I explained it to him he said ‘I have one of those in my room too… it keeps away the aliens’. I really enjoyed that. I didn’t even know he knew what an alien. Maybe he’s on to something though.

Since I last wrote Ethan has moved up another room at daycare. He’s now a Butterfly I think? I don’t know. But, the room is quite a bit bigger and there are more kids. He moved out of the other room pretty fast because the teachers thought he was ready for the next room. But, the fun part is he gets to do more exciting things like field trips and more parking lot play with bikes. They also instituted a new system of ‘Happy Grams’. He gets one each time he behaves well and makes ‘good decisions’. He loses them when he makes ‘bad decisions’. Once he gets 5 he gets to pick out a toy… essentially the ‘toy chest’ is everything that’s been rejected from the toys at the dentist office. So, it’s basically junk. But, Ethan enjoys it so I guess that’s what’s important. More often than not he’s really good and they tell us what a good helper/listener he is.

Speaking of bikes… Ethan got his first big boy bike with training wheels. It’s a Lightning McQueen bike. He really enjoys it… He’s crashed a few times but nothing too serious. Though, he doesn’t really pay attention when he’s biking and that’s where most of the problems come from. He looks at everything but the sidewalk/path in front of him and when his head turns so does the bike and into the grass he goes. I’m not sure why this surprises me since he does the same thing when he sits on my lap and drives my car. Another example of lying was when I was walking with him on the path he did what I described above and went racing into the grass… I tried to explain to him that he needs to pay attention so that doesn’t happen and he informed me that he meant to do that because there was a gas station at that exact place and his bike needed gas.

Another big accomplishment for Mr. Boogerface is his progression with swimming. All summer long he would hang on me whenever we were in the pool. I tried swimmies once and they lasted 5 minutes before he threw them off. A couple weeks back up at my parents he learned how to swim by himself with floaties or a lifejacket. Most of this had to do with the little girl who lives next door to my parents. Ethan and she are pretty much inseparable when we’re up there. She’s about 18 months older than Ethan but they play non-stop and she could swim with a jacket and god forbid Ethan gets shown up. He saw her in the water swimming by herself and he was going to do it himself after that. Now, he jumps in with floaties without a second thought. He even goes off the diving board. It’s a lot of fun to watch.

A couple weeks back I had a pretty unpleasant week at work. I was working 12-22 hour days so I didn’t have much time with Ethan and when I finally got to go home and play with him one night we went to the park. At the park there is a monster truck looking deal that sits on top of a spring and rocks back and forth. Well, the spring is pretty stiff and Ethan wasn’t really moving all that much so I had the brilliant idea that I’d pull the toy down and let it go and he’d get a good ride. Nothing could go wrong there, right? So, I pulled, let go and BAM it sprung back and basically ended up with Ethan punching himself in the mouth really, really hard because the bar sprung back and hit him. He cut his lips and gums, but thankfully didn’t knock out any teeth. I think the only thing that saved him was that his hands hit his mouth and not the metal bar he was holding on to. So, I felt pretty awesome. I spent basically a week away and then I show up and bloody his face. Father of the Year for sure…

A couple mornings each week Kari takes Ethan to Hy-Vee to get him a donut or cinnamon roll for breakfast. Becoming the regulars that they are they’ve gotten to know some older individuals who are there most mornings as well getting coffee. Ethan now refers to them as his friends. Often times his ‘friends’ give him a hard time about one thing or the other but he loves it. He looks forward to seeing them. I guess Lloyd Christmas was right when he said ‘Senior citizens, although slow and dangerous behind the wheel, can still serve a purpose.’ They keep my kid entertained as well.

In August Kari took Ethan to the Iowa State Fair. They had a blast. Ethan checked out all the animals and especially liked the giant boar and giant bull. He was also able to see some baby ducks, rabbits, pigs and sheep. Ethan also did sand art, where you pour different layers of colored sand into an object. He picked a baseball to fill up. Ethan had a fun time going down the giant slide. He rode on Kari’s lap, but was very brave. Walking around the fair he loved seeing all the tractors and golf carts driving around. He got to ride on the back of a tractor and was in heaven. Kari let him choose one midway ride to go on and he chose an airplane. He had a lot of fun being up high and looking down at the fairgrounds. When they got home Ethan crashed on the couch and left some interesting drool marks behind on the cushions…

As far as Ethan himself… he continues to grow, get more ornery, get more loving and impress me with the conversations we have. He still doesn’t quite understand action/consequence and saying he enjoys being naughty is a huge understatement. I think he has now perfected his ‘I was just naughty and I think it’s funny’ laugh. He still cries about nothing and it drives me insane. But, he likes to say ‘I love you, daddy’ and ‘I love you, mommy’ and random times. It melts your heart.

Some fun stories:
Ethan sings all the time. All sorts of songs… and despite my efforts to introduce him to Tool, Distrubed, Slipknot and other bands on that genre he tends to focus on nursery rhymes. Lame. Anyway, the other week he was singing Farashaka but instead of Farashaka he was singing ‘Where is shaca?’ Good stuff.

Some mornings before school, Ethan puts up a weather forecast on the fridge with his alphabet magnets. Yellow letters are for a sunny day, blue letters are for a rainy day and red letters are for a cold day. Not sure where the idea came from, but he just started doing it one day.

While up in Minnesota my mom and dad took Ethan to the park in my car… the entire time Ethan was telling them that my car was broken and there were all sorts of things wrong with it. My parents were starting to get concerned so they started questioning him. He continued with his story before finally telling my mom and dad ‘I was just messing with you.’ Nice.

Whenever you ask Ethan not to do something, he has a pretty consistent response… he’s always JUST doing something.
‘Ethan, quit throwing water on the floor’
‘I was just washing the floor for you.’

‘Ethan, please don’t put candy in your milk.’
‘I was just making myself a treat’

You get the picture… fun game, huh?

For my birthday last weekend we got a model rocket. I haven’t had one of those in forever. The wind was probably blowing 20+ MPH on Saturday but we were going to launch that rocket no matter what. Once Ethan gets something in his head it’s going to happen or he’ll hound you non-stop. Off we went to the park with a big open field. Up the rocket went… into the wind the rocket went on its descent never to be found again. We got to witness both the maiden and final voyage of that rocket all at once. So, Sunday Ethan and I headed back to the hobby store and picked up another one. Again, the wind was blowing pretty hard but Ethan wanted to launch so we of course did. This time the parachute got tangled and never fully opened so the rocket plummeted 600+ onto concrete. It cracked the base and chipped off a piece of one of the fins but Ethan and I ‘fixed’ it and had a perfectly launch and recovery Tuesday night.

Sunday, while we were at the hobby store, we discovered they were going to be racing remote control trucks on the dirt track outside of the store. So, we killed some time watching them practice and then ended up watching quite a few races. Ethan was fascinated with it… more than once he told me ‘we should probably take one of those home.’ But, it was a good time. Ethan sat there for over 2 hours just watching. So, I’m excited to take him to the real races up in MN now next summer.

Also, this weekend Ethan attended his first friend parties. On Saturday he went to a party for a kid who is moving to a new ‘school’(daycare). He got to play with a bunch of friends there and did the same thing on Sunday at another kid from his daycare birthday party. Such a big boy now….

Last time we were up in MN we took Ethan to the train yard in North Minneapolis. Did my parents ever take Nick or me there…? Nooooo… But, now that Ethan is around I guess we can make the trip. Anyway, Ethan loved it. We got to watch quite a few trains move around the yard and watch them break down a train on the hump track.