Well, it finally happened. After 4+ years of anticipation I finally got Ethan on skates on the ice. And.... it was a blast! It went better than I could have hoped for. That morning we went to the hockey store, got Ethan some hockey gloves, elbow pads and got his skates sharpened. I wanted to get him a helmet as well but the cheapest one they had for Ethan's age was $110. No one's head is that valuable and I didn't want to spend all that money and have him hate it. So, I'll be looking online to get that. But, the entire day he was looking forward to going. Once we got there he got a little nervous and told me he didn't want to go. But, I told him we'd just try it and if he didn't like it we'd leave. After our skates were on we walked over to the ice and I held his hand so cause he wasn't sure of what to make with walking on the little blades. Once we got on the ice he started smiling and didn't really stop the entire time! I was so relieved! The first lap around I held him between my legs and then we took a break. I tried to hold his hand when we got off the ice but he told me no and that he could walk himself. I took that as positive sign. After a short break we were back at it. This time, I skated next to him and held his arm and he skated all by himself. One of the ladies there teaches the 'learn to skate' program and she recommended just trying to get him to more or less march. So, we ended up doing a lot of marching. But, Ethan was doing it all on his own. I would make Ethan skate red line to red line and then I'd pick him up, get skating really fast and then put him down and we'd glide going pretty fast. He really loved that. I wanted to let him try gliding on his own, but without a helmet I didn't think it was that great of an idea. Next time... We took a couple breaks in the players box which Ethan really liked. But, we spent probably 90% of the time actually skating. Ethan did so well! He made big improvements from when we first got there... AS LONG as he was paying attention. Ethan being the way he is gets distracted by pretty much anything. So, anytime he started looking around he'd fall. I really can't tell you how much fun I had though. He already is talking about skating outside up in Minnesota when it gets colder. I can't wait to share that with him. That is, hands down, one of my favorite things in this world.
Last week, Ethan got an invite to attend a Taekwondo class with on his friends from daycare. He was again nervous about actually doing anything. At first he told me he just wanted to watch. But, once we got there and he saw his friends out there he ran right and had a great time. They worked on some blocks, and kicks and combining the blocks and the kicks. He had a blast! So, it looks like he'll be starting that sometime soon. I think it'll be really good for him. They have to say 'yes, sir' to everything the instructor says so I think it'll help Ethan with discipline/learning. Plus, I'd like to know that if he any little sh-tface kids decided to bully Ethan he can apply some ninja death touch and when the bully comes to he'll have full pants cause he will have crapped himself.
Ethan's other activity, soccer, is finally beginning to wind down. I can't tell you how thankful for that I am. I really don't enjoy watching that. Mostly cause all but one of Ethan's games his team has gotten their ass handed to them. Ethan doesn't really seem to enjoy it that much either. Getting him to practice some nights can be a challenge. I will admit that he has fun during games though. However, he just doesn't have that competitive drive yet. It's kind of funny to watch him just running around with a smile. He's more than happy to just run with the pack and kick the ball when it comes near him. UNLESS, it is a free kick. Then, he's all about it. He also loves to go get the ball when it goes out of bounds and hand it to the coach. And, of course retrieve the ball from the net. Which he had more than just a little practice doing this season with all the aforementioned ass kicking he endured.
The other big news is that Ethan is schedule to get tubes in a couple weeks. He's had a few ear infections lately and the latest one actually caused his ear drum to rupture. We took him to the ENT and his hearing is 20% worse when the ear test was done from his ear instead of beind his ear. They also did some other test to see how much his ear drum moves. It is supposed to be a bell curve and Ethan's was totally flat which basically means his ear drum doesn't move at all. So, all those times i thought he was ignoring me or just not listening he actually has a legitimate excuse. The ENT said they also need to trim his adenoid but that the procedure is incredibly minor. Apparently, the adenoid is too big and that is what is forcing his eustachian tubes closed which is preventing the fluid from draining from behind his ears and that is what is causing his hearing problems. He said this is a critical time in speech development and he isn't hearing properly it may force him to have to go to speech therapy down the road. So, hopefully these tubes/adenoid trim do the trick and Ethan stays on track.
Speaking of health... last night Ethan got his flu shot. He was NOT happy about it. He had to be pinned down to actually get the shot and afterward cried for somewhere in the neighborhood of 10 minutes. I did take him to get a treat at Casey's afterward for being so brave... However, by the time we got there he said he couldn't walk because it hurt too bad. So, it was amusing to watch him jump around the candy aisle trying to find what he wanted. So, last night I carried him around and even getting him ready for bed was a hassle beacuse I couldn't even touch the area. This morning the first thing he told me was that the shot still hurt and he wanted to know if he still had to go to school. A little dramatic if you ask me...
So, over the year Kari and I have spent a considerable amount of money on toys to keep Ethan entertained. Who knew all he really needed was a bag of balloons? I'm not kidding... that $.02 balloon kept him entertained for house. He'd blow it up, let it go, watch it fly around/making farting noises, laugh hysterically and do it all again. It's amazing what keeps his attention when so often things I think are going to be big hits with him are cast aside within minutes.
Ethan also likes to use his cousin Easton as an example of all the things he can do as a big kid that a little kid can't do. I think Easton is really the only younger kid he knows so he likes to talk about how he gets to use the pumpkin carving big kid knife and Easton could only use the plastic scraper. Or, how Ethan can play on his upper bunk cause he's a big boy, but Easton would have to stay on the lower. I find it pretty all pretty amusing. If he only knew that Easton will be out of a car seat years before Ethan because you have to weight 45+ pounds and it'll take Ethan years to get there...
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