Girlfriends...

Working hard decorating his valentine day box

After his last basketball game. He is not curtsying...

Going through all his valentines

Making Kylie's valentine

We made a snowman a couple weeks ago. He's a sad, little snow man... but, the snow sucked that day and I had already had two temper tantrums by this point. I'm mature.

For those of you keeping score at home... Ethan now has his very first girlfriend. As well as his second girlfriend. A couple weeks back he informed us he has a girlfriend and her name is Kylie. He also informed us that he has another girlfriend named Mia. Lucky fella... And, he only beat his dad by 12.5 or so years when it comes to getting a girlfriend. Nicely done. The best part is, when you ask him how he knows Kylie is his girlfriend he said 'because she told me she was.' Ha! That crap starts early. He needs to nip that nonsense in the bud ASAP and put that woman back her in place... :)

This week they celebrated Valentine's day at school. Ethan got to decorate a box. And, he also made Kylie a valentine. He did a pretty good job actually. Lots of hearts, flowers and girly colors. He made two little people and had us put little jewel eyes on them. Only, when he got to school his friends pulled the eyes off of one of the little people before he could give it to her.

When we got home from school that day he was telling me about his girlfriends and how they play together. He then informed me he has two boyfriends as well. This is a sampling of how that conversation went.

Ethan - 'i have two boyfriends too'

Me - 'no, you don't.'

Ethan - 'yes, i do. they're my boyfriends'

Me - 'ethan, no, you don't have boyfriends'

Ethan - 'dad, yes I do. two of them.'

Me - 'no, ethan... they aren't boyfriends. they're just your friends.'

Ethan (losing interest) - 'okay, dad. fine'

Not that I have a huge problem with any of that, but I felt ethan talking about his boyfriends was something I needed to nip in the bud...

I think I may have over-reacted some... but, before all that happened there were other 'incidents' that got my attenion. When i picked him up from day care that day he, and 3 of his "boy" friends, were playing with a big, pink princess castle. ethan had a princess in one hand and some kind of foo-foo dog in the other. That was mildly disappointing. Then, later while he's home examining his stash from the valentine's day party he found two people had given him Justin Bieber valentine's and he informed me that Justin Bieber is a really good singer before jumping right into singing 'baby, baby, baby... ohhhhhhhhhhhhh'. So, you can see how the princess play, him 1) knowing who justin bieber is and 2) singing his songs and the boyfriend thing got me a little on edge...

Speaking of singing... it appears Ethan has picked up one of my habits. Lately, he gets just a part of a song and sings it over and over and over. I've been known to do that on a pretty regular basis. And, what I've discovered about myself is that I'm pretty damn annoying. Sometimes though, he doesn't sing songs... he just makes really loud, obnoxious noises. That's even worse than the singing. And, speaking of noises(I'm the segue king), Ethan is really talented when it comes to making truck, tractor and race car noises. I'm impressed. He can do the revving... the accelerations and the high speed with a pretty realistic sound. I think it's from all the monster trucks and racing we watch together. And people say you can't learn anything from TV... Speaking of not learning anything from TV(BOOM, another one), Ethan LOVES the show 'Dumbest Stuff on Wheels' on the Speed Channel. It's essentially a collection of videos made by rednecks and people who have a camera, but no common sense. He loves watching people crash. It doesn't matter if it is a car, bike, skateboard or ATV. He finds it 'laugh out loud' hilarious. I'm on one side of couch cringing cause some kid attempted to jump down two flights of stairs on skateboard and instead lands on his face, and Ethan is lying on his back with his legs in the air cause he's laughing so hard. That level of amusement from these videos kind of scares me that someday he's going to end up on a show like that...

Ethan is all signed up to play T-Ball again this year. However, this summer will be a little more competitive. They still hit off a T, and everyone still bats every inning. But, now they're introducing outs to them. I'm coaching again with Kari. And get this... there is a DRAFT this weekend. For 5-6 year olds! Are you kidding?! I spent some time getting my draft order together when the guy sent out the spreadsheet... It's going to be hard to pick between all the kids because... they all suck. Who gives a *#%$?? They're 5 and 6. Put them on teams and call it good. Cripes. What a waste of time. A couple weeks back when it was really nice Ethan and I went outside after work and we worked on some hitting. I pitched to and he did REALLY well. I bet he hit 80% of the balls that I threw that were actually hittable. I was impressed. His hand/eye coordination has improved immensely. He's tracking the ball and actually his some really poor pitches. Which, I, uh, of course threw intentionally bad just to, uh, try and trick him... It was a lot of fun though and got us both excited for the upcoming season.

As you all know, Ethan turned 5 almost two weeks ago. I can't believe another year has passed. I can't believe a year from now he'll be in kindergarten. Some days he seems so grown up. I mean, he does have two girlfriends now... But, he has become quite the amazing, little person. His sense of humor is getting better every day. Yeah, he still thinks just saying the word 'underwear' at inappropriate times is funny (and it kind of is), but he'll surprise me on a regular basis with how well he's starting to understand what is actually funny. And, that's on top of the actual things he's learning. He's mastering numbers, and starting to recognize more and more words. Though, currently he can name the model of far more cars than he can words... making his daddy, papa and great-papa proud. He continues to get more independent each day. Some days are better than others, but he's a lot more willing to try things on his own than he was in the past. He continues to make lots of new friends. He really, really enjoys playing with other kids. He also enjoys movies with popcorn, spongebob, batman, transformers, tractors (especially papa's john deere), semis, race cars(papa's viper), monster trucks (especially grave digger), reading books before bed, breakfast with papa brett at perkins and his chocolate chip pancakes, he loves wrestling, mcdonalds chicken nuggets, sports, going to ISU games, going to Bucs hockey games, Chuck-E-Cheese, waking me up in the morning by punching the mattress, farting and then laughing hysterically, helping me back the car out of the garage and driving it back in, driving his jeep powerwheel (which he has become pretty proficient at), riding his razor in the basement, parties, destroying his room when he should be napping, slip'n'slides, swimming in the pool, watching Yankee(boo) baseball games, cheese and crackers, cheetohs with papa smith cause cheetohs aren't for girls, parades, helping make dinner, papa brett's trains, music, and most importantly his family. He loves spending time with you all. Thank you for another amazing year, mitters. You amaze me every day, and I'm so blessed to be able to call myself your dad. I love you, Ethan Robert.