OK so I’ve been a slacker lately about pics and his monthly pics but today Ethan is 13 months old!! We are in Atlanta and just got back from Callaway Gardens. We had a blast….Ethan is walking (as you all know!) Not exclusively…..yet….but he can do it and does it more every day.
This month he started to develop his own language. It involves a lot of “D…iiii…TT!” and “Eeeeeh, Eeehh!” While pointing at things. He is becoming quite the comedian as he imitates us and loves for us to imitate him. He likes to play little tricks on us like hiding or pretending to cough and choke when he’s really just fine.
He is….in a word…hysterical at this point…what a fun fun age. I have more to say, but its midnight and I leave for St. Thomas in the morning. Here are the pics from his 13th month. YES – there is a video behind those lasagna pics towards the end…I just haven’t had a moment to edit it yet, but hopefully will get to it this week.
Yes, it’s official – just a few days shy of 13 months, Ethan James has officially started walking. Right now its mostly between us or pieces of furniture, but he’s starting to get bolder and walk on his own. Once he figures out how to stand up without help….well, its going to be a different ballgame.
Of course our son can’t do anything without it being turned into a video montage, and certainly his path to learning to walk is no exception. And so I present: Ethan Learns to Walk, The Mini-Movie.
This morning Ethan and I got to spend lots of fun time together while daddy slept in. I remembered that my friend Chrissy had mentioned she set up an “obstacle course” of chairs and stuff for her son to walk in between, so we did that this morning and WOW! He made SO MUCH progress towards really walking on his own. He’s not quite there yet, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it happens in the next week or so. He gained a lot of confidence in being able to let go and his balance is getting so much better, which I think has been holding him back.
Of course I am working on a full video montage of him learning to walk, but this video from this morning is too cute to delay posting – James and I especially love his noises and he is preparing to let go of the couch. I apologize for the quality – of COURSE the week this happens is the week we have sent off our video camera to be fixed, so this is the video taken by our regular digital still camera which just isn’t the best quality.
After Becca, Scott and Will left, we had a few hours before Carlie and Papaneaux arrived for a visit. What a fun week! Thursday we drove into Princeton. We hoped to go to the big sandbox in Marquand park, but alas it was a rainy, drizzly day, so we ended up walking around Palmer Square, having a nice lunch at Cafe Theresa (I think that was the name.) It was delicious, albeit a questionable choice with a one year old who wanted to throw things everywhere, but they were nice about it.
When we left lunch it was POURING so we stopped in a toy store so Ethan could crawl around. Surprise surprise he found the first thing with wheels and proceeded to push it around the entire store. Carlie couldn’t stand it and had to buy him one of his own, so he now has his own Ambulance toy which he is happily pushing around the living room as I type.
Friday we had some of our friends over to our house to meet my parents and grill out. It was quite the scene. Sadly, somehow I didn’t take ANY pics of my parents and Ethan, but got a few videos, so I spliced together the best parts in the video below. You can see Ethan walking around between us, Carlie walking him around our yard during the party, and (my favorite) Ethan pointing to a pic of Papaneaux after they left.
Wednesday afternoon Ethan woke up from his nap and he was just feeling very mellow. James got home from work and there was a soccer game on TV. Here are my two boys chilling out watching the game. Ethan really seemed to enjoy vegging out on the floor snuggling with his daddy.
What a fun and crazy week this has been!! Sunday evening my sister Becca, her husband Scott and cousin Will came to stay with us for a few days before heading up to Connecticut for Scott’s brother’s wedding. It was such a treat to be able to spend some nice downtime with my sister, show her a bit of my life and let Ethan and Will get to know each other again and play. Will is SUCH a cutie! I could just eat him up. He is still the spitting image of his daddy, but if you look at the picture I posted below, you can see a bit of a family resemblance between him and Ethan, so I think the Dott genes are holding strong! Will is walking and talking – so it was fun to see him toddling around saying “dabababababaa” and giving “moochies” (kisses.) Ethan was completely fascinated watching Will and would just stare at him. They definitely interacted a lot by the end of the trip, handing things to each other and even feeding each other goldfish! It was just so fun to have them here.
Becca was brave enough to come join me for my Buff Mommies workout on Monday morning. It ended up being just the two of us, but we got a decent workout in and I enjoyed kicking my sister’s butt a bit – she has always been the exercise guru in our family, but I think she had some sore muscles that she didn’t usually feel the next day
Tuesday we went to Pt. Pleasant with a few of my friends here. The kids had a great time playing in the sand and a few were brave enough to check out the waves. Harrison was running all over the place and while Ethan was initially pretty wary about the crashing waves, by the end he was grabbing our hands and running straight into the water!! He and I had fun jumping in the waves….its no surprise that he is such a water-baby.
All in all it was a wonderful visit. It was nice to spend so much time with my sister and her family. And it is just the best thing in the world to watch these cousins becoming friends.
Here man, let me show you how to splash
Sweet cousins
Look mom, a bird!
Will at the water table
We don’t know why but he likes to roll around in the baby pool like this
Will and Ethan eating a healthy snack off the floor
This is the first of what I suspect will be a LOT of pics and videos from cousin Will (and his parents’) visit to us in NJ (oh yeah and Carly and Papaneaux’s visit later this week.) But needless to say, these cousins are AWFULLY cute together. So much more to come!
I truly think we have kissed him too much – he is obsessed with kissing!! He loves to kiss EVERYTHING. Lately he has discovered that by pushing on the back of our necks or heads he can make us kiss things: plants, pictures, whatever.
A few days ago, I was holding him and James came home from work and kissed me hello. Ethan LOVED it, and proceeded to push my head over and over to make me kiss James.
This week little Ethan got to have not one but TWO birthday parties!! What a lucky little guy (and what a slightly crazy mommy!) But, it was all worth it. On Thursday (his actual birthday) we had over about 9 moms and babies from my mom’s group. We all played outside in the yard in the water table and baby pool, and also in the big water snake sprinkler that was a big hit with the walkers. I finally got to debut Ethan’s video that I have worked so hard on. It definitely went over well. Ethan had a lot of fun – he got his first taste of cake (which he loved) and definitely smeared all over himself, just like you should do with a first birthday cake. He had lots of fun playing with his friends and I enjoyed having everyone over to celebrate my son’s big day. Daddy was even able to come home from work for about 45 minutes to spend some time with Ethan and be there for the party.
Birthday boy!
Then, on Saturday, we had Ethan’s “official” birthday party, inviting several of the new friends we have made since we moved here. Vanessa, from Vivi Photography (and also my close friend), agreed to be my roving photographer so that I could concentrate on my guests, my son, and (oh yeah) enjoying the party myself – all of those things were achieved, it was a very fun party! AND – we got some great great pics of everything and everyone who attended – so THANK YOU VANESSA! Another highlight was Ethan’s birthday cake. Nicole, from my mom’s group, has been learning how to decorate cakes. I asked her if she would be interested in making a monkey cake for his party and she agreed. Now, Nicole is great at everything she does, so I knew the cake would be cute, but I had no idea it would be THIS cute!!
Fantastic monkey cake!
He enjoyed getting to eat his warm-up cupcake as well as his delicious cake!
So many great pics from the party. Here are some of my favorites, but if you want to see them all then click here.
