Friends!

Ethan poses with his new moose and tie dye shirt from our weekend in NH

Sand!

Ethan and Sam relaxing at Ogunquit beach

Friends swinging

Ethan loved this wading pool with fountains at a local park

The boys cooling off

Dads

Mia and Ethan in Freedom, NH

Playing with trucks

Lobster!  Kind of hard to explain this one once we were eating these guys!

Deep in conversation on the dock

We've had lots of opportunities over the past few weeks to visit with good friends.  It's so much fun to watch Ethan interact with other kids- even more fun for me to watch him play with the children of  good friends that I've known forever.  Hopefully we are fostering good friendships for him that will last for a really long time!

Ethan continues to chat away.  Three word sentences have become typical.  He likes to tell us stories.  The other day he was telling us all about what animals live in the barn.  Interestingly, the goats were not allowed in the barn- he made this very clear!  Pigs, cows, dogs, and so on were just fine- just not goats! 

It's also fun to hear what he recalls from activities that we've done and people we've seen.  He always talks about swimming with his "turtle" (his swim float) and running on the beach.  When I ask him questions to see what he remembers from outings, it always surprises me how much he retains.  After our friends Andrea, Joel, Sam and their dog Otis left, he kept talking about how Sam, "the mom" and "the dad" and their dog "Oto" went "bye bye."  Funny that he recognizes that other kids have moms and dads.  Pete and I are definitely, "Mama" and "Dada" and everyone else's parents are "the mom" and "the dad."

The word of the week is,"self."  Ethan doesn't want help with anything.  When we offer our assistance he states, "self" in a very matter of fact voice.  All of this "self" stuff is a little nerve wracking!  He wants to go down the stairs standing up by himself, and eat the most staining foods all by himself!  I'm so proud to watch him find more independence every day- even if it does mean that we'll be scrubbing stains out of our carpet after meal time!

I'm having a little but of trouble processing the fact that Ethan is 23 months and very quickly will be turning two!!  Man that went fast!  I've been very careful to try and enjoy all of the moments big and small, but geez, if things could just slow down a little bit, I wouldn't mind at all!