Ethan Update

Well, for those of you who don't already know, Ethan is now 18mths old! About 3 days before his 18mth milestone Ethan went to his first kids' salon for his first official haircut. The salon and stylist were awesome! (It was Cloe's Carousel in the Carmel Mtn. Ranch area.) The whole place is decorated in the theme of an old fashioned carousel. The styling stations surround one center column and each chair looks like a carousel horse (but is actually a regular styling chair with a booster cushion for the little guys). The waiting area is actually a partially walled off play area with all kinds of toys and even a couple playhouses in addition to the usual chairs for grown ups. When they are ready for you, you get to pick out a video for your child to watch while they are getting their hair cut. There is a video at every styling station. They also allow certain toys to be brought to the styling station (they sanitize them afterward). Ethan's stylist was awesome! He was happy with the video and toys, but still moved almost constantly yet she didn't miss a beat. She just kept trimming the hair on that little moving target and to my amazement, it came out wonderfully! Only a couple times did she need him to look in a particular direction for a moment (for the bangs and around the ears) and she was super quick and patient about it. While I'm sitting there marveling that she isn't trying to get him to sit still at all, she seems to be taking it all in stride! She told us (Me and Nana) that she chose to work in the kids salon because she was looking for a challenge and figured a moving target would do that. I'd say she's conquered that challenge! When we first got there, I picked a simple, (but with a little flair) haircut from a book while Ethan played. When the cut was done, he looked about as close to the picture I'd chosen as possible! I still can't believe what an amazing job she did with him moving the entire time! Since it was his first official haircut, they collected a bunch of his hair and put it in a tiny baggy, printed him out a certificate, and took his picture with his stylist and printed it out right there for us to take it home! While we Nana waited for those things to be assembled (just a few minutes), Ethan beelined his way back to the play/waiting area. When it was time to go- he didn't want to. In fact, he was quite upset when we had to leave. It was such a great experience for Nana, Mama, and Ethan, that I'm looking forward to his next haircut there! :-D One thing, though. I walked in there with a baby. I walked out with a little man. I couldn't believe how much more grown up he looked with a real hair cut! I actually choked up and had tears in my eyes! Nana laughed at me.

After his haircut, Dada met Nana and Mama at the photographer's studio to get Ethan's 18mth photographs done. Once again we had talented help. The photographer was very friendly and quick with the trigger. After our session I wasn't sure how she could have gotten anything more than a decent shot with the total lack of patience Ethan was expressing by that point. We even got a shot of him in full fuss-mode (when we tried to get him to do a shot laying on his belly). I was pleasantly wrong however. We actually got a number of wonderful shots and a few more decent shots with only a couple not-so-good shots. That is entirely a testimony to the talents and experience of the photographer!

Ethan's favorite things these days are dogs, ducks, cats, and pretty much anything to do with transportation (cars, planes, trains, boats, trucks, motorcycles, etc). When we first received the Cars movie as a gift Ethan seemed a tad bored with it. Now he'd watch it every day if I let him! He'll flip open a book and start saying, "Ru, Ru, Ru, Ru" (sounds like "ruff" without the "ff"). I look at the page quickly and say, "I don't see any dogs, honey." Then I'll take another look and find a tiny dog chasing a tiny cat at the bottom of the page. It's like that outside too. I'll be watching where I'm walking and he'll see someone walking their dog a hundred feet away to our left, or I'll be driving and he'll see a dog in the back seat of the car next to us. He's also keen on the helium balloons at the grocery store. I points them out every time whereas I don't even consciously see them otherwise. He's also usually the first one to see a plane or helicopter in the sky. It's surprising how little they can appear and he'll still see them if the sun isn't in his face.

The biggest development lately is that Ethan has said his first "sentence"! This past Sunday morning he made that major milestone of linking two words together. He said "All done." with crystal clear pronunciation. He has said it many times since then too. This is exciting because it means his language abilities are probably about to explode. I'm eager to see how this develops!

Also, for those of you who don't know, we've been teaching Ethan sign language. So when he says "all done" he will often make the sign for it as well. He knows (and can do)the signs for Please, Thank You, More, Eat (num num), Milk, Drink, Play, Up, Down, Yes, Sorry (looks just like please when he does it, though) and of course, All Done. There are others that he will recognize but doesn't repeat, mostly because they aren't "necessary" to get what he wants, such as Plane and Music.