18 Days Later

Busy season has ended and we have had Ethan's 4th birthday. Lots to report. Probably a couple of entries worth. Will work backwards from the most recent:

Ethan is back doing swimming lessons. He suggested that he might not want to this past weekend, but was "bribed" with a trip to the movie "Earth". I think Karri's recap was that it reminded her a lot of the BBC Earth videos but was cool to see on the big screen. Ethan really liked the penguins even though they were only on screen for about 2 minutes.

Willa is becoming a big girl with big opinions and big emotions. A couple of her favorite things - dresses and pink - put them together in the form of a pink dress and she will shine with happiness and spin around and say it is pretty. Try to put her in something else (non-pink or non-dress) and you are likely to have a mini-showdown followed by some tears (maybe hers, maybe yours). this morning she tried on three dresses (including one that she had picked out) before settling on the one she would wear for the day.

Willa loves to jump, Ethan (with Karri's help) just picked up the skill over the weekend. We think Willa got jumping from throwing tantrums.

Willa is getting more words and connecting them into little sentences. Makes talking to her much easier. Of course it is still about what Willa wants - "carry downstairs", "blankie, binky, dolly", "Daddy are you?", "read Dora", "potty" - yes, Willa has seen her brother peeing on the potty (our nightly pee race) and now wants to potty herself and get a drink of water before bed like her brother. She like to order people around and needs to be constantly reminded to say "please" or "peas".

Ethan is a huge fan of Jeff Corwin and loves to watch a little Jeff Corwin every morning before school.

Willa has started to do puzzles like Ethan - she is not a puzzle-master yet, but is getting better.

Yesterday was haircuts and Tutta Bella. Good times. Willa and Ethan both had gelato - chocolate for Willa and Raspberry for Ethan.