I'm Back!

It's been awhile! So much has happened, I don't even know where to start. It's been a pretty chaotic spring with a lot going on in the Koelsch family. It all kicked off in Feb with a non-stop 3 month work schedule and came to a header in May with Ethan's first fever and an ER trip at 4am topped off by my very own trip to the ER which landed me in the hospital for a few days. We've seen enough drama to last a long time hopefully. We're all happy to lie low for a while and look forward to enjoying the summer season.

So, maybe we do some recent Ethan highlights? The little man is walking, talking and dancing away. He has this way of walking where he raises his feet high and to the side and he puts his arms way back, sorta like George Jefferson. I can't get enough of it. I could just follow him around all day and watch his antics. He is definitely getting into toddler mode. He has started with some separation anxiety and has mastered the skill of wrapping his legs around my waist really tight so I can't hand him off or put him down. Although, at the other extreme, if there is no threat of me leaving him, he will lunge away from me when I am holding him and I am left grabbing frantically for a body part to keep him from slamming to the floor. It's fun.

He has a whole arsenal of words now. Although he's been using words for quite a while now, I'm always thrilled to hear them. He goes through phases where he will start and stop using certain ones, but clearly he has some favorites that has stood the test of time: Fav word number 1: Shoe. Shoe was one of his very first words we could understand clearly and I have no idea why this word in particular stood out for him. Is he taking after his mommy and her love of shoes? Maybe it's because we didn't buy him shoes until he was over a year old and they are novel? Not sure, but he's obsessed. He will go around the house and find shoes so he can say "shoe". He has also started putting our shoes away by the door. I guess it's never too early to teach him some clean up skills. Wish he would start on his toys.

Fav word #2: Cook. When he's hungry, he will yell 'cook!' in which someone is supposed to go to the kitchen and get him something to eat. The grandma's (both Koelsch and Kruse) have found this out first hand and they are not above being ordered to "cook!". He's also got some of the normal toddler first words: book, duck, kitty. He will say daddy, but he won't say mommy, which is driving me nuts because I work on this every morning. I will say it and he will just get quiet and look at me. It doesn't make sense: He can't say mommy, but he'll try to say 'flower', which seems like quite a mouthful? Sigh.

He is also counting :) Miriam got him to do this. When someone says "one", he will yell "two!". We're quite sure he's a genius (ha!). Just this week, I've got him to go to the next level; with me saying 'three' and him yelling 'four!' It's not completely consistent, of course, and forget about him ever saying 'one' or 'three'. My kid is going to count in evens the rest of his life.

We've had several doctor appts since the last blog entry. Ethan is currently at 21lbs. and is just shy of 31" tall. His doctors are still very happy with his growth and development. He's just doing so great. Now Jon and I need to stop adding in "he was 3 months premature" when someone asks how old he is. We're always self conscious that he may look smaller than other (almost) 17 month olds. He probably does, but it's not that sharp of a difference any more and it's time to stop viewing him as such.

The last few months have been tough, but as you can see, we've had some really great moments. My mom came to stay with us when I was sick. It sucked that I had to be sick, but it was great that we got her to Chicago and that we all got to spend time with her, especially Ethan. They had a great time together. After just a small period of shyness, Ethan was crawling all over her and ordering her to 'cook'! She also got a very 'warm' welcome out by our kiddie pool one day. We didn't have any swimmer diapers so Ethan was going commando under his swim trunks. Let's just say, Mom should have been a little more careful when having him sit on her lap. Video link attached above.

Also available on video, be sure to check out the li'l guy jamming out to "Mary had a little lamb". He's got some moves I tell you!

I wish I could fill in all of the fun, cool moments that have happened over the past 3 months.. As he's growing at such rapid pace, I could write for hours and still not capture it all. But there's always another story around the corner, so I'll wrap up here for now.

Note: I'll post a bunch of pictures later this week as well as figure out why my older pictures are no longer showing up. Not sure what I did, but I can pretty much guess that it's user error.