plutospaws's Xanga

The Coolest Room Ever.

Sun, 28 Sep 2008 19:37:49 GMT

I know I've already shared Ethan's Cars bedroom with you all, but today we cleaned and rearranged and worked really hard to make it more accessible for him. Here are the results:

(Note the Cars television ^)

(that little piano on the left ^ was mine when I was Ethan's age)

Casts and Things

Wed, 24 Sep 2008 12:31:05 GMT

For those of you who don't know our family, Glen is a toe walker. It runs in his family. He walks on the balls of his feet and not heel-toe like the rest of us do. This causes him to have a distinguishable gait and it was the source of much childhood ridicule for him. Not to mention, he wears his shoes out weird. Anyway, Ethan has been diagnosed with the same "idiopathic toe walking." To solve this for him before he reaches school age, we have decided to treat it now. The treatment involves "serial casting," where his Achilles tendon is gradually stretched by casts. He'll wear the casts for six weeks, followed by three months of leg braces. We figure this is the perfect time of his life to take care of this. Hopefully we'll never have to think about it again after this.
Today, we went to Akron Children's Hospital to get his casts put on.

He decided to get red on one leg and blue on the other:

Everything went fine up until about this point. If you've never had a cast, you may be surprised to find that as the plaster dries, it heats up. That, needless to say, freaked him out more than a little.

Daddy blowing on his toes to "help" the heat:

It was slightly traumatic for parent and child:

But I was genuinely surprised at how quickly he bounced back, sucked it up, and was back to normal:

(This bear ^ got his 3D nose picked after this photo, and a passing nurse joked that he gets his nose picked all the time)

With hardly a blip on his radar screen, my boy is back to normal. Last night, he and daddy put out Halloween decorations and made "mummy" hot dogs. I'm glad all my worry and doubt were unfounded.

My Baby's First Day of School

Tue, 16 Sep 2008 18:18:41 GMT

today was Ethan's first day of preschool. He walked right on in and never looked back...

Ethan's Big Trip

Sun, 01 Jun 2008 21:27:11 GMT

Click here to see photos from our trip!

My Serious Child

Tue, 06 May 2008 12:36:45 GMT

Ethan got to ride a pony the other day, which I can assume he loved:

And he got to ride in a convertible for the first time on Sunday, which I think he liked:

And, well, he never likes taking a bath:

Photoshop

Fri, 04 Apr 2008 21:22:01 GMT

I have long wanted to be able to use Photoshop for my everyday photos. I always had a feeling they could be so much better. Well, today I made headway. Hop on over to this wonderful, fantabulous site for a great action to make your photos go from this:

To THIS:

Quite a difference, huh? Look how beautiful it makes the water look. The picture goes from blah to pop! Once you have the action recorded, you can use it over and over on all your photos.

Computer Nerd

Fri, 21 Mar 2008 19:25:50 GMT

Ethan is 38 months old, and he is addicted to the Internet. He uses the mouse to explore NickJr.com, PlayhouseDisney.com, and to watch his favorite VeggieTales music videos on YouTube (His Cheeseburger, Yo Ho Heroes, and, of course, The Water Buffalo Song). Also, we think he may be lefthanded, so we bought him a mouse that wasn't contoured to the right.

All this to the quite charming result of walking into the office and finding this:

I could just die sometimes over how cute he is. Really.

Wednesday, March 05, 2008

Wed, 05 Mar 2008 20:58:12 GMT

Ethan got to fingerpaint the other day:

It was right after this photo that he scrunched up his face and asked for a towel:

Winter Fun

Fri, 22 Feb 2008 21:23:02 GMT

Ethan has a newfound fascination with puzzles. He is also quite good at them. He can do a 24 piece puzzle in a matter of minutes:

And he loves him some donuts:

Sunday, February 17, 2008

Sun, 17 Feb 2008 17:38:13 GMT

Ethan's new Cars room, complete with Fatheads:

This is the kitchen center that he got for his birthday:

^you'll see his apron hanging right above it. The boy has a passion for the kitchen - he loves to mix and pour, and can tell you the basic ingredients of a cake.

We finally got a new shelf to fit all of our DVDs:

And I finally finished my wall in the office; I filled it with pictures of Ethan (of course, right?):