« February 2007 | Main | April 2007 »

March 27, 2007

Big brother

The other day the kids ate something messy that ended up on their faces - I can't remember what it was. After, Ethan and Linna and I went into the bathroom to clean up. I thought Ethan would wash his face while I washed Linna's... but to my surprise he took the washcloth, and very gently cleaned off Linna's face. Then he washed his own.

Then yesterday we had crescent rolls for breakfast. I tore one into pieces for Linna, ate mine, and then went to get ready. While I was gone, Linna finished her roll, so Ethan took another one and tore it into pieces for her.

He's so sweet. I suppose it's an extension of wanting to do everything by himself these days - he wants to do things for her too.

And another interesting math thing: the other day at breakfast for some reason Ethan decided to figure out what year Baba was born. Knowing Baba is 59, Ethan first subtracted 7 to get back to 2000, which seemed like a clever way to start. Then he said, "So he was born in 1948!" Right... when I asked how he figured it out, he said he first did 50 to get to 1950, then 2 more. Pretty neat!

Posted by ktingey at 10:54 AM | Comments (0)

March 16, 2007

Sleepy bye

The other night after I'd finished Ethan's bedtime routine, he still wasn't sleepy. (Actually, that's been the case EVERY night since the time change.) I left him and came back to check on him a few times, to no avail. So I went off to get Linna to sleep instead. About ten minutes later, Jeff went in to check on Ethan, and Ethan was still waiting for me to come back... but he was all excited because he'd counted past 600 already. When I finally got in there, he was almost to 1000. So he finished getting to 1000 (the highest he'd ever counted by ones), and then I said good-night one last time.

Then last night we were all exhausted (I've had a few bad nights, so I slept upstairs one night at Jeff's insistence, which meant a very bad night for Jeff and Linna), except for Ethan, who nonetheless wanted to sleep in the big bed. He was too squirmy, so Jeff suggested if he wasn't sleepy he should go back to his bed and read. About 20 minutes later, I went to check on him, and he'd turned on his little bedside lights (blue paper lanterns, very cozy). Strewn around him and on top of him were four books and a calculator. He was fast asleep. So I cleaned up, tucked him in better, turned off his light, and kissed his cheek.

Overall, it seems he's mostly made the transition to sleeping in his own bed. If he particularly wants to be with us on a given night, we usually let him, and of course if he wakes up in the night he joins us. But most nights we do the routine in his bed, he falls asleep there, and then he comes in to our bed around 7 in the morning. That really works for us. And it's nice to know that it's possible to go from total co-sleeping, nursing to sleep for years, to a kid who falls asleep on his own, in his own bed, and sleeps well there.

Posted by ktingey at 02:31 PM | Comments (0)

March 06, 2007

My younger man

Today when I picked Ethan up (at 3, so he'd stayed for the extended day with the big kids), one of the 6-year-old girls gave him a hug as we were leaving the playground. She said to me, "Ethan's my boyfriend. I'm in love with him, and that's why I really like him."

Ethan had a big embarrassed grin on his face.

Posted by ktingey at 04:25 PM | Comments (0)

March 02, 2007

Counting to a billion

Ethan counted to a billion in a very interesting way this morning.

He started counting by 2's. Then when he got to 10, he counted by 10's. At 100, he switched to 100's. At 1000, he switched to counting by 1000's. All the way up to a billion, by which time he was counting by 100 millions. We jointly figured out he only had to say 68 numbers to count to a billion that way.

Ethan loves to pretend he's the teacher (Michelle, one of the Harmony assistants), and I'm Ethan, and I'm in 1st grade. He introduces different "works" to me (in Montessori parlance). He also likes to lead "music time," when we put on a song and he moves his hands around and I copy him.

Probably he really likes being in charge for a change.

Posted by ktingey at 12:59 PM | Comments (0)