I got to do all kinds of fun stuff in October! I went to a tea party with my sisters and my mom. We wore big straw hats and ate little finger sandwiches and cookies. Mostly, it was a chance to get to spend some quality time with them and be all girlie! On the second Saturday of the month, I went to game day all by myself! Having decided that I wouldn't get to play anything if Ethan came along, Mary Jane aka Grandma F said she would love to have him. So I dropped him off and got to be an adult for a whole day! They had a blast and it was really fun for me to get to play and not have to worry about Ethan sticking his tongue in the nearest light socket. We'll have to do that again! Later in the month, I went to my second meeting of PACES (Parent and Child Education Society) which gives educational lectures and holds activities. They seem to be a really nice group of ladies - it would be really great to have a group of mommy friends. And, of course, there were all the Halloween festivities. Ethan and I went to a bonfire in Sleepy Hollow, IL with my sister Sheila and her friend Andrea. We saw the Headless Horseman ride again! He showed up just as the cloak of darkness fell and rode through the crowd at a terrible pace! It was a little less scary when, on his second pass, he stopped to give all the kids high-fives :). Ethan dressed up as a giraffe on the 31st. We went to play class, did about four houses worth of trick-or-treating and answered the door in costume. He was only able to eat the tootsie rolls, so I helped him with the rest of his candy. Aren't I helpful? He was a real sport about the whole thing and didn't complain about wearing something on his head until the very end of the day. I don't remember the last Halloween I enjoyed so much!

Ethan turned 10 months on the 19th. It's such a great age! He's really starting to develop a distinguishable personality and it is so much fun to start sorting out what was just "baby" and what is uniquely Ethan. Ethan continues to be very easy going. He's usually in a good mood and has gotten snuggly just in the last couple of weeks. He gives hugs and zerberts! He loves books and can sit for a half an hour going through a stack of them, opening one up and making gurgling sounds, then closing it and opening it to another page and pointing to something. It's really adorable! He also likes to dance - swaying from side to side whenever music comes on. He claps pretty much whenever he hears clapping, whether it's on a radio program or on the TV in the other room or just me. He's very stable standing up and it amazes me at how much he looks like a little boy. Kids have so much to learn in the first year of life!

We had another big moment this month when Ethan's first tooth popped up. I was feeding him some kind of sauce and had my finger held up to his mouth and he opened wide and there it was! It's really cute now - just this little bud of a tooth sticking up with another smaller one beside it. He's able to eat whole grapes by himself now along with quite an assortment of other harder to eat foods. We've had same fairly rough days and nights from not only "cutting" new teeth, but also the really bad cold that he developed the same week. Ugh! Talk about not getting a lot of sleep - but generally he's been a champ about the whole thing. And even though his teeth are so small, he sure gets a lot of use out of them and seems to enjoy exploring what they can do!

Just a quick update on the whole dating situation... I've slowed things down considerably which has been a really good thing. It's hard work trying to meet new people all the time! I'm currently seeing one man and we are getting along well. It's been fun to have someone to play chess with and go swing dancing!

Since it was such a hit last time, I thought I would send along a couple of the funnier responses I've gotten lately:

hello good pic how are you i am from arlington ht and i have fond that your pic is nice so what i am saying i like it . just a joke i am a fun person 39 and italian and 6 feet tall and looking for a fun good person for good time if this is you email me soon see ya

You are probably receiving tens-of-thousands of e-mails from all types of men on match.com, good, bad and I am sure creepy; I guess my question for you is, why are you on match.com? Unless you are living and working in the deep tunnel project I would think that there are men just lining up to date, marry or devote there lives worshiping you! Anyway, like all the others guys on match.com I am sending you an e-mail with my profile. So at 1:37 A.M and you're delirious and sorting through the hundreds of responses, with propositions and marriage proposals click on my profile, and if I am not what you are looking for, I wish you the best of luck in your search for Mr. Right...

I have to warn you however, I am an accountant so I'm kind of boring and tend to work long hours, especially the first week of the month.


TTFN!