Howdy all! It's so nice to take this time to slow down and recap what's happened in the last couple months. As much as I'd like to get an update out once a month, it really looks like every other is just going to have to do. If that's just not enough for you, you can always call me to catch up. :) And, as promised, I uploaded a ton of new pictures for your viewing pleasure.

I've been up to all kinds of stuff since my last update! I went to Albuquerque for a game conference on Labor Day weekend, leaving Ethan in the capable hands of his grandparents. He did well (thank goodness!) and I had a total blast. For those of you who have never been to a game conference, it consists of games, games and more games! I played from sun up to sun down with the occasional break for food and conversation. I was in hog heaven and am planning on making it an annual event. Click here
for pictures.

I was finally able to connect with my mommy group and will be joining their babysitting coop this week. They are really nice ladies and I am looking forward to getting to know them better. Plus it's just nice to get to go to 1) a child proof house with 2) other kids for Ethan to play with and 3) enjoy adult conversation at the same time. Hooray!

In the middle of October, Ethan and I both headed back to Albuquerque on a whirlwind trip to meet some of the newly hired developers. I didn't know about half the team and thought it was important to rectify that. It was a good trip and I left feeling like I actually have been at ProLaw long enough to know a thing or two about how our product works. It's good not to be the new kid on the block anymore.

Lastly, there was Halloween. This was the best Halloween I remember in years!! It's great to experience it for the first time all over again and do the things that I remember enjoying so much as a kid. Ethan dressed as a kangaroo and I went as a pirate. We went to the pumpkin patch (see pictures), carved Jack-O-Lanterns, went trick-or-treating and enjoyed the day thoroughly! I even got to go to a party on Saturday night and saw how the "other half" lives. Not that I'd want to hang out in bars all the time again, but it was a lot of fun talking to different people and seeing the clever outfits people had created.

I am finally plugging in to the community here and it's a great feeling!! I've been back in the Chicago area about two and half years and community is one thing that has been sorely missing for me. I do best when I have things to look forward to - places to go and people to meet. My calendar is filling up with all kinds of fun things to do these days and for that I am very grateful.

Ethan, as always, is amazing. It's so fun to watch him get bigger! He's in the middle of a language explosion and learns a new word about every day. Or maybe it's that I'm just starting to understand words he's been saying this whole time? Nah. He's also started two word sentences - as long as one of the words is baby (which he calls himself) or mama. He delights in pointing out body parts (mama toe) and telling me what he wants me to do (baby up). Also, he's starting to put things together and there are actually days when I say to myself "Wow! Yesterday he didn't understand this and today he does". Ethan's new ah-ha's are starting to lead to numerous funny stories and I've decided to include two of my favorites. The first is written by Grandma F:


I have friends that had the funniest kids in the world. I have always encouraged my friends to write events down, primarily because my memory stinks and I can't remember Tuesday on Wednesday, but not very many of them did. So now I have Ethan and I am bound by my own advice to write things down. I think he is funny, like my friend's kids were. This, if true, would be a great gift. He's 20 months old and speaking a few intelligible words like NO, and Daddy and Mom and Mom Mom which I choose to take as Grandma. Whenever he thinks about daddy I can tell because he starts chanting "Dadee, Dadee". Whenever he is thinking about my dog Celt, he says Woof, Woof! It is normal on any Monday morning ride to my house to hear these anticipatory chants and Woofs any number of times on the 30 minute trip. Last Monday, my 89 year old neighbor who gave up driving recently asked if I could drive her to the bank. I was more than happy to oblige and Ethan and I piled into the car and drove her to the bank in Barrington. As he and I waited in the car under the shade of an old tree on this hot, hot day, a woman came strolling down the street with two children about 3 years old, a boy and a girl. The thing about them was that the children were tethered to the woman with red leashes which were tied around their wrists. As Ethan and I took in the little scene, he all of a sudden began to bark at them from his car seat; Woof, Woof Woof!... Now that's funny! When we got home he gathered all of Celt's leashes, sat down on the floor and began to carefully wrap them around himself. He did this for quite a long time, and with much thought to the placement of each one.

The second story happen to Ethan and me not too long ago:

Ethan and I went to pick up my car from the shop. Unfortunately, when we got there someone had left the lights on and the battery was dead. The guys offered to jump it and put it on the charger but said it would take about 20 minutes. Since it was close to dinner time, I decided to take Ethan to the Burger King next door and have a meal while we waited it out. We ordered our dinners and I went to get a high chair when Ethan let it be known that he wanted to sit in the chair like a big boy. I told him that that was fine as long as he followed mommy's rules: 1) no standing up on the chair and 2) no getting down from the chair. As long as he could do that he could eat at the table. He was thrilled!! He swung the chair swung back and forth, he turned around and looked at the other kids. He was in hog heaven! The meal went great and Ethan didn't budge from the seat. That is, until the very end. He got bored with his food and started to wiggle. Wiggling turned into squirming. Squirming turned into climbing and the next thing I know, Ethan is standing up on his chair seconds away from certain death! The way it usually works, I tell Ethan what he needs to do and then count slowly to three, using my fingers to show what number we're on. If I get all the way to three then I "help" him do what I had told him to do before. He's pretty used to the routine but I hadn't realized how much so until I started my count. I said "oooooonnnneee....". He looked back at me sheepishly and, as he sat himself back down, put his index finger out and said "tttttwwwoooooo" right back to me!! Boy did that make me laugh. We giggled the whole rest of the time in the restaurant and all the way home. For days afterwards I'd look in the rear view mirror to check traffic and make eye contact with Ethan. Invariably he's say "ttttwwwwwoooo" and we'd start laughing all over again.

I realized not too long ago that I've been parenting by instinct alone. Taking some of what I learned while growing up and mixing it in with things I've learned along the way. All the while having a fairly vague idea about what I was trying to accomplish - getting Ethan safely to adulthood having learned what he needs to know to be happy. It just dawned on me that if this were a work project I would have rejected it whole heartedly because the spec(ification) was so imprecise! What are the things Ethan needs to know? How will I go about teaching these things to Ethan? How do I define "being happy"? Is getting him to adulthood having certain information my only job as a mother? I decided to step back from being a mother and start looking at the question of "what is it to be a mother"? Or more exactly, "what is my mission as a mother"? It's been a great inquiry! I have been spending lots of time coming up with my own mission statement. It's been through multiple revisions and I'm still not quite satisfied with the end result. However, I am fairly happy with this one sentence:

"I lead by example and thus encourage and foster those characteristics that make a successful life."

I've come up with quite a list of characteristic I must say!! But I know it is not complete; I'm sure there are some important ones that I'm missing. So I'd like to make a request of you. I'd like you to send me your top 5. Ask yourself "What are the top 5 characteristics that lead to a successful life" (defining success however you see it). If you want to give me the why behind your choices you are more than invited to. But I also don't want this to turn into a lengthy project, so just the list is fine. Part of my plan for next year is to take one characteristic every two weeks to focus on. Looking it up to make sure we understand what it is, pointing out when we see it, reading stories about it. You know, basically immersing ourselves in the study of it. It should be an interesting project and I can't wait to see the results - in Ethan and in myself. Thanks for your help!