Five Years Old!

Ethan turned five years old today.Yesterday he had a party with a bunch of his friends and family. He got lots of presents, ate lots of cake, and ran around with his friends. Here's a photo of Ethan opening presents with Grandma and Grandpa, who came all the way from the west coast to visit him.

Harping with Margot

Margot brought her harp over last week so that Ethan could see it. Actually, she brought two harps over, a little one and a big one, and she let Ethan play them. He thought it was way cool! The photo here shows Ethan playing on the big one. Margot taught him the difference between plucking the strings too hard, and touching them gently to get beautiful music out of them. Thanks Margot!

Ever since we stopped getting up every morning at 6:30am when Ethan wakes up, and instead let him either cuddle with us or go play in his room with his toys (his usual choice), he's been getting dressed by himself before we wake up as well. On Saturday morning, Ethan reached into the upper levels of his closet (still not sure how he got up to the hangers), and pulled down his fancy button-down oxford shirt and put it on. Then he donned a fancy tux/dinner jacket we got at "dollar-a-pound" last week, and we went for a walk around the block at 7:30 in the morning. The neighbors we ran into commented on how well dressed he looked. Ethan loves clothes! Here's a photo of him relaxing on the couch -- if you look carefully you can see that his hair is also sticking up strait on top of his head from sleeping on it wet, which I think is very cute.

Four months, an aunt, and a cousin

Yesterday was four months since Ethan and I arrived in the US! Very hard to believe.

This weekend Ethan's aunt Jennifer and cousin Sasha came to visit us from the West coast. They tickled him a lot, and we took him for a walk at the mall since the weather was so yucky. At the mall, Ethan growled at the giant pretend crocodile, and we fed him lots of candy to keep him cooperative. (While she was here, Jennifer told me some insider tricks on how to raise nice kids: feed them Skittles on walks, let them eat crackers and cheese for dinner if they want, and sprinkle sugar on their pancakes if the syrup runs out.)

Ethan also learned some very important things while they were here, including what it felt like to have "this little piggy went to market" played on his toes, and "x marks the spot" played on his back. For their part, Jennifer and Sasha learned what a 'spoiler' is, and that it can snow in New England in mid April (sorry!). Ethan absolutely loved the attention he got from them, and fell fast asleep a mere 15 minutes after they left -- only the second time he's taken a nap at home in the four months he's lived here.

Kindergarten here we come

Today they had an info session for parents at Ethan's soon-to-be kindergarten school. Parents were in one room, kids in a kindergarten classroom across the hall. After what Mark considers way too much anguished thought on my part, I decided not to bring Ethan to the event which featured (whoo-hoo) a ride on the yellow school bus. My intuition said it would only be confusing for him, and potentially make him nervous. Ethan has been confirming every two days or so that "Ethan never, never, never, never go Ballalar" (his word for the orphanage). This morning he added a question about whether Mama and Papa were happy Ethan lived in the house. "Yes! Very happy!" Can you imagine having to worry about this kind of thing when you're four years old?

Anyway, it's pretty funny to be in a room full of anxious parents, all worrying about the fate of their future kindergarteners -- including me. We had a long, long talk from the school psychologist about the problems that second and third grade girls have socializing (relevance?), and about how kids get blue rhinos, pink fish etc. pinned to their shirts the first day so they can find their classroom. Very, very important for us to know this. (Actually, the session was pretty helpful, I'm just poking fun at how serious all this stuff gets sometimes.)

First Easter

The Easter bunny brought lots of candy to Ethan this morning. He was a very happy boy because we let him eat lots of it. Then Ethan had three friends come over and we had an easter egg hunt outside (eggs color coded for each kid so no winners or losers). The kids were so adorable!

Beach

Over the weekend Ethan visited the beach for the first time (in Gloucester). Kazakhstan doesn't border on the ocean, so this is probably the first time he's ever been to the beach anywhere. Anyway, it was a bit cold, but Tom brought some balls and a bat, there were other kids there, and a couple of kites were flown. We didn't stay very long, but it was fun to go.

Yesterday Ethan and I went to Walden pond with Lisa and Bubbulo. We threw some sticks into the water, saw a red canoe, and a mallard pair. We also chatted with a few people who were fishing, and one of them showed us the three rainbow trout he had caught (yum!). Ethan learned that you shouldn't eat wild mushrooms, and then told a random passing stranger about the dangers of eating wild mushrooms. The man nodded his head, and agreed it was good advice.

I've signed Ethan up to go to kindergarten next year. The questionaire we must fill out includes questions like whether it was a difficult pregnancy, did he crawl at the right age, and whether there is anything in our family medical history of concern. Hmmmm. I just answered "no".

Of Mice and Boys

Over the weekend we did some yardwork, and pulled out the gas grill since it seems like maybe (maybe?) the snow has finally stopped. When Mark opened up the grill, he discovered that eight deer mice had decided to make it home, using the grass-clipping bag from the lawn mower to build their very comfy nest. Surprisingly, they didn't all jump out when he opened up the grill, so I was able to get a picture of one about 20 minutes after he was first discovered. Ethan thought it was pretty cool, although he also made a point of telling us that he didn't like mice. Even so, we don't want to poison the mice because Oscar the owl keeps his home in our back yard, so I'm not sure how we're going to handle these little intruders.

Meanwhile, Ethan was being very helpful in the yard. Here is a picture of him making a silly face -- I think he's pretending to cry or something. (Ethan loves making silly faces!) You might also be able to see in the background some of our snowdrop flowers. Amazingly (and perhaps why they have their name), the little flowers managed to survive a dumping of 2 feet of snow (at least the ones beside the driveway where all the snow was shoveled on top of them) and still look perky.