I'm not a present, I'm a boy!

On Sunday we went to the Franklin Park Zoo in Boston with Zack and his mom. Here's a photo of them playing around on the statue of the gorilla. Ethan has been asking to go to the zoo for a while. But it surprised me how little time he wanted to spend actually looking at each animal. Both boys were anxious to see the lions and tigers, and then after looking at the animals for about 14 seconds, they tugged at our hands begging that we take them back to the zoo playground so they could climb on the pretend trains. (?)

The lion was even obligingly roaring quite ferociously while we were there. The boys thought the camels were smelly, and hence hilarious. And the boys found two sticks in the grass that instantly became knives and guns they toted around proudly. But the playground was definitely the most popular attraction of the day.

My birthday was last Friday, and while I was hugging Ethan, I told him that he was the best present I had. He burst out laughing and said, "I'm not a present -- I'm a boy!" as if what I said was the silliest thing he had heard in a while. Well, I guess both of us are right.

5 months

It's now been five months and five days since we arrived in the U.S. Ethan is continuing to do really well. Some statistics:
--Ethan hasn't missed a day of preschool since he started at the beginning of this year. He's had a few snuffles, and a case of conjunctivitis, but not really sick.
--Ethan doesn't sleep very much. He goes to be around 9pm, and wakes up around 6:30am, and doesn't take a nap. The good news is that it gives us a lot of time to spend with him after preschool.
--There are now four children (two boys and two girls) on our street who will be attending kindergarten in September. They all live within two houses of us. (!)
--Ethan can now swim about 10 feet all by himself in the big pool (over his head). He does a modified breast stroke and can't breath, but seems to be fearless about the water. We call him the little fish.
--Ethan likes to get "20 big hugs" before he goes to sleep, sometimes with 20 kisses, sometimes without. This morning Mark offered to give him 20 hugs before he left for work, but Ethan specified he wanted only 3 big hugs.

Where money?

Ethan loves all his birthday presents. He seems very proud to have "lots toys". When he meets new people, including adults, he often asks them if they have "lots toys home".

The other morning at breakfast Ethan was waving out the window at our back yard and asking "where money? where money?" I asked him if he meant his collection of coins, but he shook his head. "Where money?" he asked again. I was baffled since he kept pointing out to the grass. I asked him if he meant the paper things we use to buy things with. Ethan tends to wrinkle his brow and scowl at me when I don't get the obvious. "Like in DVD! Wallace" he said in an exasperated tone. Oh! Was he confusing the word money with bunny?? "Yes! Where bunny?"

Ethan also has a very interesting grammatical habit that can be confusing to the uninitiated. He'll say "Ethan, I like chocolate", which means he likes chocolate (he does!). Or, "Papa, he no like french fries?" which means "does papa like french fries" (Ethan is fascinated by what we like and don't like, and is continually asking. Sometimes if I say I don't like something that he likes, like "cheese-its", he'll just shout back "no!" as if it's just impossible I couldn't like something he does.