Ethan, 15 months

Wow, fifteen months already and I haven't even had time to post the pictures for his 14 months update. We've been super busy around here lately and now with Josh having to work overtime (milestone coming) I doubt that the pictures will come anytime soon. I will get them up one of these days as I see this blog as a way to keep the moments for Maddy and Ethan to see later on.

The month has made a huge difference with walking. Much more walking than falling these days and he's beginning to add a little speed. I know that I was eager to get to this walking stage, but now that the speed stage is upon us, I'm quite happy to hold that off as long as I can. I get the real feeling that I won't be able to keep up with him once he's off and running. He doesn't like to hold your hand when he's walking so for now he still has to stay in the stroller for as long as possible when we're at the mall.

Ethan definitely knows what he wants and it's pretty hard to distract him once he's got his mind set on something. For the most part, Maddy is pretty good about sharing with him and we try really hard to make sure that they each get 'five minutes' to play with a coveted toy before having to hand it over. (Eh-hem, some 'five minutes' go by quite quickly around here). At times he's beginning to throw a little tantrum when he wants something that we cannot give him. We've been trying hard not to send him the message that if he cries he can get what he wants, but man is it ever tempting when you have a screaming, wailing toddler on your hands.

He's so desperate when he cries for something. Poor little guy.

He's even got Mama's bottom pouty lip. So cute!

Before we set up the Christmas tree, I wondered if we should even bother because I thought Ethan would be all over it. Turns out that he loves the tree and really understands that he cannot touch it. He's pretty good about listening when he's not allowed to touch something as long as we are firm about it right from the start. It's so cute to see him walk over to the tree, lean in and give it a kiss. He loves to see it when we turn on the lights and when we first put it up, he'd point to it and laugh.

We're potty training!! Lucy at daycare has been taking him to the potty about every hour and had quite a bit of success, so I figured I might as well try when we are at home. Ethan's been doing really well and in the last couple of days, he's pointed in the general direction of the potty and once we put him on, he's peed. We mostly spend the time after his nap until bedtime in dai fu (underwear in Chinese) and he's doing really well. I even tried pull ups while at Strong Start a couple of times. He's peed once, but most of the time he loves to shove toilet paper in between his legs. The yuck factor of playing that game in a public washroom is giving me second thoughts about pottying in public until he can do his business standing up.

Finally, in the last month Ethan has really learned to communicate his wants to us. He doesn't really have many words, but he does do a lot of gesturing and pointing and is able to get his point across. He's also learned to shake his head to say no and that helps.