I Love You Forever

You know your son is growing up, when he decides he needs to correct authors. He is right, and the book is wrong!



Ethan no longer naps, but instead he gets quiet play time in his room. To time it, he has a Robert Munsch CD, and it plays while he plays. He listens to the stories, and when the CD ends, he knows he's free to leave his room if he wants.



One of the stories on the CD is I Love You Forever. There's a song in it, which Ethan has learnt and will often sing. I thought it would be nice to share the actual book with him, so when my parents returned from Canada, they brought the book back.



For those that are unfamiliar with this story, it's lovely. It's a story about a mother and she sings a song every night to her baby boy. As he gets older, and hits those terrible twos, and horrible teens, she sneaks in his room at night and sings. It continues until he's a grown man, and ends with him singing to his daughter.



Ethan loves reading the book. However...................... he takes GREAT offense that the mother sings "my baby you'll be" to the "big" boy! "Not baby mommy, BIG BOY!" he corrects me as we read.



Every once in awhile, Ethan will crawl on my lap, and ask me to sing him the 'I Love You' song. When I'm done, he'll ask "Now mommy, sing 'My big boy Ethan you'll be' "!

Saverios'

The best place to get pizza in Dar has to be Saverios'. It's a little out of the way from where we live, but we make the trip there every so often.

Ethan especially loves Saverios'. Not only does he get the best pizza ever, but he knows it's treat day, as it's the only time he's ever allowed a fizzy drink. He get 1/3 of a glass of Sprite!

The Goat Races

We're off to the races! The Goat Races that is!!!!

This has to be my favourite event ever. The annual Goat Races. Yes you heard me, Goat Races. It's a huge charity event that pokes fun/mimics great horse racing events. There are 6 races, 10 goats per race. The goats are lined up, and off they go! The jockeys all run behind their goat, encouraging them with words. There's a padded bar behind the goats to assist with the encouragement.

Just as any other race, you can bet on a goat/race. We, however, had no luck. Not only did our goat lose his race, but every goat we placed a bet on ended up loosing. The moral; place your bets on any other goat than the one we choose!!!!

Ah, but there was a silver lining in all this. Asides from the thousands and thousands of dollars we raise for Tanzanian charities, yours truley won a raffle prize. Yes I did!!!! I won the top prize of a BA return flight to London!!!!! Yipee!!!!!

The Butcher's

I just have to share this latest Ethan adventure. It's too funny.


About a month ago I took Ethan with me to run errands. My first stop was the supermarket. As soon as Ethan saw the crisps, he began to whine. By the time we hit the frozen food section he was on full-blown yelling; "Mommy, I'm hungry. I want ice cream!" Yeah right! If he's hungry he'd want food and not ice cream. But he kept whining. And I kept strong. I kept promising him, that we could go home and he could get something to eat there (knowing full well that he wasn't really hungry)


Our next stop was the butcher's. We walk in, and once again Ethan announces "I'm hungry." Sure. We're at the butcher's, there's no ice cream here. Suddenly the owner comes to Ethan with a piece of sausage. There you go; food! HA!


Two weeks later, Ethan and Scott head to the butcher's and Ethan comes home with a sausage.


Last week Ethan and I go back. He does his "I'm hungry" routine again, but this time, there's no South African there to feed him. Ethan left distraught!


Yesterday we head back (yes we go often. it's fresh and no need to stockpile freezer when you never know if power will go off). And Ethan's buddy is there. Ethan lets him know that he came last week (10 min ago is last week for Ethan) and "you not here". lol. Poor man. Felt ever-so-guilty and gave Ethan .... you guessed it.... a sausage!


Now for a boy that's not a big sausage eater, he sure likes the ones at the butcher's!

3-year Wellness Check

So I thought I should share Ethan's 3-year wellness check. But first, I have to backtrack a little. I'm a little bit of a paranoid mother when it comes to Ethan. I tend to worry about everything. It drives Scott crazy. And I know I over react. If I were teaching at home, and had a parent with concerns that I sometimes have, I'd tell them they have nothing to worry about.

Ok, so back in March I started to worry about Ethan's motor skills. His running was weak, he wasn't able to jump with 2 feet, and his fine motor skills were horrible. There's a wonderful new pediatrician at our clinic, so I decided to have Ethan checked out by him.

After being reassured that Ethan was ok (he was a little behind but not delayed), he did mention that he'd like to do a follow up in 6 months. He suggested Ethan do some climbing (like there's a lot of parks here!) and swimming (Ethan was in swim camp in July, and takes swimming lessons once a week) to help his motor developemnt. He also thought we might want to consider taking Ethan to a neurological pediatrician if we were planning to go home this summer.

Well now Ethan's three. I decided to have his wellness check with the pediatrician instead of his GP, because Ethan also compalins about his ears alot. (That's all better now) So here are Ethan's stats:
Weight : 12.2 kg (he's gained a whole 200 grams since March)
Height: 97.8cm (3.2 feet)

But... the best part of all..... he was very impressed with the improvemnt in Ethan's motor skills. He said while he was sure in September there would be some improvement, he didn't expect this much. (Yeah Ethan!) He also doesn't see a need for Ethan to see a specialist, unless we'd like to for our own reassurement. Yeah Ethan!

Did I mention, Yeah Ethan!