Another Ethan first: He buckled up.

Ethan has been familiar with bucking up as long as he can remember. He even told an airplane full of passengers to “Buckle up!” a year ago. Now in his car seat, he can follow his own advise all by himself.

An Eliana first: She played the glockenspiel.

Random as the melody may have been, she struck the bars well, producing clear notes with a pleasing rhythm.

Ethan’s view of the attic

While storing away infant toys, I held Ethan up to let him look in the attic. Afterward, he commented on how it looked like a roof. I told him he saw the underside of the roof he sees when he is outside. This prompted him to think of his recent visit to a hay loft. “Hey Mom! We have a barn in us!”

Another Ethan first: He reverse engineered an electronic toy.

Ethan enjoys supplementing his toy collection with toys more geared toward Eliana, though he usually finds ways to make them more interesting to him. One toy is a gear, light, and music box, which, Ethan has discovered, plays interesting pitches when you wear down the battery and bog down the motor by pressing on the gears.

One thing stumped him for weeks, though. He noticed that sometimes the lights would sometimes light up while the gears are spinning, but not always. How do you light them up on demand? Today he figured it out: “When you press the button when the gears are spinning, the lights turn on.”

Another Ethan first: He bicycled up and down a hill.

After practicing in the driveway (pictured), it was time for Ethan to see if he was strong enough to climb and skilled enough to safely descend a little hill around the corner. Going up had been easy for him on his tricycle, although down as harder without breaks.

On a bicycle, I thought the gear reduction would cause him to get stuck, but he make the climb. At first, he didn’t want to try going down, for fear of losing control. After I reminded him about the breaks, he gave it a try and found a comfortable pace for the ride back home.

An Eliana first: She traversed the hearth.

Following along the ledge, one step at a time, Eliana walked from one end of the fireplace to the other.

An Eliana first: She arose from a nap.

This afternoon, Eliana didn’t just wake up from her nap, she arose to her feet. We heard her cry after she realized that she didn’t know how to sit or lay back down. Fortunately, the camera was sufficient distraction to make for a smiley photo subject.

Another Ethan first: He milked a cow.

On our visit to a friend’s farm, Ethan was initially so afraid of the cows that I had to carry him down the isle between the rows of cows. Gradually, he warmed up to them and began to pet their heads. Before long, he was walking around the barn with confidence.

After observing milking for a while, Ethan wanted to try, so a couple friendly farmers, Colleen and Wendy, crouched down with him next to Dotty, an exceptionally docile cow. She had already been milked, but still had enough in her for Ethan squeeze and pull in the right place and thus experience first hand where he gets his milk.

Another Ethan first: He climbed up into a hay loft.

The ladder leading from the barn to the loft on our friend’s farm was not meant for young children: the spacing between rungs was as long as Ethan’s arm. “How do I get up there?” The answer was one rung at a time, with instruction on where to move the next hand or foot. Ethan quickly figured it out, and with close spotting below and some assistance from above to get off the ladder, Ethan was soon in a world of hay.

An Eliana first: She whooed like an owl.

Typically, Eliana still likes to make up her own sounds, often combining portions of sounds that she hears. Today when I asked her, “Can you say whoo whoo?”, she whooed back at me.

An E&E first: Ethan rejected Eliana’s sucka.

Eliana started sucking her fingers this morning in church: the first three fingers on her left hand. Ethan saw this, gave it a try, and quickly rejected it. For him, using the middle two fingers on the right hand is the only way to suck.

An E&E first: Ethan recorded Eliana eating a banana.

Despite having eating banana mixed with other foods before, Eliana had no interest in the pure banana mush that Beth tried to feed her yesterday. Today, I tried. Was it a superior mushing technique, or just being another day, who can say? But she ate her first pure banana—the whole thing.

Wanting to document the event for Beth, I handed Ethan the phone. The video is his first work of photojournalism.