An Eliana first: She buckled herself in.

As Beth went to buckle Eliana in on our way to square dancing, Eliana informed her that she was already buckled. When Beth asked who bucked her in, Eliana smiled big and said she did.

Another Ethan first: He made a full train layout.

I walked into the basement and unexpectedly found this - a beautiful result of growing skill and attention span.

Another Ethan first: He chopped down a tree.

“Tree” here means one of the trunks, but that still took some effort, since he was using a primitive Ethiopian ax.

An Eliana first: She requested a novel.

A couple years ago, when spoken words weren't yet an option, Eliana found the novel Redwall for me to read to her. Tonight she verbalized a similar request. When it came time for Eliana to pick the children's bedtime story, she selected the novel we've been reading through, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. It is a delight to see how she is drawn along with Ethan and me into the story and the characters’ choices.

Peanuts, the faith of a child, and what we take for granted

At the grocery store, Ethan and Eliana talked me into buying a few handfuls of peanuts just for fun, since they hadn’t had any for a while. I didn’t remember that in Eliana’s case, “for a while” meant ever. Nor did I notice at first after I put a few peanuts on her dinner plate, that she had trustingly inserted one into her mouth. That’s what you do with food your father puts on your plate, right? It was a hilarious sight watching her try to chew the whole peanut. Fortunately, I was able to get a bowl for her to spit it out into before she got far enough along to disdain the experience, although I’m sure she’s cured for life of her peanut naivety.

Another Ethan first: He gave Eliana a sled ride on the ice.

Ethan is taking very well to ice skating. I can tell he genuinely enjoys the ice for its own sake – not just for the fancy-non-campfire s’more he had afterward.

Mouse and water flow non-conformity

The kids had a great time at the Children’s Museum of Green Bay and our interlude at Chuck E. Cheese’s in between. At the mouse house, our fuzzy host showed up to lead the children in his trendy rodent dance. Eliana was intimidated by Chuck E.’s size, so she stayed close to my side. Ethan was right in the mix of kids, but he wanted no part of the antics. His peers were dancing around, but Ethan just stood still with a willful look on this face.

Back at the museum, Ethan repurposed the the water flow exhibit. Its intention is to show various current patterns as you place obstructions in a stream. Instead, he mostly learned that when a steady flow enters a closed system, no matter how hard you try to stop it, that water is going to go somewhere. The same diverters designed to pin into the stream bed stack nicely into a dam as the current’s pressure holds them together. Ethan raised the water to three times its normal level, right to the brink of the exhibit’s capacity.

I instigated and played a large role in the experiment; however, the idea to go fishing in his newly fashioned lake was Ethan’s alone.