Ethan turned 7 on Friday. I can't believe how this child of mine has grown up. This year it hit me a little more than the other years. He is no longer a baby, or a toddler or a little cute kid. He's a rough and tumble boy. A boy who likes to wrestle and make paper airplanes. A boy who is crazy about baseball and can't stop talking about a hip-hop class he is starting next week. A boy with definite opinions about absolutely everything. And the more he knows, the less I seem to.
When did he become so fiercely independent?
The first moment I laid my eyes on Ethan, I knew he belonged to me. After so much anxiety and worry that everything would fall through, I was finally holding this sweet smelling, wrinkly, tiny child with fine, strawberry blond hair. I spent the next few months doing everything wrong and everything right at the same time. But it didn't take long for Ethan's exuberant temperament to burst through. The gigantic smiles and laughter that came straight from his belly. My beautiful baby boy quickly turned into a beautiful toddler. With a blast of energy he shot from crawling to running. My fiery little red-head never left a moment of time unused. By that time, I knew that my first impression of Ethan was all wrong. I belonged to him. He has, what is true with all three of my babies, my entire heart. (That may or may not be logistically possible but I never was good at math.)
The more my Ethan boy sees the world, the less he looks to me to explain it to him. I love that. Kind of. I miss the little boy who looked to me to answer every question. At the same time, I love hearing him tell me the new cool things that he learned from school. Having a 7 year old is going to be different for me but at least I still have our night-time routine. I get to sing, scratch his arms and legs (don't ask...he LOVES that) share secrets and snuggles. It might not be an all day thing, however, at this point, I'll take what I can get.

Ethan wanted to go out rollerskating for his birthday, so, off to the rinks we went. He was especially excited after he found out that Great G-pa Jones was a professional roller skater during the depression. Ethan is very determined to get rollerskating down and even though this was only his second time, I think he did rather well. He mostly went around by himself, attacking the sport with a bulldogish tenacity. I didn't know the boy could do the splits. He looked as surprised as I was the painful moment we both found out.
Another determined child of mine on wheels was, of course, little Laina. She loved going around with her Daddy but spent just as much time forging out on her own. Austin, on the other hand, split his time holding tightly onto Daddy's hand or onto the edges of the rink. Here is a picture taken right after Rob rushed off to help a particularly nasty fall of Ethan's, leaving Austin in the middle of the rink. Not close enough to get to the side-lines, my sweet boy kind of slowly rolled to a stop.He stayed like that for a good long while until Alaina coaxed him into shuffling to the side by himself. He'll get it. I think.

For dinner Ethan was allowed to pick anything he wanted. (Not that he hasn't been able to do that for this last month of hotel living & restaurant eating. Shhhh. Don't tell him.) The one big difference is that he got to have a big sundae dessert. Yum.Austin was so tuckered out from the rollerskating that he didn't even make it through dinner. He took a couple bits and was out. I've never known a child who would do that when promised ice-cream.
Although, sleep is sounding pretty great to me too. *yawn* Just two months to go and I'll have two six year old kids to take Ethan's place. Heaven help me.