Last weekend, our friends Micky and Tim, who live on a lake and have a boat, invited us over to their house to go for a boat ride. Ethan has wanted to try skiing all summer - so now was his chance. Thanks to a lot of help from Micky and Tim's instruction, he was able to lift himself from the water on his third try! Not only that, he was able to do so two more times after that as well! Way to go E!

Ethan and I share a lot of personality traits. One of the most pronounced, and perhaps annoying traits (according to his mother) is our love of Weird Al Yankovic. Ever since I introduced Ethan to Al's spoof on Lola by The Kinks he has been hooked. How could we resist when we found out that Al would be playing Summerfest in Milwaukee. Forget that it was a "school night," and that he didn't start playing until 9:00 PM, we were going! We all had a great time - Quin slept from the start of it all the way through. Ethan watched a lot of it on my shoulders, until my shoulders gave out and he had to settle to look at people's backs for a little while.

Lastly, Quin had a milestone of his own the other day. He was taking a bath - before the bath he said he had to go potty, so I put him on there and he peed - he generally does. After being in the bath for a couple of minutes, though, he told me he had to poopy. So I dried him off and put him back on the toilet. I'm used to this game, he generally sits there, does nothing, wipes his butt, and flushes the toilet. This time, though, he grunted and pushed and birthed a small little Mr. Hanky into the toilet. He was so proud, but immediately had to get up and flush it down because it was "ucky." After he flushed, though, he got back on and pinched another one off, again following that with another flush. I think about 6 or 7 flushes later I convinced him he was done. He's followed this up on 2 other occasions, though Jenny and I have really not yet started to "potty train" him...

Quick Hitters

The other day we were at a party where we stayed pretty late. On the way home, Ethan engaged us in interesting conversation, as always. I can't remember the exact context, but he asked something about somebody and if they were "a black." We told him that it was not appropriate to refer to somebody as "a black," it could be insulting. Instead he should use "black person," or better yet, "African American." He took this in stride and continued on with his conversation. After we got home, I was upstairs putting him to bed, when he asked me, "Dad, is it OK to call myself 'a white?' If I do that, am I insulting myself?" I had to tell him that I honestly didn't know...

After Quin's driving incident, one would think we would no longer let him behind the wheel of a car. Tonight he fetched me, took me by the hand, and brought me to Jenny's car, where he instructed me to get in the passenger's seat and buckle my "beatbel (seatbelt)." I asked him where we were going, and he said "work." He is quite obsessed with going to work, apparently.

One thing I find amazing about Quin lately is his memory. Jenny is a bit of a Chai Tea Latte addict. When she has Quin on Fridays, there is a better than good chance that they will go to Starbucks and she will get a latte while Quinny will get a donut. On Monday we were driving in Delafield, a place we don't go very often, and Quin saw a Starbucks, which prompted him to shout, "Donut, yeah!!!" I'm not sure if he was remembering a time when Jenny took him there, or if he has learned to recognize the sign - normally they go to the Oconomowoc Starbucks... Either way, I'm pretty impressed.