Ethan,
At age 8, you are 49 inches (or 124 cm) and 55.6 pounds. This is significant because you are now over the weight limit for optimal results with an epi-pen jr and are in a grey area where you are not quite big enough for the full sized epi pen but prescribed it anyway. Hopefully we'll never have to use it. We recently discovered at an allergy follow-up that you likely have asthma. Your oxygens levels are fine, but we had you tested anyway because you've been having to use your inhaler several times a week or even nightly during this winter. They suspect small airway disease with environmental allergens as the suspect so we are likely going to be making several more allergist appointments in the coming months. You've been coping and hiding it very well so it was a bit of a surprise how low your lung function numbers were but with new medicine and some more follow-ups, environmental testing, re-testing for food, and possibly allergy shots in our future we'll get it under control. Eczema, food allergies, and asthma tend to go together so we aren't super surprised, just surprised that you probably needed preventative medicines before this point.
(quick update- it been 2 months since I started this and you are now 52 inches tall and 52.4 lbs)
You are such a people person and so opposite of me child. You read a persons name tag and say hello to them using their name before talking (no one taught you this) and when you were in the center of attention receiving noisy cheers you stood there proudly soaking it up for a moment and then thanked everyone for the cheering. (I would have been embarrassed as a kid).
You can be a little scattered when we ask you to do something. I've lost count of the times that you have come out of your room wearing both pjs and clothes after I sent you in to get changed for the day or the times you've discovered in the evening that you've been wearing two pairs of underwear all day or had your pjs on under your jeans. It amazes me that you don't discover it earlier!
We heard you talking in your room at 5 am so Daddy went in to investigate. You were talking away to Booskger as if he was one of us. You still love your Booksger and sleep with him nightly. You recently had another birthday party for Booksger and made him a birthday card and gave him a present (a bunch of pinecones that you found). You decided years ago that Booksgers favorite snack is pinecones.
Some recent Quotes:
- "I would like to collect different diseases in an air tight jar. I'd have to wear an astronaut suit so I could have my own clean air. Then we could take criminals to the punishment room and that would be the only time we open the jar. Depending on the severity of their crime depends on how bad the virus is. We'd decide what is appropriate: Deadly or a cold."
- "Mom, I'm just PINING for Halloween! I have such a THIRST for Halloween!"
- "I want to know more about this piece of my head" (Looking at the tooth you lost under a microscope)
- "Mom, I'm going to need this olive oil to make a portal. (What??!!)...Oh and some Yttrium and a spark plug." (Why) "because I need to spark the right corner of the yttrium so it can be a superconductor"
- "Mom, where does Dad keep the lighter fluid?" (!!!!!)
- Ethan was asking me about cloning today... "mom, why did they clone a sheep and not something like a duck?" Me "I don't know" E "oh! I know! Because it would probably be harder to get DNA from a duck and it might bite the scientist! It wouldn't bother a sheep. They are used to getting their hair cut and DNA is in hair!"
- "What if it was possible to miniaturize a black hole? Do you think it could be kept in a jar if it was pressurized? Would it still be a black hole when you took it out of a jar? Do you think a black hole can ever go dormant like a volcano? What if it was possible to miniaturize a black hole and swallow it. What do you think it would do to a person's insides? Probably rip them up I'm thinking, but what if, what IF there was a minuscule chance that it might give that person black hole super powers.... then they would have destructive.... DECONSTRUCTIVE super powers!"
- "I really wish I could have a little bitty pet black hole captured in a jar. Every day I'd feed it some rocks."
- "Have you ever wondered what it would be like to drive bubbles instead of cars?"
- (said to the nurse giving him a shot) " that was 4,000% less painful than I expected. If I ever have to get vaccines again, I hope you are the one to do them" "I'm glad that vaccines exist so I didn't have to die from a disease at 4 years old or something else like that"
- "I love you mom, no matter what. Even when you get the name of dinosaurs wrong"
- "How did Scrooge McDuck get so rich? He has so much non-digital money that he had to attach his bank to his house!"
- "Mom, do you think I could build up a tolerance to dogs? Cause I kind of want a golden retriever....mom how do golden retrievers know how to find gold?"
- "When I get married, I want to find a girl with the exact same personality and interests as me. Then after our kids go to sleep every night, we can stay up late and invent amazing inventions together!"
- "Mom, I just love how every life has it's own unique story."
- "I can’t wait to have kids. I’m also enjoying my time of BEING a kid. When you play with me on the weekend Dad I can tell you have fun so I know I’m going to have fun with my kids. But I’m going to enjoy having my own kids even if I’m the boss of my own job. I’m going to have my own gemstone store and the kids will have to wear gloves so they don’t get fingerprints on the glass because they are going to want to touch them. And on Fridays, all the workers will get one gemstone each to symbolize each day of the workweek.”
- “Let me put you on notice mom, when I say I don’t like something before I’ve tried it, I’m ALWAYS right.” (you ate it anyway)
- "I think I could discover how to invent an invisibility cloak if I could only study a sea sapphire...of my very own."
- (6 am, climbs into our bed and says) “Mom, have you ever wondered just what’s out there ready to he explored?”
- (He has two pairs of underwear with stars on them) "see these blue underwear with stars? These are my enchanted underwear. They can stop bullets. And these Orange enchanted underwear make me lighter than everything around me so that I can run faster and jump higher."
- (On finding a test tube in the freezer with his brother’s vomit and the dirt he vomited on inside)....."Well, you never know how the germs and the dna will react to the cold. Maybe they will go into hibernation or maybe they will turn into a super dirt!"
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Little Stories
- one day Ethan's Halloween pining sent him over the edge. He climbed to the top of our swing set and from the top of the swim set, turned and yelled "it's almost October! It's almost October! It's almost October! To the four cardinal directions. From the top of his lungs.
“Say, Landon. Come sit here. I think no matter where we go we will be best friends. And I think we’ll always live in the same time period. Though I may die before you. Or at the same time. And one day, I’ll make you an Uncle.” Landon “what’s an Uncle? Oh well, then I’ll be a grand daddy”
- You and your brother love to throw on capes, grab toy wands, and pretend that ya'll are wearing wizard robes and are in the magic world. You just started Harry Potter number three and you and your brother pretended to follow a secret passage out of the castle to the village of Hogsmead and you wanted permission for some candy for Hogsmead. You love your stuff owl Harkey (and Landon loves Pecky) and you boys play almost daily with your owls. You don't always play magic world with them but you treat them like members of the family. (I saw both of you sharing your hot chocolate with your owls)
- Sometimes your imagination runs away with you at nightime. I had to tell you that cats eat monsters and since they are nocturnal and prowl the house at night you would be protected and could safely sleep. Once you invented monsters that cats couldn't handle you started sleeping with a toy wand by your bedside and you cast a "fidelis charm" so that the outside monsters couldn't find you. Booksger is your secret keeper and he'll never tell your location so you are safe. (Harry Potter plot point for going into hiding). You very much enjoy the Harry Potter Books (we recently let you read up to book 3) and you are currently reading the "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them" book.
- You like to make "Mud Geodes". Landon hides bits of chalk inside and then you break them open with a trowel to see what is inside.
- "I want to know more about this piece of my head" (Looking at the tooth you lost under a microscope)
"My tooth kind of looks like rock. Wait. It's made of calcium, and some rocks are made of calcium. Wow it's like I grow rocks in my head. I'm a rock making person."
- "Mom, I'm going to need this olive oil to make a portal. (What??!!)...Oh and some Yttrium and a spark plug." (Why) "because I need to spark the right corner of the yttrium so it can be a superconductor"
- "Mom, where does Dad keep the lighter fluid?" (!!!!!)
- Ethan was asking me about cloning today... "mom, why did they clone a sheep and not something like a duck?" Me "I don't know" E "oh! I know! Because it would probably be harder to get DNA from a duck and it might bite the scientist! It wouldn't bother a sheep. They are used to getting their hair cut and DNA is in hair!"
- "What if it was possible to miniaturize a black hole? Do you think it could be kept in a jar if it was pressurized? Would it still be a black hole when you took it out of a jar? Do you think a black hole can ever go dormant like a volcano? What if it was possible to miniaturize a black hole and swallow it. What do you think it would do to a person's insides? Probably rip them up I'm thinking, but what if, what IF there was a minuscule chance that it might give that person black hole super powers.... then they would have destructive.... DECONSTRUCTIVE super powers!"
- "I really wish I could have a little bitty pet black hole captured in a jar. Every day I'd feed it some rocks."
- "Have you ever wondered what it would be like to drive bubbles instead of cars?"
- (said to the nurse giving him a shot) " that was 4,000% less painful than I expected. If I ever have to get vaccines again, I hope you are the one to do them" "I'm glad that vaccines exist so I didn't have to die from a disease at 4 years old or something else like that"
- "I love you mom, no matter what. Even when you get the name of dinosaurs wrong"
- "How did Scrooge McDuck get so rich? He has so much non-digital money that he had to attach his bank to his house!"
- "Mom, do you think I could build up a tolerance to dogs? Cause I kind of want a golden retriever....mom how do golden retrievers know how to find gold?"
- "When I get married, I want to find a girl with the exact same personality and interests as me. Then after our kids go to sleep every night, we can stay up late and invent amazing inventions together!"
- "Mom, I just love how every life has it's own unique story."
- "I can’t wait to have kids. I’m also enjoying my time of BEING a kid. When you play with me on the weekend Dad I can tell you have fun so I know I’m going to have fun with my kids. But I’m going to enjoy having my own kids even if I’m the boss of my own job. I’m going to have my own gemstone store and the kids will have to wear gloves so they don’t get fingerprints on the glass because they are going to want to touch them. And on Fridays, all the workers will get one gemstone each to symbolize each day of the workweek.”
- “Let me put you on notice mom, when I say I don’t like something before I’ve tried it, I’m ALWAYS right.” (you ate it anyway)
- "I think I could discover how to invent an invisibility cloak if I could only study a sea sapphire...of my very own."
- (6 am, climbs into our bed and says) “Mom, have you ever wondered just what’s out there ready to he explored?”
- (He has two pairs of underwear with stars on them) "see these blue underwear with stars? These are my enchanted underwear. They can stop bullets. And these Orange enchanted underwear make me lighter than everything around me so that I can run faster and jump higher."
- (On finding a test tube in the freezer with his brother’s vomit and the dirt he vomited on inside)....."Well, you never know how the germs and the dna will react to the cold. Maybe they will go into hibernation or maybe they will turn into a super dirt!"
---------
Little Stories
- one day Ethan's Halloween pining sent him over the edge. He climbed to the top of our swing set and from the top of the swim set, turned and yelled "it's almost October! It's almost October! It's almost October! To the four cardinal directions. From the top of his lungs.
“Say, Landon. Come sit here. I think no matter where we go we will be best friends. And I think we’ll always live in the same time period. Though I may die before you. Or at the same time. And one day, I’ll make you an Uncle.” Landon “what’s an Uncle? Oh well, then I’ll be a grand daddy”
- You and your brother love to throw on capes, grab toy wands, and pretend that ya'll are wearing wizard robes and are in the magic world. You just started Harry Potter number three and you and your brother pretended to follow a secret passage out of the castle to the village of Hogsmead and you wanted permission for some candy for Hogsmead. You love your stuff owl Harkey (and Landon loves Pecky) and you boys play almost daily with your owls. You don't always play magic world with them but you treat them like members of the family. (I saw both of you sharing your hot chocolate with your owls)
- Sometimes your imagination runs away with you at nightime. I had to tell you that cats eat monsters and since they are nocturnal and prowl the house at night you would be protected and could safely sleep. Once you invented monsters that cats couldn't handle you started sleeping with a toy wand by your bedside and you cast a "fidelis charm" so that the outside monsters couldn't find you. Booksger is your secret keeper and he'll never tell your location so you are safe. (Harry Potter plot point for going into hiding). You very much enjoy the Harry Potter Books (we recently let you read up to book 3) and you are currently reading the "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them" book.
- You like to make "Mud Geodes". Landon hides bits of chalk inside and then you break them open with a trowel to see what is inside.
- You call me "Mama Cat-Cat" and love to crawl into our bed first thing in the morning and talk. You pretend that you are a cat called Kidzy-cat.
I found this in your room and had to ask... Only the strongest type of monster could pull it from the stone but that type of monster isn't in Heartland. You were protecting your wand at night so that the regular monsters wouldn't take it and use it against you. You use your wand to set protective bubble charms over our house to keep the monsters away at night and you have a monster lock on your door so that they can't access via the closet. (And you very infrequently have monster problems. It only briefly happens every couple of months)
- You have been making big plans for an oyster farm. Reading up on how to raise them, and saving for the pieces of equipment that you think you will need. Your goal is to have pearls.
- “Landon, I think when you grow up one day, you’ll have a great job. You are great at your passions. You’ll be a great builder.” and also, “Landon, you have a great imagination. I love your ideas”. You love your brother and are so encouraging to him. You two really are the best of friends.
- Ethan, “Today is the best day, you know?” Me “why’s that?” Ethan “because I got to sit here and talk with my brother”.
- In Taekwando when you see me watching you turn back and smile or make a heart shape with your hands and look through it at me.
- You spend your evenings after bedtime reading books on the elements and periodic table by the light of your dumbledore wand. You are fascinated by dark matter and hope that you will be the one to discover more about it. You get so excited when you talk about it that you start jumping up and down.
- At the haircut place you are known as the "Little professor" and "30 year old stuck in an 8 year olds body" They always remember you and they will remind you of your last conversation and you'll pick back up with it and add more.
- We recently discovered that you can do multiplication. I knew that you had figured out the twos a while back but we had just finally gotten to multiplication in your math book and were about to start your first lesson when you went ahead and filled out your math worksheet on your own, BEFORE we started. When I asked how you knew how to do it, you told me that it was just "logical". You have gotten very good at quickly doing addition in your head and you use that to quickly figure out the multiplication. Now we are working on using multiplication in real life and during games for easily counting faster to help you memorize your multiplication facts. We also are doing the lessons but you do find them a lot less interesting and have flown through two lessons a day.
- You helped rinsed Landon’s hair in the bath and then said that you were practicing for when you have kids...
I said “when you have kids?”
“Well in my third life”
“Your THIRD life??”
“...or fourth.”
“Why not until your third life?” (And where do you get this stuff, btw?)
“Because of all the stuff I want to do. I might not be home for a long time.”
------
- You took swimming lessons this past summer and loved it! You said you finally "drowned your fear in the pool" and that swimming feels like flying in water. You can't wait until swim lesson time again this year.
- You are very sweet to your brother. At VBS you were given a lollipop every night as you were leaving. Instead of eating them yourself, you saved them to give to your brother every morning when he woke up. He was too young to go and was asleep when you got back but he was upset that he wasn't able to join you.
I found this in your room and had to ask... Only the strongest type of monster could pull it from the stone but that type of monster isn't in Heartland. You were protecting your wand at night so that the regular monsters wouldn't take it and use it against you. You use your wand to set protective bubble charms over our house to keep the monsters away at night and you have a monster lock on your door so that they can't access via the closet. (And you very infrequently have monster problems. It only briefly happens every couple of months)
- (after listening to a radio ad for diamonds)...."I might want to get married but maybe not. Probably not for a long time. Cause I have a lot of things and plans I want to do and they are pretty specific and my wife might say NO. But when I do have a wife I'm going to buy her a diamond necklace with diamonds as big as my hand!". Me, "what kind of specific plans do you have?" E "well, I have rather a lot. I get a new one every day! It'll be hard for me to marry but when I do, it has a 59% chance of being Gabi."
- Mom! I saw that girl over by the car door and now I know what marriage is all about. I think she is probably 7. (you were 7.5 at the time)
- “Landon, we opened the LAST door on the advent calendar” “but I want more gummies tomorrow!” “ sorry Landon that’s not how it works, it counts TILL Christmas. “But I love them!” You can’t rewrite history”
- Ethan on finding two tv antenna from our old rabbit ears "wow, are these really old fashioned?" Me "not really, they are from about 8 years ago" E "wow, people are evolving quickly with technology!"
- “Landon, we opened the LAST door on the advent calendar” “but I want more gummies tomorrow!” “ sorry Landon that’s not how it works, it counts TILL Christmas. “But I love them!” You can’t rewrite history”
- Ethan on finding two tv antenna from our old rabbit ears "wow, are these really old fashioned?" Me "not really, they are from about 8 years ago" E "wow, people are evolving quickly with technology!"
- You drew a series of pictures that you call your "green hill" pictures. In these pictures you show a secret lair under a hill where guys on computers fight bad guys with remotely controlled lasers.
- You told me that you have 3 Types of energy. Halloween energy (that is charged up all year long), Everyday energy, and excess energy. Halloween energy is the reason that you can keep on trick or treating the night away and don't need to go home to go sleep.
- You have been making big plans for an oyster farm. Reading up on how to raise them, and saving for the pieces of equipment that you think you will need. Your goal is to have pearls.
- “Landon, I think when you grow up one day, you’ll have a great job. You are great at your passions. You’ll be a great builder.” and also, “Landon, you have a great imagination. I love your ideas”. You love your brother and are so encouraging to him. You two really are the best of friends.
- Ethan, “Today is the best day, you know?” Me “why’s that?” Ethan “because I got to sit here and talk with my brother”.
- In Taekwando when you see me watching you turn back and smile or make a heart shape with your hands and look through it at me.
- You spend your evenings after bedtime reading books on the elements and periodic table by the light of your dumbledore wand. You are fascinated by dark matter and hope that you will be the one to discover more about it. You get so excited when you talk about it that you start jumping up and down.
- At the haircut place you are known as the "Little professor" and "30 year old stuck in an 8 year olds body" They always remember you and they will remind you of your last conversation and you'll pick back up with it and add more.
- We recently discovered that you can do multiplication. I knew that you had figured out the twos a while back but we had just finally gotten to multiplication in your math book and were about to start your first lesson when you went ahead and filled out your math worksheet on your own, BEFORE we started. When I asked how you knew how to do it, you told me that it was just "logical". You have gotten very good at quickly doing addition in your head and you use that to quickly figure out the multiplication. Now we are working on using multiplication in real life and during games for easily counting faster to help you memorize your multiplication facts. We also are doing the lessons but you do find them a lot less interesting and have flown through two lessons a day.
- You helped rinsed Landon’s hair in the bath and then said that you were practicing for when you have kids...
I said “when you have kids?”
“Well in my third life”
“Your THIRD life??”
“...or fourth.”
“Why not until your third life?” (And where do you get this stuff, btw?)
“Because of all the stuff I want to do. I might not be home for a long time.”
------
One of your dreams at the moment, is to buy a humongous para-foil kite and sail away on a large gust of wind with just a pencil, a notebook, and a compass. You said that not being able to control the para-foil was the best part. No control over your adventure, just taking it as it comes and discovering all amazing things along the way. I brought up some harrowing scenarios that could come up involving mountains, oceans, etc but you weren't dissuaded. You said the challenges and not knowing ahead of time how to figure them out were the best part. Dear child with your head in the clouds, I hope that you revist this dream (theoretically) when you are older and draw the parallels to life and keep that optimism.
When you were five, you went around telling people that your full name was "Ethan Trilobite Moring". You thought Trilobites were pretty neat and that it made a better sounding name. At age 8, I privately think that "Ethan Epic Moring" would suit you better. It's all "Go Big or Go Home" with you my dear. You remind me of the refrain from the Pokemon theme song "I want to be the very best, like no one ever was...." You are full of optimism and enthusiasm for all your endeavors (that are YOUR idea) and you see no reason why you shouldn't turn your plans into the stories of legends.
Happy 8th Birthday Son. (Although, its a tad late, and you are keeping a weekly tally of how many years, months, and weeks old you are). May your dreams and optimism take you far.
