Abandon all hope, ye 3-year old thieves

This Saturday, Sara and I discovered a dairy-based crime and had to take parental action.

The children were out of the house, which can only mean one thing:
Non.
Stop.
Cleaning.

Mere minutes into our hardcore tidy up, we made a shocking discovery: poorly hidden underneath a bean bag chair was an entire block of butter, unwrapped, with teeth marks in it. Although I am well on my way to a life of permanent wheezy chubbiness, I haven't yet resorted to straight up chomping on butter; I don't live in a Midwestern State Fair.

We knew immediately that this was the work of one Ethan Warner. He had the means, in that he could reach the butter, and he had the motive, in that he could reach the butter.

Earlier, just before breakfast, Ethan had been spotted in his indoor playhouse, staying there for a mysteriously long time, and then remained there despite the availability of Marmite-slathered toast. Sure enough, that's where the butter wrapper was.

Poor quality pictures were taken for evidence/future nostalgia trips.

We had to bust this butter bandit. It may SOUND hilarious - because it is - but what does every single serial killer have in common? Dairy larceny. Look it up.

****SMASH CUT TO****

Dinner time. An unsuspecting Ethan was eating, unaware of the interrogatory HAMMER that was about to crash through his little world.

Sara 'Firm But Fair' Jenkinson, former primary school teacher, conducted the interrogation. Jason 'Poor University Grades Prevented Him From Becoming A Teacher' Warner observed.

I was staring at Ethan's face when she asked him about the butter. When he realised what Sara was getting at, I could see the flicker of recognition in his eyes. More specifically, if you can imagine the expression 'Bemused 'Oh Shit'' on a near-4-year old, you'll get the idea.

Sara asked him if he had taken the butter.

Ethan did not admit it. Instead, Ethan leaned back in the chair, spit to the side and said, 'I ain't talkin' without my lawyer.' You know, it's typical. You try to be a good parent. You try to show your child the complex, morally grey universe we live in by showing him the first season of The Wire and all he takes away is you gotta lawyer up.

Actually, Ethan remained very composed and countered with - and this is nearly an exact quote - "I have a question for you – are you going to put me in time out?"

What a wily evasion. I was so proud. ‘I don’t know if I’m going to put you in time out or not,’ Sara said, ‘it’s important that you tell us the truth.’

Sara and Ethan went back and forth in this way for a good 3 minutes. Finally, on threat of time out AND toy confiscation, Sara asked him one more time why he took the butter.

Ethan said, and this IS an exact quote:
‘Well, I was feeling ill...and my body shouted for butter.’

This is the funniest thing Ethan’s ever said. This is the funniest thing that any child has ever said.

Look, no one's body has ever shouted for butter. Even Paula Deen's body - itself 98% butter (with the remaining 2% made of racism) - has never shouted for butter. No one has ever used that phrase before in any language. Just think of all the events that had to transpire, from the Big Bang through that moment, all the coincidences and happenstances, for a perfect, beautiful phrase like that to Butter Bang into existence.

When your child utters a completely new, bananas phrase like that, any hope of professional interrogation standards is obliterated. We both completely failed to stifle laughter. Sara eventually got Ethan to admit that he had indeed taken the butter, because he hoped it was cheese. When he bit into it, he found that 'it was disgusting.' He now knows to keep butter where it belongs - smeared on every possible food imaginable.

We let him off with a warning since it was only his first food felony. We've averted his serial killer destiny. Just another day on the front lines of the gritty Law and Udder: Special Creamy Unit.

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A hunger in the weeds

Ethan has blossomed into a 21 month old. He has most of his teeth. He has contracted and defeated chicken pox with the cutest immune system. ('Who's got widdle white blood cells! You do!  Who has the cutest little antibodies to protect you from a future occurrence?! YOU DO!') His hair is lush and grows faster than two weeds at a weed race.

We continue to love our Ethan, very much, but he tries out patience with his great fussiness. We believe that we have been trying to raise an unfussy child, yet the report from nursery comes back the same every day. Eats a lot of cereal in the morning, refuses all food from then on. Every two weeks, we'll hear, 'We've had a breakthrough today! He had his full meal!' Next day, he's pushed everything away faster than two weeds at a weed race where weeds are racing each other to be the fastest weed in terms of growing tall, like a weed would. 

Ethan doesn't only do this at nursery. Ethan does this at home with us. I will present the food to Ethan like a fine maitre d would, explaining to missierueurure - is that how you spell that? - that today he is eating spaghetti with a fine tomato sauce, accompanied by garlic bread and a Deconstructed Salad consisting of one tomato, what colour is that tomato?, red!, and one carrot, what colour is that carrot?, orange! and one cucumber, what colour is that cucumber?, red! just kidding! green! Green cucumber, can you say green cucumber?, and here's a leaf like The Hungry Catepillar eats! Okay? Despite this excellent educational introduction, Ethan will most often intercept the food before it could even break his personal space. Ethan's Food Defense Strategy is a crafty three pronged approach: Hand Thrust, Face Whip, Raspberry Of Disapproving Dispersement. The Hand Thrust and Face Whip are often combined. In the Hand Thrust element, Ethan shoves his hands out wildly in a surprisingly strong straight arm, which bears a strikingly similarity to my fighting technique.  For the Face Whip element, he whips his head around side to side faster than two weeds at a weed race where they are really competitive weeds like kudzu and the event is Smother 100 Meters Of That Field's Native Plants. And then, should we manage to get a spoonful of food past these defenses, the Raspberry Of Disapproval and Dispersement serves two purposes. One, the pftpftpftpftpft sound lets us know that Ethan finds the meal completely detestable so bring forth the yogurt and cake please. Second, were we foolish enough to try to make him taste just one little taste, the pftpftpftpftpft action ensures that the food is effectively shot back at us, but this time in tiny, hard-to-see, spit-saturated pieces that instantly meld with any surface.

When I pick him up from nursery after a long day of self-starvation, he is initially pleasant, for he is happy to see his Daddy, and this pleases me. On the way home in the car, I carry on a mostly one-sided conversation asking Ethan how his day was, expressing my fondest hope that he had a good time at nursery. As soon as we're in the house and I put him down, Ethan realises that he's at home, that in the past he has been given food in this home, and RIGHT NOW FOOD RIGHT NOW FOOD RIGHT NOW RIGHT NOW RIGHT NOW! What follows is Ethan's most annoying cry, a squinty-eyed hyperventilating plea where he manages to whelp on exhalation AND inhalation. When this fails to instantly conjure up food, he resorts to standing directly in front of me, blubbering face in crotch, arms wrapped around me. I try to explain to Ethan that limiting my mobility will ensure the continuation of his self-enforced hunger strike. When I walk away to prepare some other aspect of the meal, Ethan will toddle after, increasing the volume of his cries, which increases the squintiness of his eyes, which often means I will hear a crash, a moment of silence, and then a cry of increased vigor since he is now minorly injured and hungry, a foul combination. (Or, if he was a chicken, a FOWL combination, GET IT?!)

And yet, ten minutes after I put him to bed last night, I was seized with an overwhelming desire to go into his room and look at him sleeping. He had shimmied to the top of the crib so that he can feel the wood against his head, his thumb was in his mouth, and he was breathing deeply. It brought me such joy and tenderness, faster than a weed in a...you get it by now.  

I was just showing Ethan how the Greeks do it

One of the most vital skills to master as a parent is the Holding Baby, Active Arm pose. This is where the child is held against you with one increasingly lactic-acid-laden arm, leaving the other arm free for action.

Ethan, regardless of the level of babyproofing here at the in-laws house, will find a way to subvert all safety measures. You will recall from last week that Ethan knows exactly which cabinets contain highly breakable or dangerous items. But even if Ethan isn't finding the Guillotine Cupboard, he's finding other things: a glass of water to soak the carpet and all furniture in a surprisingly large soak radius, a miniature dust+hair+old food living room tumbleweed that is as irresistible as several tons of plankton to a whale, magazines that apparently look far better trampled on the floor than arranged neatly on a table, or pretty much any object that he is just one precarious step away from falling onto, at best creating a hilarious story and at worst a life-altering injury that we will Always Regret.

Therefore, much of Ethan's time is spent being carried around. I took Ethan to the kitchen to get him some water, like a good father does. I spotted his durable-looking The Very Hungry Caterpillar cup that only comes as part of an expensive set which I am not mentioning for any foreshadowing purposes whatsoever and picked it up with my free hand. I have very successfully done tasks with my free hand whilst holding Ethan, from julienning carrots to boisterous badminton, so I had every right to assume that this simple operation would go as smoothly as the rest. I certainly did not anticipate that I would not so much pick up the cup as launch it across the kitchen. The cup entered into what is known as a Shattery Death Plummet, a well-documented scientific phenomenon wherein an object that you would have very much preferred stayed intact travels at such speed and trajectory that it very much does not. Yet, during the descent, time is altered in such a way that you can make one final memory of your object, intact, helpless to do anything else. The Very Hungry Caterpillar Cup That Only Comes As Part of an Expensive Set broke into 3 jagged pieces and now can be used as Ethan's first jigsaw puzzle, I argued ineffectually to Sara, who asked that I replace the set.

When Dolphins Sleep, It's Only With Half Their Brain

Ethan does not talk yet. He does, however, babble constantly and with great animation. I have maintained for some time now that he speaks fluent Baby but we are not evolved enough to understand.   Baby - or as we pronounce it, Bebe - sounds like English, Hebrew and Arabic are duking it out for control of Ethan's vocal cords. Crisp, clear words like YEAH clash with HA-YEAH, where the HA is hacked up straight from the back of the throat like the Cutest Rabbi.

The following is an incomplete list of the verbal utterances that Ethan currently utters. They are presented to you entirely in caps because they are often shouted.

YEAH, and variants
Ethan says YEAH and OH YEAH and YEAH YEAH YEAH YEAH. We don't know where he picked this up from, although it might have something to do with my practice sessions with Hello, my Yello cover band. (I just made a great reference.)

QUACKMMMMMM
This is the sound that a DuckCow makes. We have a book that has a cow and a duck on the same page and we got in the habit of doing the sounds for a duck followed by the sound for a cow, so now Ethan thinks that ducks say QuackMMMMM. It will be some years before I can tell Ethan the truth that we all know, that ducks are laughing condescendingly at us at all times, those malicious mallards.

DADA
This means: One of several dolls, any bearded man in real life or on television, 'I'm pleased!', 'I'm shouting DADA!' or Ethan's favorite 20th century art movement.

A DA!
Again! Things that are worthy of an A DA! are usually worthy of at least ten A DA!s. This plaudit was recently awarded to Sara's 'Flaily Flaily Flail!!!' which involves saying 'Flaily Flaily Flail!!' to Ethan, whilst flailing. Ethan finds this so funny that it's not enough to laugh, he also has to careen himself around his crib and stick his bottom in the air. This is probably why you've been seeing CIMMCSMBITA (Careening In My Metaphorical Crib Sticking My Butt In The Air) on your America Online chats lately.


DOUGH!
This is Ethan's way of saying no. Ethan uses this mostly in context but in two contrasting ways.
1) Ethan will use this to express his displeasure at something, such as being changed, being put into his pram, being taken out of his pram, being put into his car seat, being taken out of his car seat, being carried, being put down, being put to bed, being taken out of bed, being given a stuffed animal, having a stuffed animal taken away, having a coat put on, having a coat taken off, having shoes put on, having shoes taken off, or being presented with food that he likes most of the time but not this time because who knows maybe we are conspiring to poison him because we've finally found a market for human veal.
2) Ethan will say this for us to save us time when he's done something he knows we don't like. Case in point - the two cabinets in what is called The Morning Room. Given that the sun comes up on the other side of the house, this room should more accurately be called The Room Where We Eat In A Poorly-Lit Alcove Some Of The Time And Where There Are Many Trinkets (Especially Thimbles) And Also Where Laundry Hangs From Wooden Beams In The Ceiling And Also Where Christmas Decorations Are Stored And Also Where Some Mail Has Been Bunched Up For A Long Time And Should Probably Be Examined In Case It Is Important And Also Where There Is A Photograph Of A Bunny (Hare?) In A Field That Is Looking At You With A Disconcerting Level of Agression and Also Where Opposite That Photograph Is Another Photograph of Two Tiny Birds At The End Of A Branch Where The One Bird Which Either Has Red Plumage On Its Head Or Has Been Scalped (I Doubt This Happens In Birdlandia Which Is Where All Birds Think They Live) Is Puffed Up And Ready To Fight This Other Bird Who Looks Like He Just Wanted To Hang Out On A Branch For Like Two Seconds, GEEZ. Within both of these unsecured cabinets is glassware intended for fine spirits and wine. These glasses are pretty, but they appear to be made with great fragility, to the point where I believe if you poured out your fine spirit from more than 5 inches, the glass would shatter into sparkly, lung-lacerating dust. We have told Ethan approaching 8,000 times 'No' when he approaches these cabinets. Ethan now considers this part of the process of opening these cabinets. He opens, says DOUGH, and grins at us with great cheek.
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Regarding Ethan's sleep habits:

The day after I posted my tirade against Ethan's waking habits, Ethan really went for it and woke up at 3am. I don't know if you know this, but no one is awake at 3am. People on the night shift? Sleeping. By 4am, they're awake. I guess I'm saying, don't have surgery at 3am. Have it at 4am. Ethan is not aware of this rule. He got up for the day at 3am. He made sure everyone in the house knew it which I felt incredibly guilty about. Do you even know how much I hate waking people up? It's the worst. I'd rather be caught stealing your underwear with my face than wake you up. So here's this uncontrollable human klaxon, evolutionarily designed to have a voice that cuts through walls and doors like so many shrill sledgehammers, waking absolutely everyone up. Waking them up So Hard!

I said to myself, this is the pattern. He slept until 7. Then 5. Now 3. Will it be 1am next?

YES IT WAS. 1 goddamn 30 in the goddamn next morning. This time, I SHUSHed him successfully. But this could continue. Will Ethan evolve out of sleep? Will it be 11, then 9, then when we put him down to bed at 7 will he immediately spring back to life at 7:01, demanding milk and playtime? Will he enter Dolphin Sleep?!

Theeeeeeeeeeeese fooolish gaaaaaaaaames

There are things that I expect to happen at 4:45 in the morning. I expect that I will be awake, my body instinctively knowing that my alarm is about to go off in 20 minutes, so what's the point of falling asleep? Could something be happening on Twitter or on my email at that very second? Shouldn't I check it? But won't it be bright and hurt my eyes? Maybe I better not check it. Let me lie on my other side. Oh God, my fat thighs are radiating directly on to each other and it's so uncomfortable. On my back? Why am I breathing funny on my back? Should I see a specialist? Should I breathe through my nose more consciously? I should get back into that meditation CD I have, the one for ADD. Do I remember right that it helped bowlers, but the British kind, not the big ball kind. I watched bowling once and it seemed like grassy shuffleboard had a baby with curling.

I expect to be running through all these thoughts until my alarm goes off. My hand will fly to it, shutting it down immediately, lest I wake 18-month old Ethan up who sleeps in the room with me. I expect that he will remain asleep and I will stealthily sneak out and down the stairs of my in-laws house and into the kitchen, where I will very slowly and confusedly prepare breakfast and then eat that breakfast in peace with no one else around.

I don't expect Ethan to be up at 4:50am, barreling toward a Milk Rage. This is what happened today. This is what happened yesterday. This will happen every day for the rest of time, right? Do I have to wake at 4am? At 3? I just want to have breakfast and The Daily Show. I am a simple man with simple needs, despite my preference for dark chocolate made exclusively by men with overwhelming, lush beards.

When Ethan started crying for milk that early, I got down to the side of the crib and I stared at my child in the dark, saying things like ssssshhhh and ssssssssshhhHHHH and SSSSSSHHHHH and FOR GOD SAKE SSSSSSHHHHHHH and 'What's happened?!' and 'Come on!' and 'But, Jon Stewart!' and 'Go back to sleep' and 'Ethan. Ethan! Ethan no. Ethan stop this! Ethan....SSSSSHHHH.' Ethan's response was to cry in a more determined, higher-pitched shriek, punctuated by emphysema coughs,  combined with the sign language that he learned for milk, which is squeezing a cow teat over and over again.

I said to Ethan, defeated, 'Okay Ethan, let's go downstairs and get your milk.' I lifted him out of the crib and took him to see Sara. Sara was already up, probably since 3am, because her pregnant body has turned her body clock into a melted Dali shambles. I pointed at Ethan as if to say, 'Can you believe this jerk? Look at him. I know we love him, but at what cost, Sara? At what cost?'

Ethan Teat Squeezed, coughed, cried and flopped down horizontally, an annoying senseless habit that would send him plummeting to earth several times a day if I didn't stop him with my Father Strength. I save his life dozens of times a month. And what thanks do I get? A milk-ravenous fiend interrupting my sacred breakfast time. And when he's older he'll probably want pants.

Downstairs, I prepared his bottle. I explained to him that his bottle at the present moment is too hot, but in a very soon future moment, it will be Just Right, at which point I will give it to him. However, Ethan had Helen Kellered himself, having scrunched his face into a desperate, red mask of pained exasperation whilst suppressing any calming words from DaDa with nonstop screaming. Finally, the bottle was indeed Just Right. It was my intention to take him up stairs to let Sara feed him but Ethan continued to screech, aware the bottle was there and that it wasn't securely in his baby mouth. I had no choice but to feed him on the go, like an uncomprehending lamb, all the way up the stairs until he was with Sara.

And yet we love him. He does a giggle or some new sound and things like this fall down the memory hole or become hilarious, to the point that we're having another one. It's insanity. It's awesome, maddening, addictive insanity.

Ethan Gazette Reissue, Volume 9

Welcome to Ethan Gazette Volume 9 , Ethan Goes On Holiday Edition, the world's finest source for Ethan's holiday adventure stories. We here at the Ethan Gazette can also promise right up front that no phones have been hacked to get any of the forthcoming information. What, we can't do topical humor? Whatever, go start your own Gazette and try to make it timeless. You just go ahead and try. Please don't try. I don't want your competition.

You will recall from the last edition that I was mauled by an ironic tiger and lost both my arms. Given that my daily job requires typing at a high speed, I was starting to rack up more concussions than is preferable.  I am pleased to tell you that I have since been outfitted with brand new arms that I got on sale at the local Armory. They're a little hairier than I wanted and there's a strange tattoo of a blue dragon with pink fairy wings breathing a rainbow, but these are the kinds of sacrifices I have to make as a father. The bionic arms with fondue pot add-on will have to remain a distant dream.  

Now that I have spent most of Ethan's university fund on hairy fairy arms, I must continue my advertising relationship with Mortimer Montgomery. Here is another essential(?) item. I'm working on a new advertiser. I don't think MM understands our demographic. Anyway, here they are again.

***

Hello, friends.

The time of winter is upon us. This is if you are in a region that experiences seasons. Are you reading this in California or in the middle of the desert? Then you may go away from this advertisement. Wait. In the desert you also experience cold in the evening time. This message is also for you. Have you already gone away? Please come back. If this message is being read by a desert couple and one of the couple has gone away could you the person who is still reading this go and get that other person to read this advertisement? I will wait. I am done waiting. You are cold in the evening time because that is what happens in the autumn. Do your feet and your toes get cold and chilly? Are you taking up a great deal of time rubbing them in an attempt to create friction which creates warmth? Are you missing most of your child's life because you are attending to your cold feet? Do you have socks and trendy Ugg boots and even a blanket but even this is unable to penetrate the chill in your feet? Then I feel like you are ready for the latest innovation from our subterranean, vegan, hairless, all-tenor lab workers: The Shinstrapped Portable Fireplace.  Made out of high gloss marble, the Shinstrapped Portable Fireplace is the ideal solution to warm up your feet. Here's how it works. There are straps. There is a fireplace made of marble with room for straps. Strap the fireplace to your shin, attach the asbestos-lined Heat Direction Cone, point it at your feet, and there you have it, you have heat directed at your feet by fire, which is the best way to heat things. Have you become hungry because you are so cold? Roast something in the fire. We also sell accessories such as a miniature tin for beans, a miniature bellows, or a miniature bear skin rug - made from real miniature bears - for ambiance. What an attractive scene will be laid out on your shins. It is also a comfortable scene because they only weigh ten pounds each. How much would you pay to have feet that are warm all the time? I can hear you say close to infinity dollars. For you though it is only $14,566 for the pair and we will throw in a free miniature bellows. Because as Mortimer Montgomery used to say, 'You show me a man with warm feet, and I'll show you a man with feet that are warm.'

***

In the months since our last edition, Ethan has become 8 months old, and we can finally set him free into the world to make his own way. Sara is reading this over my shoulder and tells me that's not the case. Apparently the scale of our commitment to this child is far more than I was anticipating.

  

And now it's time for the -

Ethan Gazette Special Edition: Ethan Goes on (Two) Holidays! 

  

Special Edition: Ethan Goes on (Two) Holidays!

- Our first-ever proper trip with Ethan was to Scotland, land of the Scots. Sara's parents own a caravan there in Creetown, which is in southwest Scotland.  In the past, we've lucked out with the weather. Glorious sunshine-filled days. In both of our previous visits, we drove up in the rain, arrive in sunshine, and then drive home in the rain. This time, the weather outsmarted us and rained and winded on us the entire time. Ethan however, did not mind this. In fact he took the opportunity to sleep through the entire night for the first time! And then was a little terror the entire rest of the day. Oh, poor baby, did you get TOO MUCH sleep? Get over it. Go get a job already.

@@@

 - On our second trip, we went to Norwich, which is about four hours drive to our east. This trip will never again take four hours. Not with Ethan. Not with him going stir crazy in his car seat. I can see the transition happen in his little baby eyes. At first he views the road trip as an exciting diversion…

…This is gonna be great. Me and the parents on a trip together. I am ready to take it all in. I am ready for a journey and a HALF guys. What's there to worry about? Look at all this stuff hanging off my car seat! I've got a snake with dangly bits on. I'm gonna hit those dangly bits! Take THAT dangly bits! Hey dangly bits - get in my baby mouth! Yeah! Yeah I've put you in my MOUTH dangly bits! Hahahaha! Ha...Haha...look at that scenery whooshing by, am I right? Do you know how fast we are going right now? This is blowing my tiny baby mind. Look at it. It's going and going. That's what it's doing. Over and over again. And again. And again. And again. And...dangly...bits...I HATE IT. I hate everything! I want out! Why have you trapped me here?! I want to roll about and play! I was promised a much better time. I am going to YELL! I AM YELLING! GET ME OUT! OUUUUUTTTTT!!!…

…Several times throughout the journey, I’d look over at Ethan and find him asleep, his cute little face in the cutest repose. A minute later I’d look back at him and his eyes were a self-imposed Clockwork Orange situation,  unblinkingly awake, radiating his over-churned baby rage.

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- For the Norwich departure, our sincerest hope and wish was to depart from our home at about 3pm. We packed what we could the night before and – let’s just have a word here about traveling with a baby. You need So. Much. Stuff. Sara and I were already pretty bad at overpacking. Even a weekend away would require a giant piece of airplane-hold-sized luggage each. Because you just never know if you will need those additional 5 shirts because what if you fall into 4 mud holes or get mauled by 4 tigers or you decide to play Torrid Soap Opera Love Scene and rip off 4 shirts?? Ethan needs his giant change bag, special crib thingy so he sleeps well, his mobile thingy that sits above his special crib thingy, his bathing bucket, his alarm that tells us if he’s stopped breathing in the night, his car seat, his bag of toys, his 1/2000^th scale model of Parliament, his full collection of cardigans, and his trio of didgeridoos. 

I had work until 2, therefore saddling Sara with finishing up the packing we hadn’t finished – which was most of it. I didn’t appreciate that packing is vastly more complicated given the amount of stuff to pack, finding a staging area for all that stuff when nearly every spare square foot we have is taken up by Ethan’s stuff, trying to pack stuff when all the stuff is in the bedroom and that happens to be where Ethan takes a nap and you put Ethan down for a nap so you can wash a dish so you don’t come home to a pile of disease-ridden dishes but he doesn't take a nap which is WORSE because then he’s CRYING and you can't PACK when the baby is CRYING you can only try to hold off your OWN crying while you take care of Ethan’s crying and SQUELCH the baby has evacuated the entire backed up contents of his bowels managing to turn the formerly pristine white interior of his nappy into an overwhelming brown.

Therefore, by the time I got home, the packing had advanced in that a suitcase had been moved about a foot. Somehow the packing dragged on until past 4pm. It may have had something to do with my 20 minute leisurely lunch and the fact that I am under the perpetual delusion that packing will only take another 5 minutes. My preferred method of packing is to saunter from room to room, wondering why we haven’t left yet. Surely it’s not MY fault. Didn’t you see me put something in a case half an hour ago? My obligations to this packing process are complete!

By the time I squeezed the last didgeridoo into the overstuffed car, Ethan was screeching in frustration and hunger. 6 hours later, he was making similar sounds as we rolled on and on through dark roads to get to Norwich. But even at 11:30 we gave him his bath, put on his lullabye music and he was asleep as he hit the mattress. He was absolutely lovely the rest of the weekend.

@@@

***

You know what, I’m going to say that’s the end of this edition. Who are you to say you want another section of Ethan Gazette Volume 9? If I try to add another section, there will never be an Ethan Gazette Volume 10. And doesn’t the world need an Ethan Gazette Volume 10? Do not answer that.

I hope this reaches all of you in fine health, and I hope your plans for 2012 include frivolity, hugs, cake, laughter and mischief.

- Jason, father and only staff writer of the Ethan Gazette

Ethan Gazette Reissue, Volume 8

Welcome to the Ethan Gazette, Volume 8, the finest source for all Ethan news anywhere in the world, except for Burkina Faso, where they’ve been doing some excellent reporting. Is that a real place? I will not be checking. Okay, I’ve checked. It’s in Africa. Did you know that? It just sounded like some fake place, like El Dorado or “Connecticut.”

Anyway, fine, yes, it’s been 7 weeks since the last Ethan Gazette. There’s a perfectly good reason for there not being a new Ethan Gazette other than a case of writer’s block and it’s completely plausible. I was in my local supermarket on the hunt for ice cream to beat the heat, or what passes for heat in England, which is anything above about 70 degrees Fahrenheit, or about 300 Celsius or whatever. I was delighted to see that Ben and Jerry’s Fossil Fuel flavor finally came out here.  I was looking at the nutritional information saying to myself, ‘The only thing that’s going to stop me from eating you is if my arms fall off.’ And RIGHT THEN an ironic tiger jumped out of nowhere and mauled both my arms off. Now I feel terrible that I was the Snarky Commenter of the Month on the Supermarket Maulings blog. So: Let’s all just agree that that’s what happened. The next several Ethan Gazettes I will have to type with my nose, but I will do this. I will do it.

While the Ethan Gazette is an honest and true portrait of our parenting adventure withEthan, it’s also a cynical attempt at a cash-milking machine, which is why we are once again sponsored by Mortimer Montgomery. Have a gander at their latest life-changing technology.

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Hello, friends. Are you having trouble with energy bills? When you get them in the email or in the mail mail are you filled with despair or do you put your hands into your pockets and then pull your pockets all the way out revealing that you are only rich enough to afford dust? If so then prepare to be delighted by the latest offering by our subterranean, vegan, hairless lab workers: Mortimer Montgomery’s Possticityä Posset-Powered Electricity Converter. Yes that is right, your baby’s posset, vomit and drool can be turned into electricity, like Rumpelstiltskin turning straw into gold but without the creepy blackmailing dwarf. It has been shown in a scientific way that posset is one of the most fuel-efficient fuels on the planet. Just 5ml of baby posset can power an average lamp for we are guessing 500 years. You will not live that long but isn’t it nice to know that your lamp light will? Simply collect your baby’s mouth offerings with our Possticityä Gas-Powered Syphon and then transfer your collection into the Possticityä Reservoir. Press the activator button and through a combination of negative ions and pure ivory extract what was once your baby’s drool is now powering your BluRay. Finally, your baby is good for something. This incredible device can be yours for a miniscule cost of $9,283. How much would it cost you to run that lamp for 500 years straight? Probably $9,500. It is obvious that you should get one. As Mortimer Montgomery used to say, ‘Show me a man that leaves a lamp on all day, and I’ll show you a man who doesn’t trip over things as much.’

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And now, presenting the latest news in Ethan’s life in bullet point format, the way that all gazettes should be.

- Last week, Ethan was momentarily possessed by the spirit of a frenzied cat, because there’s no way human vocal cords could or should make the sound that screeched out of him. He was upset that I would dare to put his shirt on for the day, something that only happens around the same time Every. Single. Day. As soon as the shirt is on, he’s fine that the shirt is on. But having it put on is the most terrible thing that’s happened to him in his whole baby life. I have suggested to him that he try to distribute some of his body weight to areas other than his increasingly fat baby head so that it’s a more pleasant experience for everyone, but he is deaf to suggestions.

- If I could afford a Mortimer Montgomery’s Possticityä Posset-Powered Electricity Converter, I could power everything in England at this rate and then go on to solve the oil crisis. At the risk of overstating the drooling situation we’re in, Ethan is The Drooliest. He is the Niagara Falls of drooling. If Niagara Falls and Victoria Falls had a Baby Waterfall, Ethanwould out-drool that baby. It does not stop. His mouth is constantly glistening, his bibs are overwhelmed within minutes, and his hands are slimier than a greased whale. We love to indulge him in a round of SuperEthan, where he’s propped up on our shins and gets to fly through the air, but our pleasure is mitigated by the 2-foot strings of drool that dangle impressively from his mouth before pooling on our clothes.

- In the last Ethan Gazette, I offered our services as expert jewel heisters. (None of you have taken us up on the offer.) I thought that any bang or bump or stumble would wake Ethan up. I went to bed the other night in my usual slow-motion, only to find that Sara was snoring loud enough to wake a dead person who was buried with headphones on. Ethan, however, slept on completely unfazed. Finally, I thought, we can have our Gong Parties again.

- Already, whenever I see another parent, I smile this Knowing Smile. And that smile says: Yeah, I have a kid, too. I get it. I know about parenting. All of it. We’re in The Club. And whenever I see a baby younger than Ethan, or a pregnant lady, I want to flash that expression that I’ve had flashed at me. The expression that says, ‘Oh boy you are in for a lot of work but you’re going to be so in love and appreciate every minute because it goes so fast and try to sleep when the baby sleeps and it gets easier but it also gets harder and you think [insert baby age here] is hard wait until SEVENTEEN weeks…’

- Ethan has already spoken his few first words including dog, gay and hi. He especially loves to say Hiiiiiiiiii!!!!!! But now that I think about it, isn’t hai a Japanese expression! There can be no other explanation: Ethan is already bilingual and therefore the world’s smartest baby. So, given that Ethan can already speak in several(?) languages, I figured it was only right to allow him to take his first foray into writing. Ethan and I talk about many issues every day from the economy to philosophy to why beards feel so funny on the bottom of his baby feet. I offered Ethan his very own column in this Ethan Gazette and he accepted by exclaiming, ‘GAY HIIIIIII!!!!’ and then adding, “Ooooo!!!!” Ethan didn’t want to tell me what it was about before he wrote it and I have not offered any editorial control. So here, debuting his column for the first time, is my precious baby with the 6-syllable name,Ethan Harry Warner:

Guest columnist: ETHAN WARNER

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I hope this hasn’t offended any of you.

That wraps it up for the latest Ethan Gazette. A special Ethan Takes A Holiday edition will be next, featuring Ethan’s trips to Scotland and Norwich. How is Ethan sleeping in faraway places? Does he like being bathed in an oversized bucket? Just how quick can a baby go from laughter to complete meltdown? Find out the answers to all this and more in the next edition.

Thank you for reading. Your attention makes me strut.

- Jason, father and Editor of the Ethan Gazette