Ethan

Ethan struggles the most emotionally. Yet he writes me love notes. He leaves them on my pillow or tapes them to my headboard.  sometimes he lets just hold him and rock him and help him calm down. I love that. When he was a babe we rocked him every night before we put him to bed. He is in fourth grade. He struggles academically also, but he doesn't have any behavior reports from school. Ethan was always cute and people often tell me how he looks like Macauley Culkin. When I say he was cute, I meant we thought he was cute. he was ours and we were smitten. but when we look at photos from his coming home we do not see the same boy we saw then. To us he was THE most beautiful child on the planet. Looking back he was scrawny, bony and pock marked with dull hair and dull eyes.  We still see him as beautiful. He struggles with so much he is not very happy a lot of the time. He likes to cook and does not like taking out the compost. He likes to help but not when he could be playing. He likes to play games but waiting his turn is hard and losing is even harder. He used to sing CHEESE GLORIOUS CHEESE!!! at the dinner table(thanks to Daddy) Ethan is a tiny guy. He was only 15 pounds when he came home and wearing a size 1 diaper. He was 2 years old then. He has grown considerably but is still on the small size for his age. A lot of our kids are smaller so he fits in just fine. This is the first year he has gone to school most days(so far) with a smile and returned home with a smile. That is a big improvement and makes it a lot easier on everyone. Ethan had a hard time adjusting to Ben's arrival but now he and Ben are best friends and he rarely plays without him. He likes chickens. Once he stormed outside to take care of the chickens, it was reported to me that he was "messing with the chickens" and I went out there ready for a fight. What I found was a little boy sitting in the chicken coop, on the ground, holding a chicken in his lap and petting it gently. The bird didn't fight to move. He just held it gently and pet it. Was a very sweet moment.  Ethan also has processing disorder. This makes for many understandings in our house.  Every now and then he likes to get in on something funny. He likes practical jokes. especially jokes played on his sibs and his dad. He adores his Papa. He likes making up stories and sharing them. He talks about inventing things one day. Of course he also talks about building uniquely useful things. He is our first adoption.