Ethan loves us. He likes to tell us this in a variety of ways. His favorite, is the measuring of love. There are a variety of measurements.

By bigness,

“I love you bigger than a HOUSE! I love you bigger than the WHOLE WORLD!”

By speed,

“I love you THIS FAST!” (He takes off running.)

Comparatively,

“I love you! I love you even more than the SANDBOX!”
“Even more than legos?”
(he has to think this one over, but only for a teeny second.
“Even more than LEGOS!”

And on a scale of one to ten,

“I love you TEN!”

I love the comparative and scale of one to ten ways, because you can kind of mess with his head a little bit:

“What about Daddy?”
“I love Daddy TEN TOO!”
“How about Pookie Bear?”

See, now he’s torn. Because Pookie Bear is his most beloved object in all the world. (even more than the sandbox. Even more than legos. Even more than *gasp* GARBAGE TRUCKS!)

“I love Pookie Bear a 10 too!”
“How about the sandbox.”

Now he’ll start to get all introspective and thoughtful. It’s terribly amusing.

“I think I like the sandbox an eight. And legos too.”

And as he gets all introspective he’ll lose track of where certain things rate.

“And I love garbage trucks ALL THE WAY TO TWENTY!!”
“But hey, I thought you loved me to ten!?”
“Well, I can love you to A HUNDRED!”

One last way he likes to show his love is to run at you with roughly the speed of a bullet newly escaped from the chamber and plow into you like a linebacker. You see, in his mind, speed is equivalent to his love. So it doesn’t matter how much I tell him to slow down and be gentle with his mommy lest she fall backwards and smack her head on the pavement, he is unable to slow down. Because that would mean he loves me less. And he just couldn’t have that, now could he?

The very cute thing about Ethan is these eloquent profusions of his love, which can come at any time, right in the middle of any conversation.

So it was especially cute when we sat down to Papa John’s pizza on Sunday night.

“I LOVE PAPA JOHN’S PIZZA! I LOVE IT A TEN!!”
“What do you love us?”
“Oh, you’re a 9.”

(James and I had to try to control the cracking up.)

“Only a NINE?”
“Yes! Because PAPA JOHN’S is the BEST PIZZA IN THE WOOOOORRRRLD!”

A minute later,

“You know what makes me grow?”
“What?”
“Pizza.”

Ahh, to be five.