Not a good chance of me blogging tomorrow or Christmas day........so here I am today!
We are getting very excited about visiting family in Maryland ~ but nervous about the flight!! We hope our little guy is a good traveler!
I have not had a chance to share our new tree skirt! Charlie's Mom made it for us. The trim, stars, and snowmen are made out of pieces of my wedding dress.
This year for Christmas, Ethan is getting a new carseat. Here is Daddy trying to figure out the finer details........
Ethan and I were watching!
Ethan is not so sure about this new seat.........
or maybe it was just because he is a little fussy today. A few silly faces and some noises and this is what you get..........
Next step ~ install the seat in the car! Wish us luck!!
And finally, Ethan's new ornaments for this year. The first is a series of "sugar cookie" number ornaments! We can't wait to buy him a new one each year.
and this one is from Ethan's Great-Uncle Tom. He brought it to us in the hospital when Ethan was born!
So that's it. Merry Christmas. I'm sure there will be plenty of fun blogs and LOTS of pictures when we return from Maryland.
Today we went to see Santa at the mall. Ethan was less than thrilled, but not really scared either. It's a funny picture, and one we can laugh at for years and years to come. That's what these Santa pictures are all about right?!?
We also wrapped him up in some Christmas lights today!! I had seen a bunch of these pictures on the internet and thought they were so stinkin' cute! I dont have a super fancy camera, but we had a great time watching him so amazed by the lights!!
Thursday, December 11th ~ Ethan was officially 5 months old. He is growing so fast!
He is sleeping in his crib now.........
and already trying to escape!
And we FINALLY caught him laughing on video!!!!! He has been laughing for weeks now, but everytime we get him laughing and then turn on the video camera - he turns and stares at the camera in awe! So we had to get sneaky!! He gets a bunch of good laughs in before he notices the Christmas lights off in another direction ~ and that's when I lost the battle!!
Poor Ethan has had a cold for almost a month. After a two day hunger strike (Sunday and Monday) I called the nurse line at our pedi's office and they said we needed to come in and get checked out. So I took the day off Tuesday - sidenote: I am starting to feel like the substitute in my own class - and off we go to visit Dr. M!
The good: the hunger strike has not caused my chunky baby any issues at all. He has gained 1.5lbs since his 4 month appt. He is now tipping the scales at 16lbs 3oz! No wonder my back hurts.
The better: his lungs sound great, everything (major) checks out just fine. he just has a nasty nasty upper respiratory virus that wont let go. Being in daycare doesn't help matters, but we are very lucky that he is at an in-home daycare with less kids than a center, and we have a very diligent provider (armed with Lysol!!) Being a first-grade teacher also doesn't help him. I very likely bring home tons of germs on my clothes that don't bother us one bit but end up on him. So we can prepare for a long winter full of colds, but so far so good with no infections.
The ugly: the return of the reflux :o( Poor kid. we had been very hopeful at his 4 month check-up that he had outgrown the reflux. But over the past month he has been doing a TON more spitting up and is just all around more fussy in the evenings than usual. We also learned that the reflux can cause congestion AND a cough...so there is a chance that what we thought was just a cold - could have been the reflux all along. So we are back on the meds again, at least through cold season. It isn't anywhere NEAR as bad as it was when he was a newborn, but it has to be horribly uncomfortable to have acid reflux when you are so tiny and you can't even curse about it.
We got Ethan's Christmas pictures done last week at Portrait Innovations. This is the same place we had his newborn pictures done. We are very happy with them.
We had a great 1st Thanksgiving with our little bubba! Ethan started out the morning just perfectly by showing us he can roll from his belly to his back! No more unwanted tummy time for him! He just flips himself over.
Don't blink or you will miss the first roll!! This was actually roll #8 or #9 and he had just about had it with us ~ so if you miss the first one - you have to wait all the way until the end to see it again!
Ethan's 1st Thanksgiving outfit!
We can't wait for next year when he can enjoy all the favorite foods too! Tonight, he tried (and loved!!) carrots.
I meant to blog this yesterday (November 19th) but I was honestly just so tired that I decided to go to bed instead! So here is a "one year later" post that is just about 24 hours overdue!!
On November 19, 2007 ~ we had our 3rd appointment of my pregnancy. VERY VERY few people even knew that bubba existed as we had not even seen a heartbeat. With our previous loss, this was a big appointment for us. I was physically ill all day long at work! Then we got to the doctor's office and this is what we saw!!
Our little TicTac!! Ethan was measuring 6weeks6days and was 0.92cm in length!!! His heart was just flickering away at about 120. We were told it had just started beating a few days before that! Yeah, I cried my eyes out!
And here we are.......1 year later! Our baby is well over that 1cm size he was then - and he still just makes our heart melt! This picture was taken November 19, 2008!!
What a difference a year makes, huh?!?!
And because I love to share pictures of our little man.........
Two months ago he was in 10 - 25% for everything so he is definitely growing!!!
We are off the reflux meds (!!!!)for a few weeks to see how that goes. We can also start rice cereal, 1Tbsp a day, to see how he does. If that goes well, veggies next month. This could also help with the refluxing. We are still on nutramigen. She says we'll "talk" at 6mos but be prepared to stay on for the duration!
Ethan's neck is doing much better. The exercises are working. We even got a few new ones to try now that he is getting stronger.
He is not rolling over yet and shows no interest at all. His pedi says no worries for 2 more months. He will roll when the mood strikes him!
He got two shots in each leg and rotovirus oral. Lucky for me.....this round of shots made him more tired than cranky, so he slept most of today. We hope that is not a bad sign for tonight!!
Some Silly Playtime
The amazing versatile binky!! If you get bored with one side, you can just flip it around and enjoy the other side!!
Well, you know how much he loves his jumperoo! The exersaucer is a different story. It is still growing on him. He tries to jump when you put him in it and then gets really angry when it won't light up the toys. So we are trying to help him discover the toys.....
And this is what you get after you have been playing really hard all day......
Some rice cereal
So our little bubba loves his highchair but we found out tonight that he is not so fond of cereal!!! I'm sure it's still just too new. We will wait a few days and try again!!
Here comes the spoon ~ he looks excited doesn't he?!!
Still looks pretty happy, right??!!
Wait....what the heck is this?!!?
Bite #1
OK, happy baby! Try again.....
Bite #2 ~ seriously, this stuff is horrible!!
We decided if we wanted any video of this wonderful experience...we better do it quickly as we were pretty sure he was about to give up on us! We had no idea how "done" he actually was. We had no idea what we were about to get on video!!
Poor kid!!!
For your enjoyment ~ Bite #3.....the final bite!
It is our job as parents to record - and laugh - at events like this! And just so you know we don't actually intend to torture our child ~ he was fine after the whole event. He even likes the spoon! That's a start right?!
