First Football Game!

When we attended the game Ethan was only four months old. But we figured out that in his four almost five short months of life he has done a lot of living! He has been on three airplanes plus a long road trip. He has been to the beach on the Atlantic ocean. He has been in two weddings. He has been to the movies and to a musical. He has also been to a professional baseball game and now a professional football game. Too bad he won't remember any of it :)

Five Months

I remember when I first started this cat thing. I thought it was never going to work, because he wouldn't be the same size as the cat until he was two. Well 5 months later I was proved wrong.

This months photo shoot was a little difficult. Apparently Ethan just wanted to show the cat some love.


So I tried changing up the location and putting distance between the two of them. Obviously that didn't work.


So I tried distracting him with a butterfly.


But that didn't last very long.


After about ten shots I finally got one decent enough to use!

Now Ethan has obviously grown in length. But when I did my at home length measurement, I still only got 27 inches. I must have done something wrong. So I am not sure how long he is this month.

I also did a weight measurement (with wii fit- which has been fairly accurate in the past) and he came out weighing 17 lbs. No way he gained 3 lbs last month. It is possible, but I don't think that is correct. So I am not sure how much he weighs either.

At this point I was 0 for 2 so I didn't even bother with the head measurement. I'll leave it to the professionals. I'll have to wait until next months check-up to see the official results.

This month Ethan grew up a ton! He can now...

• roll over from front to back. If he is motivated enough, usually in pursuit of a toy, he will roll from his back to front. But usually it is a half back to front roll and a scoot that gets him where he wants to be. It is impressive actually. If I lay him down while I go to make dinner or something, I almost never know where he is going to be when I return.


• sit up sometimes. He was doing great for a week, but now he has given up trying. If I try to put him in the sitting position, he will fight it. He will just straighten his legs and tighten his whole body in protest. Maybe next month he will get the hang of it.


• squeal, squawk, and grunt. He is making all sorts of new sounds these days.


• sleep through the night again. July was a rough month with all of our vacations. He didn't know what was going on. But now that we are back to our normal routine, he sleeps 8-6 everyday. Some days he'll even sleep till 7:30 or miraculously sleep till 9:30- OK that was just once, but I dream of it happening everyday.

I am still in love with this boy. I love him more and more everyday. I never knew that I could love someone so much- well besides Aaron of course. Ethan is just perfect. He is still just chill and happy almost all of the time. I always get comments on that fact. Since this is my first everything seems normal to me. But if Ethan's demeanor is not the norm, let's just hope that I get lucky and have children that just naturally behave wonderful... I can dream right :)

My Contortionist/Cannibal

I usually have to pry his foot out of his mouth to change his diaper!

He Has Found His Voice!

This month Ethan has just grown up a ton! One of the many things that he has learned to do is talk... well it's more like squealing actually. Now that he has discovered this he does it all of the time! If he is awake he is squawking and squealing away.

Here is a little sample of what I am privileged to listen to all day! Just to warn you if you do listen to the following clip, make sure you don't have any glass around that you want to break :)

Rolling Over (Part 1)

I call this part one because he can only roll from his front to his back. Now I feel like he was born doing this, but that probably isn't the case. So let's just say that he has been doing this for a while. The only reason that I am now noticing it is that last Saturday I finally decided to show him how to roll from his back to his front. All week he has been trying his hardest to do it on his own. He always gets stuck on his arm. When I give him that extra little push he needs to get to his front, he hates it! He will do anything to get to his back as quickly as possible.

So here is what it looks like. Go Ethan Go!


And SUCCESS!



Oh yea, and he sits up!

Sometimes it looks like this... (love him!)


But most of the time it looks like this!

Way to go Ethan!

Independence

I have mixed emotions on what I about to tell you. I'm not sure that I am ready for this yet. But here I go... Ethan is already starting not to need me! And I know that this is only the first of many things to come, but still it breaks my heart a little.

For the past couple of months Ethan and I have had an on going battle over who is going to feed him. He would always try to grab hold of his bottle during feedings. The problem was that he still had the spazzy arms so if I ever let him take control, within seconds Ethan would have thrown the bottle across the room. So usually I would take his hands off the bottle and then distract him with something else to hold on to.

Lately he has had a lot better control over his arm movements. Plus he is getting so strong I fear that I would break his arms if I tried to pry them from the bottle. So I have given in. I get him started and then he takes over.

He holds it high.


He holds it low.


Although it has come in handy on those nights when he feels the need to wake up at 4:00 a.m. All I have to do is sit there with my eyes closed and just listen for him to cry. That means that he is either finished or that he has gotten distracted by his feet-his new favorite toy.

So here's to you Ethan and to step one on your path to independence.

Lunch

Ethan LOVES to eat! This kid will eat and eat and will never be satisfied. So the doctor told me to get him on rice cereal. The doc and everyone else told me that he probably wouldn't like it at first. But in the back of my mind I knew that he would love it. The kid loves anything that goes into his mouth. I was right. Ethan has never had a problem with it and he loves it more every time we give it to him. He know just cries and cries when we stop feeding him. You would think that we are starving the poor kid.

This is his "I WANT MORE" face! This comes just before the cry.


You should see him eat too. He just attacks the stuff like it's ice cream or something. I tried to get a picture of the attack, but I couldn't. Maybe I can get Aaron to record it later. It is hilarious.


Well Ethan I am glad that you like food. Although you would never be able to tell. Only the 32% for weight. Sometimes I think you are getting chunky and then I compare you to an actual chunky baby and you are not even close. Oh well, you are still the cutest baby that I have ever seen, but I guess I am a little biased :)

Four Months

Ethan is now four months old. I still can't believe he is that young. I know that sounds funny, but he is just so big. But I am enjoying every second of life with Ethan.

Ethan's stats this month-

32% Weight- 14 lbs
97% Height- 27 in
87% Head- 17 1/4 in

He got more shots this last week, but instead of crying he laughed. He just started cracking up and wouldn't stop for the next hour. It was quite hilarious. I feel like the shots woke him up. Ever since the doctor he has started making all sorts of new noises. I love it! I just love watching him grow and learn.

The three comments that I get all the time about Ethan are...

"He is so tall!"
"He is so happy."
"He is so alert."

Those three comments really sum him up. He is so chill and just happy all of the time. Well unless he is tired. He is also apparently tall. I have never had a baby before so to me he is normal, but I guess he got the height gene, I don't know from who. He is always wide eyed and looking around.

So what has Ethan been up to...

-Like I said, he laughs now but really laughs now. He is most ticklish under his neck. He always laughs as I clean the spit up out of his neck creases. My favorite thing to do.
-He blows bubbles with his mouth and he thinks it is so fun.
-He is super strong. His bouncer seat has a mobile that hangs from it. He will grab onto the hanging parrot and pull himself up. It is quite impressive.
-He no longer needs to be swaddled while sleeping. He needs to be swaddled to fall asleep but now he will bust out in the night and he keeps on sleeping.
-He loves to stand up.
-He has started eating rice cereal and he loves it! I knew he would. He loves anything that goes into his mouth. He cries when we stop feeding it to him.