Ethan - Week 4

I cannot believe that Ethan is officially a month old today. Wow! I'm still working feverishly to get his baby book all caught up, but I have a feeling that it will be another month before it's actually caught up to where he is. There are so many entries that need to be made right at the start, and since my Type A perfectionist tendancies have found an outlet in this book it is taking me FOREVER! I really hope that this will be a meaningful keepsake for him one day though (or at least for his family since I'm not sure how much guys really get into this stuff) and I'm trying to capture every moment. In addition to his official baby book, I'm putting together a box that has all of his cards (from pregnancy to showers to his arrival), a calendar that I'm keeping all year to record all of his milestones and development, and multiple photo albums. By the time all is said and done, I'm hoping to have a pretty good memory box of his first year of life. We'll see if I'm able to keep all of this up all year, but I'm going to give it my best effort because I saw how much it meant to Patrick when we looked through his baby book and read the stories that his mother had lovingly recorded of his growth and development.

Ethan had his one month check up with Dr. Wiese today. She is such a wonderful pediatrician and I am so glad that we are able to have such a fantastic person helping us to care for our son. I proabably scared her when I pulled out my list of questions today though. (Hey, if I don't write everything down I might forget something!) Everything went really well and he was weighed and measured today too. Our big boy weighed an incredible 10 pounds 8 ounces. He's in the 75th percentile for weight! I guess I should stop and say that this kid eats like a champion so this shouldn't be all that surprising, but considering how small he got that first week while we were waiting for my milk to come in (I was delayed and so Ethan dropped almost 15 percent of his birth weight during those first couple of days which was mildly alarming to the doctors) it's incredible to see how quickly he rebounded...and then some!

Daddy carrying Ethan in (I'm so glad Patrick's schedule allows him to be flexible with his days off so that he is able to come to any appointments he wants. I'm sure we won't both be going to too many more checkups, but it's pretty nice to be able to go to these first few together!)

It's hard to tell from the picture but these socks look just like golf shoes and socks and were a gift all the way from Bel Air Country Club (which is especially neat since I sing him the theme song from the Fresh Prince of Bel Air all the time...I need to work on my lullaby collection, huh?!)

Ethan got a shot today and it was so sad but funny at the same time. He was laying on the examination table peacefully and the second he received the shot (the second in his Hepatitis B round) his little face looked shocked and he let out a yelp. I immediately picked him up to comfort him which seemed to help, but we had to strap him into his car seat to take him home and he was still whimpering when we made it out into the lobby to check out. A little girl in the waiting room heard his whimpers and immediately started crying which then got him going again. It was a chain reaction and I thought it was hysterical! (The other mother might not have found it so amusing though!) Fortunately Ethan loves his car seat so by the time we made it outside he was already drifting back off to sleep and all appears to have been forgiven. I'm dreading next month's appointment though - he'll get two shots that cover 5 vaccinations and an oral antibiotic to guard against some sort of aggressive baby stomach virus. I've been doing a lot of research to ensure that it is okay for him to receive all of these immunizations together (I have friends who have delayed some of these shots so I really want to be an informed parent and make the best decisions for Ethan) and as of this moment I feel okay with keeping him on the recommended track. I still have a month to keep obtaining information though, so I'll let you know how we decide to proceed when the time comes.

Comforting Ethan following his shot...he looked so sad and pitiful!

In other Ethan news, he had a pretty bad gas issue earlier this week and the poor little guy would scrunch up his face and turn red and cry as he strained to find some stomach relief. Fortunately the issue appears to have passed (for now) but it was a long two days as I watched him suffer without being able to help him much. I was able to give him some gas drops which helped, but I will tell you that there is nothing that makes your heart hurt more than seeing your child in pain. It was awful! He's back to himself now though, and I am so grateful to have my sweet little boy back. (He was pretty fussy during the gas issue as well, which made for some long days for me.) I'm so glad to have him back to normal now!!!

Ethan sleeps so well at night and I've actually been able to put him down in his pack n play for a few of his daytime naps now. I keep him in his infant rocker for at least one of the naps so that I can see him while I'm trying to get ready for the day, but otherwise he doesn't seem to mind where I put him to sleep during the day now either. Hooray! I hope he keeps this up, because if so we can prepare to address our next hurdle - sleeping through the night! He currently gets up twice at night and he falls right back asleep after he eats, but it is still hard on me to have my sleep interrupted like this each night. He is going for slightly longer stretches between feedings now and isn't eating as much at either middle of the night feeding so I'm really hoping that he'll be ready to drop one of those feedings sometime in the not too distant future. Fingers crossed anyway! If we keep going at this rate for much longer, I will have to repost my entry to my dearly departed friend, Sleep.

Ethan's favorite thing in the world continues to be cuddling on my chest in his "tree frog" pose. I love that he loves to cuddle his mommy so much right now. I am trying to enjoy each and every moment because I know there will come a day in the not too distant future where cuddling his mommy is the most uncool thing he can think of. He enjoys going for walks in his stroller, although he really only stays awake for the first half and he goes off to dreamland pretty quickly. He likes his swing but I try to save that for times when he is fussy so that it will continue to be a soothing item and not part of his daily routine. He still doesn't like tummy time at all, but when he's laying on my chest he's taken to picking up his head and looking around a lot so I figure that this counts as tummy time and I'm not pushing him to lay on his tummy time mat. He has become a lot more alert this past week and focuses his eyes right on you when you're doing things. I sometimes wonder what it is that he's thinking ("my parents are nuts!") and I'm really looking forward to the day that he'll smile in response to us. (Right now all we get are smiles when he's doing something like passing gas!) His BFF Graham smiles all the time and he's only 7 weeks older than Ethan so I'm hoping that he'll start smiling soon.

We've been enjoying the Panthers preseason (although the offense looks like it might be in trouble!) and I cannot wait for football season to start. I probably won't be able to go to many games this year since one of us will need to be home with Ethan, but maybe we'll be able to bring him to a game with us at least once. We'll see if I can convince his overprotective father that it will be okay to do so before the season is over! That's about it in updates for today, but I'm really trying to keep this blog updated in a more timely fashion these days. I got three posts in this week - that might just be a record!