Ethan - 2 Months

Things have been so busy around here that I must apologize for once again becoming behind with my updates. I have the best of intentions to keep everything up to date, but alas, something is always falling behind these days. I do have a really good excuse though (and I must say, he's pretty cute too!)

Ethan sleeping before we left for his pediatrician's appointment in his "I Rule (in my little kingdom)" outfit from his Aunt Jeannie

I love the little lion on his bottom!! (And this is technically a cat so it fits in with our house quite well!)

Ethan had his 2 month check up yesterday at the pediatrician's office and his appointment went really well. Want to hear something almost unbelievable? Our little linebacker is officially the size of an average 3 1/2 month old. He weighed in at 13 pounds, 4 ounces and was 24 1/4 inches which officially puts him in the 95th and 90th percentiles respectively. I could not believe it! He's extremely healthy and Dr. Wiese (who is so fabulous - we could not have been blessed with a better pediatrician for our little guy) listened to his heart and lungs, checked his eyes, ears, nose, hips, circumcision...pretty much everything on him and he looked great.

Getting ready to go in for his appointment - sleeping as usual

Laughing with Daddy while waiting for Dr. Wiese

Then it came time for the hard part - all of his immunizations. I had been researching to determine if I wanted to postpone some of his shots or go ahead with the recommended protocol and after a lot of reading and discussion with various sources we decided to go ahead with all of the shots. Yesterday he received the oral vaccine for rotavirus and two shots that covered 5 different immunizations. All of these will require multiple boosters in the coming months as well, so I wanted to go ahead and get him started because at the end of the day I'm much more worried about the effects of one of these diseases on him then the small chance that he would have had an adverse reaction to the shots. He slurped down the oral vaccine (I guess he thought it was pretty tasty!) and then it came time for the shots. Poor little guy got stuck in both legs and his face turned bright red and he yelped immediately upon getting stuck. He whimpered and cried but I think it was harder on me and as soon as the nurse put on his Snoopy bandaids I was able to scoop him up and comfort him. He calmed down pretty quickly and slept for the ride home. He was a little sleepier than usual yesterday (believe it or not!) but when he was awake he was smiling like usual and so I think overall he did pretty well with it all. I'm keeping a close eye on him today to ensure that he doesn't exhibit any signs of an adverse reaction, but so far so good. I don't think it is going to get any easier to watch him have to get so many shots, but he is a trooper and I'll be so glad when we're finally to a point that he won't need quite so many immunizations so regularly.

My cousin Anna (who was in town visiting from New York City where she is in graduate school at Columbia - I'm not proud at all, huh?!) and I had an adventure on Sunday morning. We were driving back from church when my car decided to go psychotic on me and break down on the side of 485. Big sigh! It was almost a comedy of errors getting Patrick to come pick us up, getting AAA to come and tow away my stupid car, etc. etc. but at least it is now at the shop being repaired. Patrick and I both drive older cars (mine is a 2001 Nissan and Patrick's is a 1996 Honda...but we have not had a car payment in all the time that we have been married) so we had some long discussions about what we need to do going forward about our vehicle situation. We are getting my car fixed this time around, but we are also going to start researching and shopping around so that we can go ahead and replace his car within the next 6 months or so and then eek a little more life out of mine so that we can replace it within the next 24 months with our good family car (read - SUV!) With me being a full time stay at home mom these days the timing could not be worse financially, but we knew we were living on borrowed time with 2 cars that each had over 150,000 miles so I guess I really shouldn't complain too much here.

The Panthers are officially stinking up the NFL this season, but we are faithfully rooting for

our team to turn it all around. It is so hard watching your beloved team fall apart right in front of you though. My fantasy football team is doing a lot better since my miserable debut in week 1. I lost my game this week, but had a respectable showing so I am not humiliated like I was in the beginning.

I have a bunch to update you on from this past weekend, but I'm going to make it its own post so hopefully I'll get that done sometime later today or tomorrow (that's your hint to check back soon for more updates and a way for me to hold myself accountable for keeping this site updated!)