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!)

Ethan - Week 7

This has been a fairly quiet week in the Strain household. The biggest news this week is that Ethan has started going 5 hours between feedings at night. Well, 5 hours between his last feeding before we go to bed and the next feeding (and after that one he's been back to every 3 hours...sigh!) It is progress, and I can see the light at the end of the tunnel to get him sleeping through the night but alas we are just not quite there yet. His girlfriend (who is a whole 2 days older than him!) is now sleeping through the night so I'm hopeful that he won't be too far behind. In the interim, I'm enjoying getting a little more uninterrupted sleep. Maybe one day my dear friend, sleep, and I will reunite for a long winter's nap. Until such time though, I continue to take advantage of the fact that Ethan is a great napper throughout the day which allows me to catch up on some of the sleep I'm missing out on in the middle of the night. Here's Ethan getting ready to settle down for the night:

And since his sleep pattern is now slightly off by going for 5 hours and then 3, his first feeding in the morning comes at around 5:30 (ugh! Fortunately he does go back to sleep for awhile after this feeding but these early mornings have been rough on me.) Here's a common sight in our house when Patrick leaves for work at 6:00 am:



My dear friend Meredith drove up to spend the afternoon with Ethan and I this past Tuesday and although he slept for the majority of her visit (shocking...that seems to be all this child likes to do when he gets visitors!) I dressed him up in real little boy clothes for their visit. I know I'm getting made fun of already for the preppy style clothes I've been picking out for Ethan, but I think he looked so cute in his little sweater vest:



Football season is FINALLY upon us and we had a bunch of our neighbors and a few friends over for a cookout to celebrate the return of Panthers football. Alas this does not look like it is going to be a stellar season (the only bright side of which is that when the Panthers aren't playing well we tend to be given tickets to a lot more games!) and the last half of the game was ugly to watch. Even our quaterback suffered a concussion...true fans love their team through good times and bad and it looks like this just might be one of those "in bad" kind of years. I'm going to hope that this poor showing (and the pre-season games as well) were exceptions and that they'll be back this coming Sunday. Fingers crossed anyway!

Our family has adopted the WVU Mountaineers during football season (and we'll support them during basketball season unless they are playing our beloved Duke Blue Devils) and my wonderful friend Jennifer has ensured that Ethan is properly attired to support his team, just like his godsister, Morgan.

He was a little sleepy at first!

Now he's cheering on his team!

This is the first year that I have fielded my own fantasy football team (I usually watch Patrick with his multiple teams) so I was really excited to see how I did in my first game. Let's just suffice it to say that my number one draft pick went down in the first half with an ankle injury and is now out for the season, my defense scored negative seven points (how is that even possible?!) and my number two draft pick managed to score a whopping three points. My grand point total...39 points. Boy if that isn't humiliating! The guy I was playing this week in my league had one player score 41 points (and yes, that is more than the combined total of ALL of my players!) I think I have a lot to learn here. The only good thing coming out of this week's debacle is that prior to the start of the games I picked up Grant's backup to be on my team and thank goodness I made that move because now he'll be starting so I'm hopeful that I can pick up some points with him. We'll see how this week goes, but I'm so grateful that the league I'm in is only $5 because I can pretty much kiss that money goodbye!

Ethan's cradle cap is continuing to improve (why had I never heard of this condition before?!) and I think that he should be back to normal in a week or so. Thank goodness! He loves his bath time and this is becoming a great bonding time for Patrick and Ethan. Patrick loves to give him baths! It is so cute watching my guys together:

One of the gifts we have been given is a totally adorable fuzzy blue bunny suit for Ethan. It is still a little big on him, but I could not resist playing dress up and putting him in the outfit for a few pictures. The hat and slippers both have rabbit ears - he looks like a little stuffed animal in his new outfit! Since it is still in the 90s around here, he won't be able to wear this outfit yet so it's a good thing it's still big on him. The pictures really don't do this outfit justice though - it is so absolutely adorable!

Ethan continues to reward us with happy smiles all the time these days. He has such a sunny disposition - I'm not sure where it comes from since I'm such a stress case all the time. He has been a great incentive for me to slow down and remember what is actually important in life. A friend of mine recently wrote a blog post about prioritizing spending time with her child since it is so easy to get caught up in the little things that need to get done each day. (Boy did that hit home with me!) I really want to ensure that I am taking the time to cherish the moments that I'm getting with Ethan right now and not rush through each day and wonder why I didn't take the time to sit back and enjoy my child. I'm not saying I'll always remember this, but I'm really making an effort to not worry if the house gets messy or the thank you cards take a week to go out the door and to really focus on Ethan and being the best mom to him that I know how to be. He's already growing up way too fast and since I am fortunate enough to get to be home with him full time right now I am loving the time that we are spending together each and every day.

Maybe when I post his 8 week update I'll have news about him sleeping through the night...wishful thinking much?! I guess I can't complain too much since Ethan rarely cries (unless I have kept him way too long past his feeding time and when he decides to randomly cry it generally lasts about 30 seconds and he's over it) but I so would like to get him sleeping through the night. Cross your fingers on this one (and for the Panthers to actually play well this week and for my fantasy football team to not humiliate me two weeks in a row - I don't ask for much, huh?!)

Ethan - Week 6

Now that Ethan is officially 6 weeks old (how has the time flown by this fast?!) he officially has the all clear to start leaving the house for more than just visits to the pediatrician. Freedom!! Patrick and I have been carefully following the pediatrician's advice to keep Ethan out of public places until he reached at least 6 weeks of age, so with the exception of my daily walks around the neighborhood with him I have been pretty cooped up in the house lately. Fortunately I have wonderful friends who have not minded coming by and just hanging out in my living room, but I am definitely ready to start seeing more than just the walls of my house all day. (We have taken him to our neighbor's house for cookouts, but that has been the extent of Ethan's activities outside of the home.)

Since this past Monday was Labor Day, my mom and sister Carolyn came to visit for the day and we took Ethan out to his first lunch at a restaurant. As he gets older we'll get to teach him all about being a gentleman while out at lunch, but for now he slept peacefully in his carrier while we enjoyed a fantastic lunch together. It was wonderful having my mom and sister here and it makes me realize how much fun it would be to all live in the same city again. Not that Charlotte is all that far from Cary, but it would be wonderful to get to see my family more than once a month! At least they are fairly local though...Bethany is all the way in San Diego which makes it impossible to see her frequently :( It was so nice to finally take Ethan out of the house but I realized something while we were out and about - I have become a paranoid super freak about germs around him. I turned his carrier to face the other direction when I saw kids approaching, I made sure we sat in a back booth so that nobody would bother him and when I ran in (alone) to Target once Patrick got home I noticed every cough and sneeze of the other children shopping in the store. I'm sure I'll get over this sometime soon, but there was a definite irony in the fact that all I've been wanting to do lately is bring him out of the house and as soon as we were out I was nervous about everything.

Ethan continues to love his activity gym, so here are a few pics of him enjoying his (current) favorite toy:

This past week consisted of two different calls to the pediatrician's office as well. I swore I would not be one of those crazy moms who called about every little thing, but alas, I want to ensure that I am doing everything right (Type A, much?!) and so I think I must admit that I am becoming one of "those" moms. Oh well! Yesterday I called to get some advice in dealing with a condition that has been identified as cradle cap. Poor Ethan's head looked like he was developing dandruff and I wasn't sure what the best course of action was. A quick phone call with a nurse got us on the right path and although this condition is common and should clear up on its own, I now have some special lotion to apply to his head as well. Then today the poor little guy just has not been himself...he's been pretty fussy, only wanting to be held (I broke my own rules and held him for an entire one of his naps just to comfort him) and had a low grade fever (99.2). He wasn't nursing all the well either and would stop to cry in the middle of the feeding. Through conversations with the nurse I think I've isolated the cause of his distress - I ate a wonderful strata that my mom made and brought for us yesterday and today and we think that all the milk, egg, and cheese upset his little tummy. He's doing MUCH better now, but I hope that this doesn't mean he'll have allergies one day. I really don't want to have to deal with all that nonsense in the future.

And here's today's holy grossness story - in order to get the best read of a newborn's temperature you are supposed to use a rectal thermometer. I'm following all the doctor's orders and faithfully used the rectal thermometer even though I would much prefer to use something like the ear thermometer. I was waiting the whole 10 seconds that it takes to get a read when I realized that Ethan was pooping - thank goodness I had a diaper under him and a big mess was not made. Gracious - this child is going to be the end of me in the gross department. Somehow it's okay when it's your own child though...I never really understood that before.

Ethan continues to reward us with beautiful smiles and I am loving every minute of it. I'll try to capture it on film here in the not too distant future and share how cute his little gummy grin is with all of you.

Pee-Pee Teepee Saves the Day!

So one of the things I was most nervous about when I found out we were expecting a little boy was getting peed on. (Now that Ethan is home with us I realize that there are far greater concerns than getting sprinkled, but I digress...) My aunt gave us a fabulous gift right after Ethan was born that I have been using religiously - a pee-pee teepee. Essentially it's a cone shaped terry lined item that you can place right over the boy parts and it should protect you from getting peed on. (And they are totally washable so they can be used again and again!) Today that gift became worth its weight in gold - as I was changing Ethan I noticed that his pee-pee teepee looked soaked. Upon further examination I confirmed the obvious...Ethan peed while I was changing him and thanks to this contraption I was completely dry and there was no mess to clean up. I'm sure the day is coming where I will experience the not so pleasant side of a little boy who can aim to pee, but for this day I am so grateful that somebody thought up this most wonderful invention!

Ethan - Week 5

So obviously I am behind with my posts, but in my defense I posted three updates last week so hopefully that balances out the fact that I am once again behind. Life with Ethan continues to be wonderful and I am such a cliche but I am absolutely loving being a mom. I had no idea just how much I would enjoy it (or enjoy being a stay at home mom - it is the best!) I know I won't be staying home with him forever, but this is such a precious time and I am so grateful that I am able to spend my days with my son right now.

The most wonderful thing started happening this week - Ethan is smiling! I'm not sure if it is necessarily in response to us (but sometimes I think it is!) but he is smiling all the time now. It is so adorable! The only time I can't seem to get him to smile is when I have the camera in front of him. Sigh! I am so anxious to capture his little grin on camera, but so far he has been totally uncooperative in that department. Hopefully I'll have some beautiful smiley pictures to post next week because I think I'm starting to stalk Ethan with the camera in the hopes of capturing this all important milestone!

Ethan has really taken an interest in his activity gym this week too. (Thank you, Lindsay, for this awesome gift!) I decided to jazz it up this week and add some extra toys and links that I had, and lower the existing toys with the extra links so that they are easier for Ethan to reach. He loves it so much!! I think his favorite things are the mirror (he stares at and admires himself more than anything!) and the jittery pal. It is a super cute little lion that you can pull down and it makes a jitter sound as it raises back up to its loop. Ethan either loves the sound or the colors of the lion, but this item has been a big hit on his activity gym as well. He continues to flail his arms towards all of the items hanging down around him and sometimes makes contact, but I'm not sure that the effort is all that coordinated yet.

I had two doctor's appointments this past week as well. On Monday I went to the dentist and guess what - that stupid filling that I had repaired during my eighth month of pregnancy (which was so not fun) is loose and has to be repaired...AGAIN! What a pain! I'll go back in a week and hopefully this fix will do the trick. Then on Tuesday I went back to my OB/GYN office for my postpartum check up. Again, another not so fun appointment. It wasn't bad, but for anybody out there who has given birth you just don't really want anybody anywhere near that part of your anatomy only 5 weeks after pushing out a baby. Everything went well though, and I have the all clear to resume life as normal now. I'm ready to start exercising again (particularly trying to tone up what was once the place where my abs resided) but alas, I have not even begun yet. I'll put it on the to do list - ha!

Since I'll be posting Ethan's 6 week update here shortly, I'll keep today's post relatively brief. Hope you're all doing well!

He wasn't too happy about me taking this picture!

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!

Ethan's Friends

Ethan is a very lucky little boy, because he already has several friends. Of course, he is oblivious to this fact, but there are two very special little babies that are in his life that I wanted to share with everybody. Faith is Ethan's "girlfriend" (we joke that they are betrothed) and is the daughter of our friends and neighbors, John and Nikki. Ethan and Faith were due on the same day and were born only 2 days apart. (Faith actually arrived on our due date, while our little guy arrived 2 days late!) They were both 7 pounds 14 ounces and 21 inches long (although Faith was technically 21 1/4 inches!) We are so sad that they will be moving at the end of next month, but as you can see in the pictures below it looks like Ethan is already trying to hold Faith's hand so it might be for the best that they'll have a little distance between them. (And absence does make the heart grow fonder!) Since they still have family in the area (and on our cul-de-sac!) we will still get to see them fairly regularly which makes the fact that they are moving much easier.

This past week his soon to be BFF Graham and his mommy Lindsay came to spend an afternoon with us. (You may recall seeing Lindsay and I taking many pregnancy pictures together in many recent blog posts.) It was so much fun to FINALLY have our boys together. Lindsay and I went through most of our pregnancies together and now it is wonderful to have a friend who understands exactly what my days as a stay at home mom are like. Lindsay and I have been friends since graduate school and always seem to go through major life events at the same time (starting jobs, engagements, weddings, pregnancies - all the major stuff!) Graham was so sweet and has big beautiful eyes and lashes. I call him little Clooney since one day he may just be a Hollywood heartbreaker!