Ethan - 9 Months, Week 2

What a week already! Earlier this week I set Ethan down in his bathtub for his morning bath and the second he hit the water he decided to pee in his tub. Gracious! I had to get Ethan out of the water, drain and clean the tub, refill it and then try for a second time to get my child clean. (All the while trying to keep a naked baby out of trouble!) Okay, fast forward two days later....repeat above mentioned scenario. Yikes! I got him ready for his bath this morning with some mild trepidation, but success - no pee today! One of these days he's actually going to pee on me (and I am so not looking forward to that day!) It's kind of funny that these are the things about which I worry these days :)

Ethan had his first babysitter this past week. Miss Heather came over for two hours while I stayed in my bedroom with the door closed and was able to work uniterrupted for two solid hours. Heaven! Since I work freelance there are days where I have lots of projects and days where I have nothing going on. I've had a lot of guilt lately though, because I've had a lot of projects and I feel like I've been going through the motions with Ethan and hurrying him off to nap so that I can get back to working. That goes against the entire reason that I decided to be a stay at home mommy, so I decided to figure out how to find a slightly better balance. Ethan had a wonderful time with Miss Heather and I caught up on some assignments so that I was able to relax and just enjoy Ethan later that afternoon. It's amazing what a difference those two hours made. I was also able to go to bed a little earlier that night, because anything I don't get done while Ethan is napping is reserved for after he goes to bed at night and I've been staying up pretty late some nights to get things wrapped up. That wouldn't be horrible except that Ethan is an early riser. To say I've been exhausted lately would be putting it mildly. I think we're going to try to have a babysitter for Ethan once a week (for just a couple of hours) which will be great for my mental health and for Ethan. Heather was fantastic with him and had way more energy for playing and entertaining him then I usually have. (Poor little guy - I have to drag him to Target and the grocery store, do laundry, etc. etc. so hanging out with Mommy isn't always the most fun.) I think he will really enjoy having a couple hours with Miss Heather every week!

This past weekend my sister and her best friend (who has grown up with our family - I affectionately refer to her as the "other sister") came to visit. We had so much fun and put together a royal wedding viewing party. We had all sorts of goodies to eat and of course, hot tea and scones. I refuse to share any pictures from the party, but let's just say that there were tiaras. It was so fun to get to do something girly for a change. I've been so focused on being a good mommy that I've kind of forgotten about myself lately. I'm working on finding a better balance with that too.

Earlier this week I thought Ethan was ready to drop his afternoon nap (he went 5 days without actually sleeping in the afternoon!) but thank goodness that today he decided that sleeping was fabulous again and took an afternoon nap. I would give anything to take one short nap a day, so this child has no idea how good he has it. He takes a solid morning nap now (he has settled into an hour and a half to two hour morning nap) and has now adjusted to a 45 minute to one hour afternoon nap. He went through a period a few weeks ago where he was shortening his morning nap, so I think that he is settling into his new routine. Ethan thrives on a schedule, so I'm curious to see what he settles on now. I've heard that once your child gets to be pretty predictable they go and change things up on you again, and Ethan is living proof of that statement. I put Ethan in his crib for "quiet time" the past couple of days which was fine (he just babbled to himself throughout napttime) but I wasn't prepared for him to give up a nap entirely just yet. I know that day is coming soon, but maybe he can hold on for a few more months....fingers crossed!

Now that the weather is nicer I've been taking Ethan on an afternoon stroll and to our neighborhood playground each day. He is so funny on the swings - he holds on so tight! This afternoon I took him outside to read stories under our peach tree. He tried to put his toes on the grass and would immediately retract them. I think he thought that the texture was funny. We might start doing storytime outside for awhile until it gets too hot. As much as I stress about everything, moments like these are so precious to me and I am so grateful that I get to spend my days with my son. I can't imagine anything else I would rather be doing.

My camera is still not uploading pictures properly (I think it has something to do with the fact that the memory card is full) so when I go to upload the pics they are all out of order and there are over 1400 on there so there's a lot to go through. I'm going to try to figure it out this week so that I can add pics on here as well.

That's about it for now - hopefully I'll be able to catch up on the rest of life this week as well :)

Ethan - 9 Months

A few random pictures to go along with this post:Ethan's 8 month pics (way late on here, huh? 9 month pic coming soon once camera uploading issue is resolved) He would not stay still!

Eating breakfast - his favorite meal of the day because he is still in his comfy jammies!

Ethan had his 9 month check up this week...that's right, NINE months! Where is the time going? Ethan weighed in at 19 pound 4 ounces and was 27 3/4 inches long (which was the 50th percentile for both.) He did really well with Dr. Wiese, but definitely did not like having to lay down on the examining table for the nurse. He only needed one shot this time, but he'll evidently have four at his one year appointment. He did not like the shot (really, who does?) but luckily he never has had an adverse reaction or anything. After his one month shots he was pretty fussy for a couple days, but since then he has been fine. Thank goodness!

Getting ready to go watch Daddy at his softball game

Ethan's latest trick is that he's learned to pull himself up. For the first couple of days it was only to his knees, but yesterday he finally pulled up to his feet. Now he wants to pull up and stand no matter what we are doing. He uses me as a means to get himself upright so I am referring to him as my little monkey right now. The first time he pulled up to his knees he was in his crib, so we promptly lowered his mattress that night. It's pretty cute to look down the hall and see him standing or kneeling in his crib looking out the door. He is so proud of himself and once he's upright he isn't in a big hurry to get out of the crib. In fact, this afternoon I went to get him after his nap and he protested me taking him out of the crib because he wanted to practice standing in there. Go figure! He's taken a few more tentative cruising steps while standing and hanging onto the couch, but he's still not super coordinated with the cruising.

His very first time pulling up...yes, the crib mattress was lowered immediately!

We had a wonderful Easter at home with my mom and several of our neighbors. Ethan was very well behaved in church and made friends with an adorable 15 month old who was sitting next to us. When we got home we gave Ethan his very first Easter basket. He wasn't too interested in the basket or the goodies inside it - all he wanted was the tissue paper. I should mention that his other favorite activity these days (thanks, Aunt Carolyn!) is shredding paper. He spent a solid 30 minutes absolutely engrossed in shredding the tissue paper. He was very focused on his task, that's for sure.

Happy Easter!

There's so much going on and I wish I had time to catch up on it all, but this is going to have to do for now. Hopefully I'll get a chance to add more really soon because (surprise, surprise) I'm so behind! Oh, and I'm having some issues getting some pictures uploaded from my camera, so hopefully once I get that resolved I'll have a bunch more to put on here too.

We are all Hokies

Tomorrow marks the four year anniversary of the tragic shootings on the campus of Virginia Tech. We should all take a minute to say a special prayer for those who lost loved ones on that horrific day. My aunt and cousins live in Blacksburg, VA, and I am forever grateful that they were not on campus that day. Take a minute to hold your loved ones a little closer to honor the memory of those 32 people whose lives were cut way too short.

neVer forgeT

Update: My cousin Anna had this link to share, and it was so appropriate that I wanted to share it on here too - http://wordsofwhit.wordpress.com/2011/04/15/we-are-virginia-tech/.

Ethan - 8 Months

So how behind am I on life in general these days? Whew! There are no words. I'm trying my best to devote today to catching up on all the fun things that I've let get behind so that I don't feel quite so guilty about everything that is piling up around me. I managed to order all of the snapshots of Ethan from the past 6 months (yes, you read that correctly - I had not actually ordered pictures since Halloween although I have been taking and uploading them fairly regularly.) I spent about two hours last night putting Ethan's pictures into photo albums so now I'm almost caught up on that project. I still have to order Ethan's professional pictures from November AND March (did I mention that I am behind?!) and will be ordering extras for all the people that I owe pictures to and will also be ordering a few of the snapshots that I love through this site as well. They come out looking so much better (and only cost just a little more than a Snapfish or a Shutterfly) so hopefully I'll get that item crossed off the to-do list here shortly.

Ethan officially has three teeth now. I complained about teething a couple of weeks ago (he was up multiple times throughout the night for a couple of days about a week or so before his first two teeth popped through) but fortunately that chaos seems to have subsided. And compared to some of the horror stories I've been hearing, so far we've had it pretty good. The third tooth came in without much disturbance, so I'm hoping that our luck will hold out now. Right before those first teeth actually appeared was not fun, and I do not want a repeat performance. I think the top two teeth are going to be showing up soon. I'm so glad that he seems to have settled into his teething rhythm now, because in talking to some of my friends with babies the same age I see just how bad it can get. Cross your fingers that Ethan decides not to participate in these crazy shenanigans!

One of Ethan's favorite "toys" these days is a 12 ounce soda bottle filled halfway with water. When his girlfriend Faith was here for a visit, she was playing with a Dr. Pepper bottle and Ethan was so interested in it that I filled one up partially with water and he loves to shake the bottle and carry it around with him. Why waste money on toys when my child is so easily entertained by the most random things?! He still likes to carry his bowl around, although not as much as a few weeks ago. Ethan also has what I like to refer to as a "paci addiction." He always sleeps with a pacifier in, and now insists on holding a pacifier in each hand (in addition to the one in his mouth) before he will settle in to sleep. Maybe it's because I still don't keep any toys or anything in the crib when he's going to sleep, but he is seriously attached to his pacifiers. Maybe it will subside some once I put a blankie, stuffed animal or lovie in the crib with him to sleep, but so far I'm still keeping everything out of there when I'm trying to put him down for a nap or to bed. I do put a few toys in for him to play with when he wakes up, but otherwise it's still pretty empty in there.

Most mornings Ethan now wakes up babbling to himself which is the funniest way to wake up. I'll be sound asleep and then hear him having a conversation with himself through the monitor. I'll usually leave him in there for awhile and so far he's pretty content to babble to himself while I do a few morning things like brush my teeth and put in my contacts. If I wait too long he will cry to get out, but I usually get at least 20 minutes. He wakes up most mornings around 6 and goes to bed around 6:30 at night. He is still an early to bed baby and there is no keeping him up any later...I've tried! He is trying to shorten his morning nap right now which has been hard on both of us. It's hard on me because when he naps I get a chance to work on projects for work, and the less time he naps during the day, the later I have to stay up at night to finish everything up. It's hard on Ethan because I can tell he's still tired and needs a little more sleep to feel rested, but 45 minutes is about all he'll give me for the morning nap. I hope he doesn't drop it altogether anytime soon! His afternoon nap is usually about an hour and a half or so. Every now and then he'll push it to two hours (heaven!) but for the most part he's pretty consistently napping for about 90 minutes.

Ethan still isn't crawling, but he is definitely on the move. He does his inchworm/army crawl all the time now (I wonder if he'll ever figure out the real thing!) and he also rolls anywhere and everywhere with reckless abandon. His new trick is that he loves to stand holding onto the furniture. He's made a couple tentative steps while holding on to the couch, but not enough for me to say that he's cruising yet. Part of me worries that he isn't crawling yet, and the other part is grateful that as much as he's getting into already that there's one less thing I have to be watching out for all day. Does that make me a lazy parent?! He will also take a few steps while holding onto our hands, but more than anything he likes to stand and just bounce. Ethan is a nut, that's for sure!

There was a huge (and I mean HUGE) storm in the middle of the night last week, and since it woke both Patrick and I up we went to check in on Ethan to see how he was doing. He was sound asleep, so I now see where the expression "sleeping like a baby" comes from. This storm launched our grill across our yard (not sure yet if it is broken or not since we had to let it dry out completley before we're ready to test it - I do not want a huge gas explosion in our backyard!) and toppled patio furniture, trash cans, etc. Our poor cats were taking refuge under our bed and I could not believe that Ethan was so totally unaffected by the booming thunder, pouring rain and pounding hail. I wish I was able to sleep that soundly! I don't think I've been a sound sleeper since the day we brought Ethan home from the hospital. Will that kind of sleep ever return to me? Oh how I miss it!

I took Ethan to Raleigh two weekends ago to visit my mom and sister. My mom was in a really bad car accident a couple of days before we got there and Ethan was fascinated with the large plastic neck brace she had to wear. She's doing much better now and got to switch to the soft neck brace which she said was much easier to wear. Her car was totaled and so a couple of days ago she went and got her new car. I am so jealous (not of the accident, but of having a new car.) My car is dying a slow and painful death, and it makes me nervous to drive it very far these days. It has developed some sort of shriek that I try to pretend isn't happening. We're looking at cars now, but haven't decided exactly what we want, and then what we're willing to pay for it. Say a prayer that my car holds on long enough for us to find a suitable replacement.

Anyway, back to Raleigh. Ethan and I left on a Friday right before his morning naptime. He slept for about two hours and then babbled to himself for the remainder of the trip there. He was such a good little passenger - I was shocked! My mom wasn't really able to pick him up since she was in the brace, but she did give Ethan lots of cuddles from his Nana. We went to a baby shower for one of Carolyn's friends on Saturday and Ethan was pretty much the only little boy there. There were lots of little girls, so he was the little player - ha! Let me stop and say that I had promised myself that I would never be that person bringing a baby to a party (so annoying when you are not anticipating children and somebody brings their rowdy child!) but this was a kid-friendly affair complete with pack n plays and exersaucers for the drooling crowd. After church on Sunday, I went to meet my friend Lindsay for some consignment sale shopping and Aunt Carolyn came over to my mom's house to babysit. Ethan LOVES his Aunt Carolyn. She may just be his favorite person on earth (and that is including mommy and daddy.) Ethan and I went out to lunch with Carolyn on Friday and during lunch she taught Ethan a bad habit that I am still trying to undo. She let him shred napkins all over the place (we cleaned up before we left, promise!) and now shredding items is a favorite activity as well. When Carolyn was watching Ethan on Sunday, she brought two of her friends with her and evidently when they were holding him he would reach his arms out to Carolyn. The only other person he's done that with is me, so I'm thinking that he looks at her like mommy, only lots more fun :)

Last weekend Patrick's sister Jeannie flew in from Boston for the weekend and so Ethan was spoiled rotten with Auntie time. She brought him two Red Sox outfits (sorry, Suzanne) and a baby baseball hat. I'll try to get a good picture of him in his hat - babies in hats are just too cute! Ethan did really well with Jeannie and even let her feed him. On Saturday, Ethan's dad and his wife came and spent the day here and Ethan was on overdrive with so many people paying so much attention to him. He didn't nap really well, and by evening he was DONE! Jeannie and I went to my friend Melissa's 31 party that evening, and it was great to see Melissa again. She and I were roommates in college (and friends from high school) and since she lives a couple of hours away I only get to see here every so often. It was actually Melissa that introduced Patrick and I - Melissa is a fantastic golfer and was on the golf team at App. When we were in grad school she had a job at Grandfather, where Patrick worked, and the rest is history!

It was so nice having Jeannie here and I'm going to have to keep selling NC to her to get her to move back from the snowy north. We have barbecue, sweet tea, mild winters - what's not to love?!?! And here is my ace in the hole - we have Ethan (who she loves just a little bit - ha!) I'm just saying... I wish the trip had been longer, but considering the distance I am grateful for what we're able to get. I know we'll get to see her again for our family beach week at the end of the summer, and hopefully we'll get one more visit in before then.

Ethan continues to show dominance with his left hand, although I still think it's way to early to tell which hand he is going to use. Everybody keeps saying that he's going to be a lefty though. We'll see! He bangs all his toys with his left and has started picking up his puffs to eat with his left hand as well. He tends to carry items with his right hand though, so there's no telling. I kind of hope he will be left handed, but I guess time will just have to tell on this one. His eyes are still blue, so I'm starting to think they are going to stay blue. I was unaware that babies are all born with blue grey eyes, and at the hospital they told me that they would probably change up until around 9 months or so. We're rapidly approaching that mark, so we'll see if he stays with the blue or decides to change it up on us at the last minute. I have more pictures to post, but I'm out of time for now so hopefully between the 7 month pics and this you're a little more caught up on life around here. I'm really trying hard to climb out from under all of the things I've been letting get behind, so cross your fingers that I get back on track again!

Ethan's 7 Month Pictures

We recently had some pictures taken by my good friend Erin (who is a professional photographer - let me know if you need her contact info because not only is she fantastic at her job, she's lots of fun to be around and your kids are going to LOVE Miss Erin!) I'm going to be ordering some prints this week (with copies for everybody that I owe some Ethan pictures) so hopefully I'll get caught up on that front here in the not too distant future. In the interim, here are a few of my favorites:

He is such a happy baby!

Funny face...love it!

The trees look so pretty like this...I wish I had the talent to know how to take a picture at angles with the right lighting, etc. etc. I so wish I had the photography gift! I guess if I can't be blessed with this talent at least I have a good friend who is!

He was wearing shoes...part of the time (he loves to take them off and then take off his socks too)

Our future golfer...if he gets his daddy's talent and not my pitiful lack of hand-eye coordination that is!

He looks like we're already embarrassing him :)

Probably my absolute favorite...Ethan's very first time wearing a tie! He was more interested in playing with the grass and pine straw than getting his picture taken. He is all boy already - I am in for it!

Hanging out - I love how he's just chilling in this one!

Posing in his Janie & Jack bunny outfit with his "Ethan" bunny - his name is embroidered on the ear. I have some other poses in this outfit that will make great Easter pics!

I was so proud of him for not flopping backwards and hitting his head (I was right there to catch him just in case he made a move though!) His favorite thing to do when he sees something he wants is to fly backwards and roll to it...he's a nut!

My little man :) I hope he's a mommy's boy (but not necessarily a mama's boy) forever

How does Erin come up with these super cute ideas? I would never have thought of this!!

He looks so much more grown up in his suitcase now than he did when he was in this for his newborn photo shoot...I'll have to repost one of those pics for comparison!

Carrots, Bowls and Computer Viruses...Oh My!

Life has become comical in the Strain household as of late. I haven't had a lot of free time to update this blog (in case you hadn't noticed!) or do much of anything besides take care of Ethan during the day and work until I crawl into bed at night, so this is my attempt at remembering everything that has been going on around here lately. I want to capture each moment, because I'm realizing just how quickly time is flying by and how grown up our little guy has already become. I found myself reading through some of what I wrote while I was pregnant, and I'm so glad that I have this "journal" to read through when I want to remember the details of this very special time in our lives.

Ethan has become quite demanding lately. He wants what he wants when he wants it, that's for sure! The best example of this is at feeding time. He loves to "help" feed himself, and I will let him hold the spoon for a few minutes (how else is he going to learn, right?) but a few days ago he decided that helping with the spoon just wasn't good enough and he wanted to hold his bowl too. Ummm, his bowl full of food. I kept it just out of his reach which did not go over well. He let out a wail! I compromised and got an empty bowl out of the cabinet and he was once again content. I had to repeat this at the following feeding, and when I went to put the extra bowl away following his meal he again wailed. I figured it wasn't hurting anything to let him carry around his extra bowl, and so for the past several days that bowl is always by his side. Some kids have a blankie, some have a pacifier, and mine? He has a plastic Gerber bowl. He carries it around, ensures that it is always in his line of sight, and notices when I try to take it away. Can a bowl count as his first friend? He has definitely formed a strong bond to it. He's borderline ridiculous, my child!

Speaking of friends, Ethan's girlfriend is in town visiting. Faith and Ethan were due on the exact same day, and Faith was born right on time (with Ethan following behind two days later.) It was sooo cute watching the two of them together this time. Faith is good at getting herself into the crawling position, and when she made the move to get up from her sitting position she ended up in Ethan's lap! Ethan proceeded to put his arm around her - it was priceless! I wish I had a picture from that angle to show just how cute the two of them were in that moment...I'll have to get copies of Nikki's pictures. They also managed to play a quick game of footsie. It's a good thing Faith's daddy didn't make the trip down this time, or Ethan might have gotten his first talking to from an overprotective father. In the pictures, you'll see that Ethan brought his bowl over to visit Faith (what is up with this bowl obsession?!?!?) They also swapped toys for a bit - Ethan played with Faith's butterfly rattle and she played with his crab rattle. There is nothing cuter than watching babies play together!

So on to "carrot-gate." I've written about Ethan's desire to become very involved in his feeding process...the other day I realized after I strapped him into his high chair that I hadn't grabbed a spoon for him yet. The bowl of carrots was on his tray where I thought it was out of reach. I turned to get the spoon for a split second, and when I looked back all I saw was orange. Yes, he had managed to get ahold of his bowl, tip over its entire contents and was happily smearing orange all over his tray. There were carrots in his hair, all over the sleeves of his shirt, on his pants, in every crevice of the high chair, all over the chair the high chair sits on, puddles on the floor, the wall (how? Not sure on that one!) and even in the cat's food bowl. I have deemed this incident "carrot-gate." Ethan was in heaven. No, I had not yet given him his extra bowl so perhaps I bear some responsibility for this fiasco. (Okay, I bear all the responsibility since it was my oversight that led to this, but I digress...) It took a solid 45 minutes to get everything cleaned up.

My computer got some sort of virus this past week as well, so following some frantic phone calls I took my diseased laptop to the Geek Squad so that they could perform their magic and bring my computer back to life. It's home safe and sound with me again ($200 later I might add) and I hope that we do not have to be separated again. It sure was hard to work on the spare laptop, which is probably older than me (well, not really, but picture it that way for dramatic effect.) I've been pretty busy with work lately, and I'm looking forward to a "day off" where I don't have a ton to accomplish while Ethan naps or when he goes to bed. I really need a day for me sometime soon or I might go nuts. And on that note, it is off to bed for me so that I'll be ready to feed Ethan when he wakes up at 4:30 am (he does go back down until around 7 most of the time, but that early morning wake up call is BRUTAL!) At least he still insists on going to bed around 6:30 pm so Patrick and I have some free time in the evenings. (And no, keeping him up later, feeding him later, etc. etc. does nothing to curb that early morning need to feed - we've tried it all!)

Ethan - Month 7, Week 2

So it's getting late and I'm going to be heading to bed here shortly, so this is probably going to be a pretty short post. I'll add some pictures now and try to write more in the next day or so. The big news this week is that TEETH have arrived. Yes, Ethan is losing his beautiful gummy grin and has sprouted two teeth (on the bottom.) While I am so happy that Ethan is growing and developing each day, I miss my little newborn so much. (No, not enough to want to have another baby anytime soon though!) This is the best shot I could get of his new accessories, even though since they're still pretty close to the gumline they are hard to see:

It's a litte belated, but here's the "official" 7 month picture:

He kept trying to chew on Pooh or his sign this month...he has gotten so active lately!

See... he did not want to cooperate for this month's pic!

Being silly with Patrick (since he is several years away from wearing a hat that size!) He doesn't look at all like his Daddy, does he?!

GO BLUE DEVILS!!!!

Hanging out with Aunt Brooke who was in town from Atlanta visiting with a friend

Watching the light rail go by...how cute are they together?!

I love this picture. I have very few shots of Ethan where he is not cheesing for the camera (he will literally go from fussy to a huge grin if he sees me break out the camera - he's a total ham!) so to catch a shot where he has a different expression is sooooo hard to do.

Here are a few pics of Ethan playing with his favorite toys (the ring stacking toy is his current BFF):

Banging the ring on the piano

He likes to turn his steering wheel over sometimes now so he can bang on it (do you see a pattern here?!)

He loves his toys!

He loves to take the rings off and on the post, shake them around, and bang them on everything! He carries the orange ring around with him all the time. It is definitely his favorite, so we joke that orange is his first favorite color.