Giggles and Snorts

Ethan can be quite the giggle monster. You never know what will cause him to erupt into laughter.

I love love love listening to him laugh. While he finds the simplest things amusing, the problem is that it only works once. One day a new funny face or funny noise is the height of hilarity but if you try the same trick again he just gives you a bored look that clearly states he's seen it all before and that you need to try harder. So while you have to work at those giggles, it's just the happiest sound for me to hear.

The other day we blew a tissue at him and he literally laughed for an hour straight - he laughed so hard he even did a mini snort.

Tissues Tissues Everywhere!

Take one baby, add a box of tissues, and it's a guaranteed good time.

First Father's Day

Happy Father's Day to my dear husband, my father and father-in-law! Bob is a great dad and I feel so lucky to have him as my husband. In honor of today, here are some of my favorite photo's of Ethan and his Daddy.

The Many Hats of Ethan

Hmm...Daddy's cap is a bit too big for me.


I can't believe you are making me model your hat Mom.

Um...not liking this one either. And where is my food?!

I like this one, but it's a bit too snug.

Okay, finally a hat that fits!

More Scrunchies!

Macau (again)

Bob had an off-site at Macau and Ethan and I tagged along. We stayed at the Venetian and while we did not stray from the hotel the two and half days we stayed there, Ethan and I had a ball (while poor Daddy had to work. But this was an off-site so how much 'work' really goes on anyways?). We went shopping, we ate lots of good food, and Ethan loved our hotel room to bits because it was his personal playground. The first thing he did when we entered the room was help test out our mattress. He spent half an hour just rolling around and laughing his head off.





He then tried out his hotel crib.

Cute bedding, but gotta do a taste test...


Yup, this crib is A-OK.


Oh look - a free toy! Bonus!

Next up was navigating the steps. Ethan crawls up our stairs all the time but I have yet to get a video of it.

The room was carpeted and had lots of furniture that Ethan could cruise around so he was one happy camper. But his most favorite room was the bathroom. Go figure. It had tons of mirrors and towel rings that he swung around on. Ahhh...if only we adults could be so easily entertained.

All in all, a great mini-vacation!

10 Months!

This month has been quite a roller coaster. On one hand Ethan has been going though a lot but I have to say that this has also been the funnest month with him so far. Ethan is happy and smiley and has learned so many new things.

Separation Anxiety, Teething, Sleep Issues, Oh My!

When we first moved to Disco Bay, Ethan started getting separation anxiety. He was also teething at the time (OK is still teething...how long do those things take to pop out anyways?!). So I did the worst possible thing and rocked Ethan to sleep because he was going though so much and he was really upset at my leaving him by himself at night. It started with a simple 2-3 minute soothing session and suddenly in the span of two weeks became 1.5 hours long. Then Ethan started waking up in the middle of the night and it would take yet another 1.5 hours to get him back to sleep. So after a few weeks, Bob and I resorted to Dr. Ferber's book and ferberized Ethan. Poor baby! In hindsight it wasn't so bad and definitely Ethan need help learning to sleep on his own again because he wasn't getting enough sleep at night, but I'm sure we both had a really had a hard time going through it. The first day Ethan cried a total of 10 minutes (I went in to check and console him briefly at 3 minutes and every 5 minutes thereafter. Ferber recommends a progressive waiting strategy starting with 5 minutes, but then says you should do what time limits are comfortable for you). I know 10 minutes doesn't seem like much, but it's really hard to hear your loved one crying his heart out for even 10 seconds let alone 10 minutes. The whole process took about a week...Ethan cried between 3 minutes and 10 minutes each night until exactly one week later he just rolled over when we placed him in bed and promptly fell asleep by himself without a peep. Now every nap, every bedtime is great. Sometimes we walk into his room and Ethan lunges for the bed because he knows it's time to sleep...and he actually goes to sleep!

Eureka!
Ethan finally is beginning to understand all the gibberish that Mommy and Daddy keep spewing at him. He understands the word no and will stop what he is doing when we say it (for a millisecond anyways), if we ask him if he wants to hear a story he will crawl over to his books and pick up the book he wants us to read, when we tell him that we are going to tickle him he will crawl away from us laughing so we can chase him and then pivot around and crawl back a bit so he can get tickled, and he will hand over an object to us when we ask for it. Everyday he learns something new it seems...my little baby is growing up to be a big boy so fast! Just today he was imitating our kissing noises back at us and when I ask for a kiss instead of licking me he puckered his lips and went 'muah'. Awww...kids are so cute!

Our first cold!
It was bound to happen, and we had a good ten months of escaping our first cold but now here it is. Ethan had started getting a fever a couple days ago - and of course being new parents we freaked out and brought him to the pediatrician right away. Apparently he also had a sore throat and a culture was taken. Ethan did not like that one bit. The fever is now gone thank goodness, and now he has a running nose and a cough. Poor baby. Fingers crossed that he gets better really soon.


A Few Of My Favorite Things
Favorite Food: Yogurt with cantaloupe puree, anything banana, mango avocado mousse, broccoli, and lentil cauliflower casserole. Some of these combo's sound iffy, but are actually really good.
I'm being more adventurous with food and making complete meals. Before I was giving him fruit for breakfast/meat for lunch/and veggies for dinner. Now all the meals have a little bit of everything in them. I have a baby cookbook 'Healthy Baby Meal Planner' by Annabel Karmel and it is a fantastic book with recipes for baby and toddler. You still have to weed through her recipes because of new allergy information (sometimes she suggests you cook with citrus or egg at an earlier age than what the AAP recommends for example), but everything I have tried tastes great so far. Making complete meals is a bit harder because I used to just freeze big batches of pureed veggies/fruit/meat and then can mix and match different combinations each day, but the book gives a lot of combinations that I never thought would work and is inspiring me to cook things like butternut squash risotto, baby sized Shepard's pie, and gratin of haddock with tomato and spinach. Uh yea, I would like some too please.
Favorite Book: Yummy Yucky and The Hungry Caterpillar.
Favorite Toys: The leapfrog table, a bobble head boy and bobble Hamburglar (Ethan really likes bobble head toys!), green soccer ball (he has like a billion balls but this is the only one he likes to play with), a red/yellow spinning disk that is actually a part of a walking toy, and a clear plastic egg that he likes bat away from him and crawl after. While he has a bunch of other toys he basically ignores them all and plays with just these if he plays with any toys at all. Mostly he just crawls around and pulls up on every available surface - including bare walls.


Favorite Color: Green!
Favorite Activity: Definitely story time. He also loves getting his hands washed. He tries to 'grab' the water, he pulls on the faucet handle, and he orients himself so he can also splash his feet around in the sink. It's really amazing, he will play with the water and then just suddenly look up at you with a smile of pure joy. It melts my heart. Ethan always liked water even as a little baby (the sound of running water was the only thing that would soothe him) so I think we know what we are getting him for his birthday - a water table!
Favorite Game: Peek-a-boo. He now plays peek-a-boo with us and will crawl behind a door and pop out at us or cover his head with his bib or a a piece of cloth and then pull it away.