Happy 2 months birthday!

Ethan turned 2 months old today. I had been feeling sick with a cold for the past few days but thankfully felt pretty good today so I was able to deal with him while he decided to celebrate his 2 month birthday by staying up almost all day. How do other moms take care of kids when they are sick? I was lucky that Jeff could come home a bit earlier one day and Grandma could watch Ethan for the afternoon another day. i just didn't have enough energy to bounce him up and down when he fussed to fall asleep. Oh, and he started sucking on his thumb recently instead of pacifier. I don't necessary know if this is a good habit to pick up, but it sure is nice that he can sooth without us sticking a pacifier back in his mouth. And he looks so cute with his thumb in his mouth!

Today we went out for lunch with Kate, went out to Target to pick up a borthday card for Jeff's birthday tomorrow (and shopped around some, too), and went to my "cousin", Rchelle's house for dinner. My dear friend Laura is back from Texas for a few days so her and her sister, Tina were there, too. It was good to see Laura!

We are planning our fourth annual reunion for my girl friends, and it will be in Goshen this year, since I can't travel without Ethan (or I don't want to). It amazes me that it's been four years since we are out of college, and also makes me happy that we are still getting together every year. All of us live pretty far away, I think 10 of us are spread in 7 states now. So it is very special that we make an effort every year to see each other for an extended weekend. First one was in Chicago, then Vegas, last year was in Phoenix so we could meet Gretchen's little boy, Owen. Vegas was definitely a lot of fun, but it was also nice when we were in Phoenix where Darla and Gretchen lived, so they could show us around the area. I miss all my girls, and now that I hardly see them, I realized how much fun it was to have all of them around all the time in college. I loved and miss my college life.

Anyways, tomorrow is Jeff's birthday. He said he doesn't want anything, so it'd be a low key, but good family time together :-) It'd be nice because Jeff didn't get to see too much of Ethan (or I) today.

2 months check up and Friday night activity

Ethan had his 2 months check up on Thursday, even though he's only 7 weeks old. He had 3 shots, during which he did amazing. He didn't even cry after the first shot, and he cried after the second one, but stopped crying as soon as I picked him up after all the shots. He's such an amazing baby!

He's still right on track on the growth. He is 55 percentile on height and 75 percentile on weight. He continues to sleep well, especially at night. It has been very nice to get good night's sleep :-) He started entertaining himself on the gym for a while, which makes my life a lot easier. Since he is so fascinated with the butterflies on his gym, we decided to buy a mobile for him too, which has been a big hit! He loves looking and giggling at it.

We had Will and Kate over tonight. It was nice to have some adult time while Ethan was nicely held by his "Auntie Kate". He did well most of the evening. He started fussing a little bit at the end but as soon as I put him in the moby wrap, he fell asleep :-) We played Acquire, which is a strategy game where you buy stocks of some companies and go through margers and what not, which was fun. Of course Jeff won, but we all put up a good fight.

Fun weekend!

We got back from New York early evening on Sunday. It was fun to show off our little one :-)

The driving part went surprisingly well. We were in the car for 25-26 hours total over the 4 days, and we think that he cried about half an hour of it. It was nice that I didn't have to drive and could take care of him whenever he needed me.

But there were two struggling things over the weekend. Because Ethan was in his car seat so long and we couldn't burp him much, he got gassy again. On top of that, it was a warm, humid weekend and many buildings in that part of New York (both Buffalo and Saratoga area) don't have ACs. So with tummy pain and being hot, he was a little fussier than usual. And too bad that I missed the ceremony because I had to go to the van and turned the air on for him to cool off... he started screaming when the bridal party was walking in! Luckily we planned well and sat at the very back so we could sneak out. But it was the reason why we went...

The reception situation wad not the most ideal either for our little guy. It was assigned seating, and our table was right by the one and only speaker. The DJ was nice enough to move the speaker to the other side of his table so we were not right by it, but a few of the songs hurt Ethan's ears a bit and we had to go outside. But the music was loud enough that no one else could hear him scream... But a little bit I got to see were very beautiful, and most important thing is that Caleb and Kim looked really happy together. Welcome to the family, Kim!

It was a short trip, but we got to spend some time with the family, which was a lot of fun! I got to hold little Madeline, Jeff's cousin, Miriam, and her husband, Abel,'s baby girl. She is about 3 weeks younger than Ethan and is so little! Ok, maybe Ethan is just bigger than normal, but she felt so little and light to me. It was nice that Ethan could meet his second cousin :-)

Ethan's schedule is getting back to normal. He is still sleeping more than usual (maybe he's still recovering from the overwhelming weekend), but looks rested more when he's awake. Now he started squealing and giggling, which is soooo cute! And I think he told me "no!" with an attitude once, when I tried to give him a pacifier and he didn't want it. We felt like he was depending on his paci more this weekend, but not as much since we've been home. I guess he felt insecure with all the traveling, meeting (and held by) new people and loud music. It's a good thing that we are back to our old, boring routines :-)

How can we say no to this?

Oh, I'm in trouble. Ethan had been smiling occasionally, but he really started to more this week! He was going through some tummy trouble and then a growth spurt, so he was not a happy camper. But I think his tummy is getting better (or maybe we know how to deal with it better now) and his growth spurt lasted only a few days, and now he is a happier baby. Today he was smiling a lot more, and I was able to take some pictures! His smile melt my heart and it would be really difficult to tell him "no" if he comes to me and ask for something with the smile, once he starts talking.

We will be traveling with him this week to New York for Jeff's cousin's wedding. We'll drive to Buffalo (8hrs) in one day, then another 4 hours to Albany area the next day. Since we've only driven to South Bend with him, we took a longer drive today to Fort Wayne. He drove most of the way there and back, of course. We only hope that he won't sleep the entire 8 hour car ride on Thursday and stay up all night!

Tummy trouble

Ethan turned 1 month old last week! I can't believe it's already been a month. The past month has gone so fast (and slow at times).

Ethan has been having a tummy pain :-( It started last Wednesday night he woke up screaming about an hour after I fed him and put him in bed. At first I thought it was his usual whine when he's falling asleep, but it kept getting louder, so we went to check on him. He usually stops crying when I pick him up, but he kept going, and very loud. I kept rocking and comforting him, and after a few burps (and half an hour) later, he went back to sleep. This happened again the next morning after the feeding, so I called the doctor. She told me to get the anti-gas drop and cut dairy on my diet.

He still has pain after some feedings, but I think it's getting a little better. According to some research (ok, I did A LOT of research because I don't want to see my son in pain!), babies' bowl movements change around 6-8 weeks, and they also start to notice the bowl movements, so they are irritable. We did definitely notice that he has been having only one dirty diaper a day (sometimes none) for the past few days. So I'm really hoping that this is just a stage for him to go through and he would be able to burp/ deal with tummy ache better soon. Meanwhile I'll be drinking lactose free fat free milk.

We ended up buying a moby wrap a few weeks ago, because Jeff's co-worker could not find hers anymore. It's been great! It's a little warm sometimes (because this is just a super long material wrapped around you) but it works great, and Ethan loves it and falls asleep in it.

Speaking of sleep, he somehow manages to shift himself down in his sleep positioner. I guess we are ok as long as he is comfortable and sleeps well. He continues to sleep 6-8 hr stretch at night, then 3-4 hr nap in the morning. Actually he is still sleeping now, going over 9 hr stretch!