Nice hair

Ethan had a doctor's check up today for his ear infection and it was cleared :-) He didn't have an allergic reaction to the antibiotics, so that was great, also.

Before the doctor's appointment, I got to clean, cook, finish one load of laundry and play with Ethan. I love when I feel like I was productive! Today I decided not to work at all (well, I checked my e-mails a few times but that's all) so it was nice not to worry about work too. It feels like working 45 hours a week this busy season has been working really good. It sure is nice that I have a whole day with Ethan every week. This makes up for seeing him only for an hour Tuesday to Friday.

Grandpa and Grandma Claassen are in Malaysia for the next 10 days, so Ethan goes to a daycare this week and a part of next week. Last time when they were gone for a week Ethan was so excited to see them when they were back that he almost fell out of our arms. It's so much fun to see him being affectionate because I don't see him being attached to anything else yet. I guess grandpa and grandma are very special to him :-)

We thought we lost his first tooth already (either it wasn't a tooth or it went back under the gum...?) but I guess we were wrong. Today it sure is out and can be seen pretty good. But he loves feeling it with his tongue so it's a challenge to really see it. Looks like the bottom right is thinking of coming out soon too. I wonder if he gets like 6 in a few weeks?

Jeff and I are starting a bet on when he starts crawling. Every day he makes progress on this and his heart is definitely there. He gets so frustrated that he can't do it though. But today I bribed him with a cheerio and he army crawled (forward!) a bit to get to it. I think it'd still be a month, but maybe Jeff's 2 weeks will win...

Ethan has two cowlicks that push the hair up together, and he sometimes has amazing hair styles. His normal do is a full hawk, but sometimes it's more than that :-) The other day Jeff took a few pictures of his "great hair" (please don't mind him wearing a yellow shirt with pastel green pants with red socks... that's how daddy dresses him!)

He's so proud of his tooth too that he sticks out his tongue a lot now to feel it.

My little man is not so little anymore!

Yesterday (March 9), Ethan finally got his first tooth! It's still a tiny dot, but it definitely is through his gum! Yay! It actually is bitter sweet since it took him so long to get a tooth. Now I can't see his gummy smile anymore :-( And I have to worry about cavities and brushing teeth and him chewing on things. But it is a big milestone and I sure am excited to see his growth! Jeff was in Chicago for a conference for his work yesterday, so we didn't get to celebrate it together. Good thing it didn't disappear over night :-)

This evening we were playing on the floor and Ethan suddenly started playing his trumpet! I had a little trumpet growing up so when he turned 6 months I ordered one from Japan. You just blow in it and it makes a noise (I've never seen one in the States). He always drooled in it or chewed on it, but tonight he suddenly started blowing in it and made noise! We quickly got our digital camera and took some videos. I don't know how to put a video on yet, so I'll post it once I figure that out.

But oh boy, he is growing! He loves standing up and just the other day he started pulling up on his knees, and grandma thinks she saw Ethan getting up to a sitting position from his tummy today, too. It is always all of a sudden he starts doing things. We still don't have his crib mattress at the lowest position yet, and I really am hoping that I don't find him falling over the crib one day... Now that he's starting to pull up on things, we'll need to lower the crib as low as possible this weekend!

Oh, another thing. We finally bought tickets to Japan! We are leaving on April 24 and come back on May 8. We are already scared of our travel (13 hr flights with him on our laps), but who knows, he may surprise us as he always does! We, along with Grandma Kiyomi, are all excited for our trip :-) We received his passport a few weeks ago in the mail, so we are as ready as we can be!

Spoke too early... or jinxed myself :-(

So... Ethan got his first ear infection today :-( Last night he was woke up a few times and went back to sleep on his own, so I thought maybe his teeth were hurting him. But this morning a little after 5:30 he was crying pretty loud so I decided to go check on him. When I picked him up to get him out of the crib, he felt pretty warm to me, so I took the temperature quick. Sure enough, he had his first fever! It was 102.3 under arm, which is pretty high. So we gave him a Tylenol and hoped that it would go down some so we could wait until the morning to call the doctor's office.

He finally went back to sleep around 7:30, and I called the doctor at 8:40. We couldn't get in until 1:30, and he was waking up on and off again, so I gave him some Motrin and kept him up for a while. I think he did some 30-45 minute cycles of waking up and falling asleep. And when he was awake he wasn't too happy most of the time. He ate ok though.

So at 1:30 we went in to the doctor's office, and of course she said that he had an ear infection! I was honestly surprised that he lasted this long without one though. I used to get them all the time when I was little. She prescribed him an antibiotic, so hopefully he's not allergic to that. So now we've been giving him Tylenol and Motrin staggered, and it seems like Motrin definitely works a lot better than Tylenol. His temp seems to be lower and he has gotten some of his spunk back. We'll see how tonight goes...

I'm definitely kicking myself for jinxing though!