Busy season, cousins' visit and exams

April 15 came and went. Now I am back to 3 times a week. At the end I was putting 55 hours a week, which was getting too much. I kept the Mondays off just until the final week (although I worked at home for a few hours). And I saw Ethan every day!

Even though the busy season is over, I still had two exams to take this week so I couldn't really relax yet. And I had to go into work on Monday this week as I had a lot of things I needed to finish at work before we leave to Japan. So I took one exam Tuesday morning and another one this morning. Now I can relax and enjoy the time with Ethan! I highly doubt that I passed those exams (it's kind of hard to work 55 hrs a week and study enough for exams...) but at least they are done for now!

Now it's time to pack for Japan. I really wonder if we can fit everything we need for two weeks in four luggages plus carry ons. We are hoping to buy some food and diaper there, which would help, but we have to take more than a can of formula since he still is allergic to milk (and also under 1 year old). And how many set of clothes to pack in our carry on? Too much to think about. On top of that I'm starting to worry about him transitioning to Japan time (and back at the Eastern Standard Time). And he is working on his top tooth now, so I really hope that he doesn't get another ear infection! But he has been wearing the bibs again, which we were so happy to get rid of for the past few months :-( Now that he army crawls everywhere, the bibs get in his way so he takes them off very quickly. And amazing thing is that the bibs usually get super soaked within 10 minutes that it's time to change to a new one anyways!

Last weekend Jeff's cousins, Rachel and Beth, and Uncle Ron came from Buffalo. They have two 1-week spring breaks, and it happened to be their second spring break. They got in early Sunday morning and left Monday mid day to go upto Michigan, so it was a short visit but was a lot of fun. Ethan loved the girls and Ron, too! He could not smiling and giggling at them. They had last seen Ethan at Thanksgiving, so it was good to show how cool of a baby we have again :-)

Tonight we are meeting a few of our Sunday School friends at Mad Anthony's. I love their salads! I'm sure their beers are great too but I really can't like the taste of them. So I'm sure I'll stick to their food. Since it's walking distance from my office, I've gone there for lunches many times but it's my first time for dinner. It is an adult's night out, so Ethan will be at Grandpa and Grandma Yoder's. I'm sure he'll have fun too :-)

We let Ethan feed himself some Japanese noodles...

But he kept "feeding" Oreo so I said no, and this is what I got

Believe it or not, he loves bananas

His friend, Landon, giving him a kiss

He's loving cruising holding on to the sectional couch

Ethan with Rachel and Beth

Still loves his bath time!

Not crawling yet (according to me)

Ethan's army crawling is getting faster every day. But he is not on his four (even though his butt is somewhat up) so I don't think he is crawling yet :-) He has been getting better at standing too, and sometimes he cruise just a little bit (more like rotating standing up holding on to something). I can't believe that he will be one in less than two months!

A few days after his first tooth he got his second one, but none at the top yet. It feels different feeding him now! I can feel something hard against spoons or fingers now. His smiles are still cute even though it's not gummy anymore.

He continues to be a good eater. We started feeding him bigger chunks of vegetables and some cut up Japanese noodles, and it seems like he has no problem eating chunks instead of ground up smooth food like stage 2 jars of baby food. We do a mix of home cooked baby food and jars of baby food. So far he hasn't rejected either one and has no problem switching one to the other. I would be ready to feed him off of our plates except that I feel like many nights we have food with cheese or other dairy in it. About a month ago Ethan was playing with a spoon Jeff had eaten yogurt with (Jeff had licked off clean), and a few minutes later he had a spot or two of red bumps. So I am waiting for a few more months to try dairy again on him.

He opens his mouth and waits for food like a little bird

Yes, broccoli + daddy feeding = messy

I started working more like 50-53 the past few weeks, and it's tiring. I still want to see Ethan every day, so I try to go in earlier if I know I will have to get done a lot. So that means I go in somewhere between 5:30 to 6:30 usually. I still have been able to leave between 6-6:30 though. But I sure get tired pretty quickly unless I go to bed at 9. I've been trying to study for my exams too, which isn't too much fun. I still do get Mondays off, but I also bring a lot of work home for the weekend... I sure am ready for this to be over! Less than 2 weeks to go!

Jeff, Ethan and I are looking forward to going to Japan in three weeks. We'll be there for two weeks, one week in a weekly apartment and a week at my mom's. With Ethan being somewhat mobile, we thought it may be ok for us to stay at a weekly apartment for a week. My mom's taking a week off the second week, so we'll stay there. We are planning to visit my grandparents, great aunts and uncles, my mom's students and friends. It sounds like everyone is looking forward to meeting Ethan, and I can not wait to show Ethan where I grew up. He would not remember any of it, but hopefully it'll still be a good experience for him.

Oreo and Ethan with matching pose

He was playing with the cars, took socks off, and took off...

My three boys

Cheerios and puffs are his two favorite snacks

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!

When is Ethan's 9 months birthday?

So, February having only 28 days and Ethan's birthday being on 30th, we don't quite know when Ethan's 9 month birthday falls... Well, funny thing is that Jeff mentioned about it last week being some what concerned. So I reminded him that his birthday is on the 31st so he missed more monthly birthdays than Ethan would.

Olympics has been keeping me up a lot later than usual. It has been a lot of fun though! Sadly Japan did not get any gold medal, but I am proud of all their performances. I have to proudly point out the fact that many short track speed skaters and womens' figure skaters are Asians, even Americans :-) I was really looking forward to the womens' figure skates, and they sure didn't let me down! I knew Mao, Japanese silver medalist, was good, but I had never seen Kim, Korean gold medalist, so it was great that I could finally see her perform. She really was the best! I was sad that Mao didn't win gold, but Kim sure was awesome. And the American skater, Mirai Nagasu, was such a cutie and I am looking forward to see her grow (she is only 16).

Ethan still has no teeth, but doing really well. He had his 9 month check up last Monday, and he still is a small guy but very healthy. I have to say that we are quite happy that our household hasn't had any major sickness yet. He has had a few runny noses but never had real cold or ear infections. It helps when he only goes to Grandma's for a daycare.

Ethan experienced his first day care visit last Thursday. Mel and Lorna are in Florida until this Wednesday, so Ethan goes to Audrey Oosland's, a friend from our church. It sounds like he did great. I was excited to hear that he interacted with other kids well and still stuck with his routine.

My work has gotten busier, and now I am really feeling that I made a right choice by going part time. My hours are capped around 45 hours a week (it's been more like 46-47, but I also didn't have 45 hours a week in January for a few weeks). I still love what I do, and every year I get more responsibilities and I really enjoy the feeling that they are "my clients".

Lately his favorite thing to do is standing up and drinking milk on his belly. He can't quite pull up to stand on his own yet, but we'll see how long that lasts. He can pull up to his knees already, so it shouldn't be too long before he gets up by himself. Him drinking milk while he is on his belly is a little tricky because then he doesn't get much milk. He gets 2 sippy cups a day now, so he loves drinking sitting up also. He also started army crawling backwards occasionally. He still doesn't like being on his belly too much, but I think he enjoys being able to look around better when he is doing it. So he is rolly-polly most of the time.

I am attaching a few pictures from the past 2 weeks. We just got a new camera (Canon S90) so we have been taking a lot more pictures now!

Happy Valentine's!

My work has picked up some as it is mid February. Only 2 more months to go! Since Ethan was born, I became part time at work, so even during the busy season I work 45 hours a week. So far it has been manageable. I take Mondays off, work 7 am - 6pm for four days, and work 5-6 hours on Saturday. I sometimes bring work home so I can put an hour or two on Monday, so I can leave before 6pm a few times a week. It is nice that I could go part time as some work would not give the flexibility. I do feel like I don't get enough time with Ethan Tuesday to Friday, but now I make sure to have some quality time when I am home instead.

For Valentine's, Paul and Anita kindly watched Ethan in the evening on Saturday so Jeff and I could go watch a movie and out for a dinner... except the movie was sold out! I wanted to watch the Valentine's Day, but I guess so did every other ladies in town. So we decided to go out for a nice dinner instead. We walked in to Kelly Jae's, a Tapas restaurant in downtown, and it looked pretty empty as it was only a few minutes passed 5. But apparently they were all full with reservations and the earliest we could get in was at 7:45. We said no thank you and walked over to Il Forno, a pizza place. I think their pizza is the best one in the world, so even though it was not as romantic as I hoped, it worked out fine. Then we went to Target, Meijer and Wal-Mart, and went back to pick Ethan up. It was nice to be able to walk around the store without a child trying to reach for something, or run into stores without carrying a huge baby carrier. Oh, I forgot to mention that Jeff sent me flowers at work on Thursday, too! I don't know exactly what they are, but I think they are some kind of lilies.

Ethan just last week started to reach for things farther and put one foot behind him. So it looks like he's trying to go on his four but his arms aren't the strongest so he ends up on his face. But it is exciting to see him trying, finally! He continues to hate being on his tumy, but at least now he rolls over onto his tummy for a second or two. He still doesn't have his teeth yet though. A few weeks ago he kind of stopped drooling for a week or two, but now his drool is back again. We bought a few more bibs last night in hope of the drooling to stop just in time for some new bibs. (You know, kind of like not raining if you have an umbrella...)

So, no medals yet for Japan... hoping for one for the women's figure skate!