Already mid July

I can't believe it's already mid July! It is amazing how fast time passes.

In the past month Ethan started walking. Jeff and I had a bet going on when he would start walking, and I had mid June and he had July 4. Ethan started walking at the end of June. For the past few weeks it was more like taking a few steps and fall or dive into our arms, but the past weekend we realized that he suddenly started taking lots of steps without falling, picking up his toys on the floor and getting back up, and today I saw him turning around without holding onto a furniture. I think the only time he crawls now is to get to something to get back up. We will finally get our basement done (partially) so it will be nice to have a bigger space for him to practice walking/ running.

Oreo and Ethan are getting along better now also. Ethan plays fetch with Oreo (even though he can't slow the ball too far and Oreo does not think he needs to get the ball), pets him nicely, and cuddles up with him when Oreo is laying by me. I think Oreo likes the attention he gets from Ethan also. Oreo sure loves Ethan during a meal time because Ethan tends to throw food off of his plate/ tray if he does not like it. He used to do this whenever he was full, but we taught him "all done!" sign and he shows that he is done pretty well.

It has been fun teaching Ethan signs and seeing him communicating with us using signs. He can do milk, more, all done, and up so far. I'm trying to teach him thank you and please but we'll see how quickly he picks these up. Verbally he is still working on saying mommy and daddy. Some days he is good at it, but some days he calls everything daddy. He sure is a chatter box though. Only if we understand his language!

This weekend we will be headed to Buffalo, NY again for Jeff's cousins', Rachel and Brice's, graduation party. It will be fun to see everyone especially Maddie, Ethan's second cousin who is 3 weeks younger than Ethan. Last time they saw each other was at Thanksgiving when they were only 5 months old. Ethan started interacting with his church friends, so I'm excited to see him play with his second cousin!

Oh, and here are pictures of him playing with his buddies, Lacy and Carson. They are about 6 months older than Ethan. Now that Ethan can finally walk he was excited to follow them around (or try to follow but fall far behind).

Ethan's favorite toys right now are baseball caps. He wears an adult size Buffalo Bisons' cap and an infant size Nebraska Huskers' cap. He also loves drinking out of/ playing with a cup (not a sippy, cup!). I sure am glad that it's summer now so he could be without a shirt and drinking out of a cup without getting cold.

Ethan is 1 now!

Ethan turned 1 on Sunday, May 30. I can't believe it has been one year since he was born! This past year went so fast and he has grown so much in one year. He is not quite walking yet but working hard at it. He loves pulling up on anything and walks holding on to furnitures or our fingers. I thought he'd be walking by mid June, but I think it'd be a little longer yet. Jeff thought by July 4th. We'll see.

I took Ethan to the Portrait Innovation, a professional photo studio a few days before his birthday. We've never taken him to a studio, and it will be the only one he'll get before his senior pictures :-) They turned out really good though! The photographer was so nice and fun, made him smile and laugh as she took pictures. I bought a CD of all the pictures she took, which has over 80 pictures! These are the few.

On Sunday we had a few family over for Ethan's birthday; Mel and Lorna, Bert and Regina and Grandma Yoder (Ethan's Great Grandma!). I made the "hungry caterpillar" cake which was easy and cute. We've been feeding him some yogurt and milk now and it seems like his tolerance to dairy has increased yet not completely allergy-free so I made a non-dairy cupcakes with non-dairy frosting. He did not care for the cake but loved the frosting! After licking off his frosting he offered to trade with my cupcake that I hadn't started eating yet.

On Monday then we had our friends over for the Memorial day cook out/ Ethan's birthday. Unfortunately it rained so we couldn't be outside but we had a great time playing some games inside. A few of them enjoyed playing with Ethan's birthday gifts too :-) For Monday I baked a batch of cupcakes again and added onto my caterpillar from the day before (we kept the head). So it was an economical cake also :-)

Ethan's 1st year check up was last Friday, and he is now at the middle of the pack. I think his weight is still on the lighter side, but his height is at the middle. He had grown 3 inches in the past 3 months! I wish I had that kind of a growthspart. Next check up is at 18 months, which was too far ahead to schedule. Wow, finally we can take a little break from going to the doctors!

We continue to work on our basement. Jeff had some help painting over the past few weeks and it looks so nice now! We went out and picked out our carpet too, so we only need to put some trims up before putting the carpet down! Then it's all done! ... for now! We still have a room unfinished which we'd love to finish in the next year or so. Then it'll all be done! Ethan is starting to be more mobile each day so a big family room in the basement will be really nice. If everything goes well the family room should be done by the end of the month. I will post some pictures when it's finished!

Trip to Japan

Lots happened in the past month. We went to Japan for two weeks, had a mother's day and my birthday, now we are getting ready for Ethan's birthday!

The trip to Japan was a lot of fun. It started out with an accident though... A flight from South Bend was delayed for an hour because the oxygen tank needed to be filled (when was it used? I don't know...). So we timed Ethan's snack time to be when we take off so he could have a bottle and it'd be good for his ears... that didn't work. But he had no problem with his ears.

As we approached to Atlanta (we went through Atlanta on the way to Japan because the tickets were cheaper), the pilot announced that there was a severe storm in Atlanta and sooner we get there was better. Of course as we got closer the weather got worse and we flew over Virginia for a while to see if there is any window for us to land there. The fuel was getting low and there was no sign of the weather clearing up, so we ended up landing in South Carolina. We were not even connected to the airport there, we had to wait 2-3 hours in the plane. Ethan was starting to fuss a little due to a dirty diaper and being tired, so we changed his diaper (on our laps because there was no changing table in the bathroom, suggested by the flight attendant) and tried to put him to sleep.

So by the time we got to Atlanta our flight to Japan was long gone. Luckily they recognized this as a "maintenance issue" rather than a "weather issue" because had we left on time we would have made it, so they paid for our food and lodging. It worked out ok except that this was right after the Europe problem with the volcano, so the airport was a little hectic and getting to the ticket counter took an hour and going through the security took another hour. But at least we made the flight this time.

This time in Tokyo we rented a monthly apartment for two weeks in downtown Tokyo. It was only 10 minutes from my mom's place so we either went there or she stopped by every day. And it was nice to be in downtown so we could go see a few things, come back for a nap, and then go out again. Jeff and Ethan went out by themselves a few times also.

Lot of highlights for me; showing Ethan off to my family, eating great food, new haircut, shopping with my mom, etc. Definitely the hardest thing hands down was adjusting to Japan time. You can not force a baby to stay awake or sleep! It took Ethan 2 weeks to adjust to Japan time, and when we came back, it took him a week. That was the hardest week! Jeff and I both went to work that week with just a few hours of sleep. We were woken up once or twice (although each time we were up for 1-2 hrs). I can not imagine doing that for a year or something. Thank goodness Ethan started sleeping through the night at 4 weeks, as soon as we started letting him.

Here are a few pictures from the trip. I will write more if I remember what I want to write about...

This is how they slept the entire way over there... good job Jeff!

And when he woke up he was always sweaty

We happened to be in Japn on the "boys' day" and this is one of the displays.

Yes, we put our son in the closet to sleep...

On our balcony on the 24th floor

This was another display for the boys' day. They were all over the country!

My Grandpa and Ethan

My too excited Grandma and Ethan

My aunt who wanted to hold him so bad but Ethan was not sure

My uncle. Ethan looks like when my uncle was little

At the park near my mom's

Many restaurants hada high chair and brought utencils and a menu out for Ethan

My tradition: with a panda

Packing

Ethan loved playing hide an seek (he says it in Japanese) and it was the "boo!" face

Another picture from our balcony. You can see the Mt. Fuji (the white triangle at the back)

Jetlagged child at home

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.