Happy New Year!

I hope everyone out there has a great one. Apparently Ethan's resolution is to sleep a little more, and he's getting a good start on it now - he's actually asleep! Will miracles never cease?! I'm not really sure what to do with myself!

I should watch myself; I got a wonderful Christmas letter from a good friend who said that between this blog and talking to her sister-in-law who is also a new parent, she is never having kids. (Sorry, Jordan!) Really and truly, every single little bit of trouble is so absolutely worth it, and I'm not just saying that. I went for a jog today, and thought, "Wow, I have a little son, who I get to go back home to..." Amazing.

It is good that he's cute, though! Isn't that how all newly born creatures survive - those big eyes and cute features?

Holiday Updates!

What a great holiday season! Brian and I drove to Cincinnati on Christmas Day to spend a few days with his family, and it was as laidback and fun as it always is. Ethan-boy was greeted by many volunteers who were happy to hold and rock him!

I appreciate the folks who have responded to my "Colic" post with such sympathy and welcome suggestions! As it turns out, though, I doubt that's what it is after all....I'm reading a book on babies' sleep cycles, and I am positive that the boy is just way overtired. It's uncanny how every hour and a half, he gets really fussy and hyper - those were his "sleepy signs" that I was just overlooking! He's still a little hard to soothe, but we're learning. :)

And there really isn't anything as sweet as a sleeping baby. Just to prove that it does happen, I'm posting one of my favorite sleepy boy pictures:

We don't need no stinking schedules....

As I read a friend's blog recently, I found that someone had posted a comment to hers saying, "The babies don't read the books." Oh, isn't that so true! If Sir Ethan had read half of the websites and books that I've tried to skim through, he would know that he should be beginning to settle into some kind of pattern. He would know that he only has 3 and a half more weeks to thrill us with the hours of colic that we dance, swing, and shush him through. But I don't think he's picked up any of this literature lately, so he's doing his own thing. I did get hopeful this past week when we had three days in a row of normal baby crying and fussiness as opposed to what we had been seeing since Thanksgiving. However, he threw us for a loop, and the discomfort was back in full force this weekend - I'm sure he's just making sure that Mom and Dad don't take anything for granted!

But I can't say in any way that things are all bad. A few nights a week, he will sleep for a 4-5 hour stretch, during which I wake up just to make sure he's ok, fully expecting the "I'm hungry!" cry every 2 1/2-3 hours. During his quiet, alert, and engaging times of the day, he is amazing and learning rapidly! He's batting things around and gets really excited to be on his playmat when just a few weeks ago he got way too overwhelmed when I would put him on his back there. He's got quite the turtle neck, and we have great fun during some "tummy time" when he inches his way up my chest to look at me.

Gramma Judy has also requested other Christmas pictures for their holiday letter - the ones below were apparently not showing his true cuteness, so she came over the other day and we got even more!

What a ham...

Happy Holidays!

Ho ho ho, everyone. The holiday season has rushed up on me, and I am more grateful than anyone knows that both sides of our family are doing a simplified Christmas - time together being the most important thing. Whew. I love the season, the snow, etc., but I have to admit that this year I am happy to let it pass without a great deal of trouble!

Brian and I may or may not get Christmas cards out this year, but I took pictures anyway in case we get our act together. Ethan was happy to pose...but only for a second. :) Luckily he is photogenic enough that I could get one good shot before meltdown.



I hope everyone enjoys the season!

Ah, Colic!

What has five letters, peaks in babies 6-8 weeks old, affects one out of every four babies, and has no proven remedy? That's right, folks, it's colic! :) I'll admit that for the last week or two, pretty much since Thanksgiving, I've been wondering if our son hates us! His fussy times, normally in the evening like many babies, have started earlier and lasted longer, been considerably more intense (we saw our first real tears!) and he has just not slept. When I read that newborns sleep 15-20 hours a day, I wonder whose newborns they're talking about! For a few days there we were lucky to get 2-3 hours during the day and 4-5 at night - absolutely not enough for a little guy like Ethan.

So people out there reading this may wonder, "Alexis, you dummy, how could you let your poor, defenseless child get so sleep deprived? Why didn't you put him in a car and drive him around?" Luckily, my husband has a clearer head than I, and did just that after one of our mornings of lots of crying. And I kept thinking, "It's time for him to eat now - he'll fall asleep in his crib and get a good nap." A few hours later, after putting him in his crib, he rests for 5 minutes, spits up, cries, I pick him up, soothe him again, (repeat several times) - I'd think the same thing, and voila, we have hours passing by with no nap! And then an extra unhappy tired boy...

Now that we've taken him to the doctor, just in case there was a more serious digestive issue affecting his sleep, I feel completely entitled to get this kid sleep any which way I can - car seat, swing, repeated insertions of the pacifier, etc. as opposed to my previous purist view of "he'll get better sleep in his crib than he will in the car seat."

The Squirminator

Well, we've begun to make the crib/nursery transition. It has been easier for Brian and me than I had imagined - his crib is actually right behind the wall of our bedroom, so we don't even need a baby monitor to hear every sound the boy makes. Very comforting! However, his squirminess gave me a fright the first night he was in there. We've been using these great fleece wearable blankets - just wrap the sides around his arms, attach the velcro strips, and he's swaddled. But the active boy has been restless enough to pull his arms out during every nap, so we decided to leave one arm out and see how that worked. When I went in to check on him, he had pulled the top velcro bunch up so it was right around his neck, and the blanket part above that was over his face. GREAT! So no more of the swaddling above his arms.

When rereading my post about wonderful Brian the other day, I realized that my comments about having a hard time leaving Ethan seemed a little dramatic! But my colleague Cynthia loaned me this wonderful book entitled, "Wiped! Life with a Pint-Size Dictator" which is amazing and perfectly describes my feelings - when I've been walking, rocking, and swaying with him for hours, I can't wait for him to go to sleep. But then when he's asleep, I want to touch him and wake him up again! Very perverse...

Look at how strong my neck has gotten!

6 weeks!

I can't believe it's been 6 weeks already. Brian and I are still considerably sleep deprived, but loving our time with the little guy. He's begun to do all of the social smiling, cooing, etc. that comes with the second month, and that makes it so much fun to watch him - I'm looking forward to him being even more interactive!

I hope that my parents read this blog once in awhile, because they are owed a huge thank you from the three of us. Calling themselves "G & G Catering," (Grandma and Grandpa) they have delivered food to our door multiple times per week - pork chops, soup, salad, the list goes on and on. I'm so glad that they were rewarded with a smile yesterday when they came over to watch Ethan for an hour!

And he is a big boy now. He's outgrowing his bassinet already, so Brian and I are getting ready to make the change from being with us in the bedroom to having him in the nursery in his crib. (I don't think we can fit the crib out the door to put it in our room!) That's going to be a tough one, as I do look in the bassinet quite a bit when I hear this noise or that coming from the boy...but the nursery is just in the next room, so we may be OK.

Happy Thanksgiving!

I'd have added a picture of Ethan in this cap, but unfortunately, he's too big for it already! Too big for that cap as well as a good portion of his newborn clothes - about half of the little sleep and play outfits he has are too small for him - his feet barely make it to the end, and his shoulders were all squished! So he's wearing the three month outfits at 5 1/2 weeks. That's my boy. :)

Thanksgiving was great. Both sides of the family made huge effort to make things easy on us - my parents hosted the evening, and Brian's sister, mother, and two of his nephews drove all the way from Cincinnati to join us all. Great fun, especially since Brian's mom hadn't been able to meet the Ethan boy yet. They bonded very quickly!

Ethan also flirted shamelessly with his Aunt Kim - I'm positive that the boy was smiling, cooing, and giggling at her.

The only downside was that with all of the excitement, Ethan was a seriously overtired boy by the end of the festivities. (So were his parents!) I have been reading What to Expect the First Year whenever I have questions about anything - that book is great - and there's a section entitled, "Do you have a challenging baby?" (Aren't all babies a challenge???) I think we officially have an "active baby" - kicks off blankets, restless when being fed, sleeps less than most, frustrated to not be independently mobile (he is ready to use those legs, I swear), alert, interested and interesting...those all describe this guy. As I type this, he's even being active in his sleep! We have a sleep wedge in the portable crib, and his bassinet propped up just a little bit to help with the reflux, and he ends up at the bottom of both by the end of every nap! And his mom needs to learn how not to overstimulate him. Every time I have him awake and alert, rather than awake and unhappy, I'm talking, singing, reading, doing everything I can to play with him. He has these expressions that are just so fun to watch and imitate! Poor kid...