Copycat

I have a shameful secret to admit. This blog is not really mine. The blog really belongs to my coworker Cynthia, who started her blog a full 4 months before I did. (And gave me the idea.)

And the baby food that I'm making for Ethan these days? That's not really mine either - completely her idea. I started....well, after she mentioned how easy it was! Now I have a freezer full of banana, apple, pear, avocado, and pea cubes.

To make us a family of copycats, Ethan seems to be following in Cynthia's daughter's little footsteps as well! As I mentioned recently, he isn't crawling or anything close, but he can get from one place to another by:

Yep - he arches his back and scoots on his head. His role model (who he hasn't actually met):

http://kenandcynthia.blogspot.com/2009/04/determination.html

Vilma, his wonderful daycare provider, has mentioned a number of times that she can't leave him on the floor anymore with the two little girls she has - when she turns around, he's made it halfway across the floor and she's worried they'll step on him. :)

Yum!

Must put everything in my mouth! Must reach out and grab everything....then put it all in my mouth! Argggg....yum.....chomp.

Awwww....

Wow, these look cool!

Hmmm, I wonder what I could do with these shiny things!

Tasty!

Does anyone out there know why babies put everything in their mouths? I don't know if it's because he's teething or what, but the glasses are the newest thing - that and his toes. (I can't post the toe pictures or Brian will have my head. Most of them are naked pictures of Ethan chewing on his feet on the changing table, and I'm not good enough at Photoshop yet to blur certain areas out.)

He is reaching out for everything, and getting most of it! It's time to think about childproofing. Ethan isn't mobile yet (not really) but even when he and I are in the rocking chair, he's come close to pulling over my glass of water, grabbing the remote control (that may be genetic), and yanking out some of my hair. It's kind of funny at this stage, but I can already see that it won't be too long before we're considering outlets, cabinets, cords, tables...

Happy Birthday, Gramma Judy!

I feel quite safe in posting this time, since my mother NEVER reads this blog. I've tried to convince her that it's just a collection of cute photos of her grandson, but somehow that's too hard. :)
This is my lovely mother next to my lovely sister as we were getting ready for our first helicopter ride in Hawaii a couple of years ago. Mom is great about having her picture taken in that she will almost always pose with a ridiculous face.
Here she is with a favorite cat of mine - a true animal lover, my mother is. She prefers dogs over cats at this point, but Joey doesn't seem to mind. :)
She is quite the doting grandmother - I have never heard her so excited as the morning I called her to tell her Ethan had (finally) been born. (It was kind of a long wait...) She has also forced Brian and myself to get out of the house on a regular basis, and she and my dad babysit weekly for us. This picture was taken during Ethan's fairly long (or at least it felt that way!) nap strike - she had just rocked him to sleep in the glider and then stayed in that position for who knows how long so he wouldn't wake up.
Awww...... (Wow, does he look different now!)

So Happy Birthday, Mom. I love you! I know you went to the Galapagos for the last two weeks so you could avoid celebrating your XXth birthday. You can run, but you can't hide. We WILL celebrate it when you get back into town!

It Takes a Village - REALLY

So Brian and I took Ethan to his official 6 month appointment today. We were so happy that he's gained weight! Actually, he gained almost two pounds in about three weeks, which is amazing...apparently I was either starving the poor boy during the last four months or this growth spurt that he's been on is evening out. He's even starting to turn down the little bottles that I have ready for him after nursing, which is making me think that he's getting plenty of food. (He should be - he is getting some kind of meal every hour.)

While he's not quite back in sumo wrestler status, he's right where he should be. Nothing makes this boy happier than food, I'll tell you - his whole body gets into every meal! And I've learned a lot about feeding him from such a variety of people - his doctor, who told me last time to, "Just have fun this summer," which I think was his way of telling me to chill a little bit. :) And after talking to a coworker, I've started feeding him twice before going to work, which makes Ethan a seriously happy boy in the mornings - two big meals in an hour?! Yahoo! Also, the lady who watches him when I'm at work gives him lots of cereal during the day, so when I get him home and give him another big bowl, it's usually his third for the day! She and I have laughed over how big his eyes get and how wildly his legs kick when he senses that food is on the horizon.

I hope that he's also ready to do something - not that he's behind on any developmental milestones or anything, but there has to be some reason that this boy is sleeping worse at night than he has in a long time! One of my mom's friends was remarking to her that she remembered the early days in her kids' lives, how getting ready for work in the morning felt like putting on makeup after an accident. :) I have rolled into work feeling a little like that occasionally, but luckily my coworkers are too nice to say anything like, "Wow, you look awful!"


As you can tell from the photo above, Ethan has started to notice the animals in this village. He loves the cats. Every time one gets close enough to catch his attention, he's reaching out for them and wanting to grab their fur. Our oldest and most antisocial cat was the one that I was afraid would disappear the instant we brought him home. On the contrary; she's the one that allows him to run his hands through her fur and even pull on it once in awhile. When he starts crawling, she may avoid him a little more. :)

Happy Mother's Day!

Happy Mother's Day to all of the mothers out there! We had a great weekend - the weather was perfect, Ethan-boy was in a fantastic mood, and we had my parents join us for a Mother's Day brunch this morning. I was really hoping to have some great pictures of Ethan interacting with his grandparents, but he slept through the entire brunch! (Apparently his Mother's Day presents to me were his two seriously long naps. :) ) Since I don't have pictures from today, I'm going to highlight mom pictures anyway!

This is my mom and dad a week or two after Ethan was born - we had some unseasonably warm weather in early November, so we got the boy outdoors early! What was really funny was that at that point in his life, all he wanted to do during the day was sleep (and stay up all night) and my folks were always so disappointed that by the time I met them in the park with His Majesty, the royal eyes were shut!
Ethan, Mom, and me at Christmas time. Ethan doesn't look nearly as enthusiastic about having his picture taken as my mom and I were - digital photography is wonderful, and Brian was snapping pictures right and left that day! He was also such a chunky boy then! It's fun to see how he's changed in a few months.
Ethan and his Grammy Barbara at the end of March - we were really enjoying the gorgeous weather at the beginning of Spring, and she and my sister-in-law Kim have a fantastic deck out behind their house. (You can see that he's wearing the obligatory bib - always has one on, this boy.)

My first Mother's Day - hard to believe! :)