Babies make you stupid!

I mean that in the nicest possible way... :) Really, I do. Here are the top four reasons why babies make you stupid (as I get stupider, I'll probably get to TEN reasons fairly soon):

#4. Singing
Brian has never known me to sing around the house. I usually reserve that for the privacy of my car and the amusement of other drivers nearby! However, I am now singing ridiculous, made-up, nonsensical songs all the live long day. The lyrics are ever-changing, but usually go something like this (to the tune of Happy Birthday):
Ethan boy is so cute
Ethan boy is so cute
Ethan boy is such a cutie
Ethan boy is so cute

I think my IQ just dropped another 10 points by writing this down and publishing it to the blog...

#3. Laughing
I will do anything, absolutely anything, to get a giggle to come out of the boy! He has recently started making the greatest little laughing sounds, but they are few and far between depending on how hungry he is and how well he's napped. When we get them, they're totally worth it! When I see my chance, I make as many faces and silly noises as I can think of, and then I am so delighted when it works that I jump up and down.

#2. Pictures and videos
I recently forced three of my coworkers to watch a little mini-video of the boy during his tummy time. (Apologies to all of you!) Everything he does, I have to capture using our digital cameras, and nothing gets erased. Not even the videos of him spitting up. (Cute? Well, kind of...)

#1. Conversation
And last but not least, since Ethan has just started going to bed earlier and sleeping pretty well at night, Brian and I are just starting to watch the news again. We have had short conversations on things like politics, the economy, how wonderfully eloquent our new President is....and have just barely moved beyond the kind of diapers Ethan produced at daycare, what noises he made today, and whether or not he played in the Jumperoo.

I'm not going to worry too much about the lost IQ points, though. He's really getting even more fun by the day, and Brian and I are both thrilled with every little thing he does.

The First Cold

Poor little sick Ethan boy...actually, all he has is a cold, no fever or anything, but the poor guy is probably wondering what in the heck his body is doing - he's got a really junky cough, he's very congested, and his eyes are pretty watery. :(
But he's a pretty good sport! The first day he had this cough, he would hack away, and then smile. He is still pretty smiley after a sneezing fit, too - and if you think about it, it does feel good to sneeze! But he's had this thing for several days now, and I think he's getting tired of it - he is having the hardest time falling asleep unless he's upright (meaning on me in the rocker or with Brian in the Baby Bjorn) and then he can't stay asleep for too long. Surprisingly, once he does fall asleep at night, he's still sleeping pretty well. Thank goodness; I know that when I'm sick, all I want to do is sleep.

It hasn't affected his appetite at all, which is a good sign - I think that knowing this kid and his ravenous desire to eat, I'll be rushing him to the ER the moment he shows any signs of decreased hunger! And as Brian and I learned when we called the doctor (yes, we did, even for a cold), they aren't concerned unless his fever gets up to about 105! That sounds dangerously high to me, but apparently not for babies...any fever he might come down with is a good sign that his body is fighting an infection. So we're sticking with the home remedies - nasal aspirator, saline drops (he HATES those), and a humidifier that Brian shopped all over town for yesterday. We keep telling him that this is good for his white cell count, but I don't think he's listening...:)

One week later...

And he's still doing it! The boy can fall asleep in his own - in the evening only, so far, but you won't hear Brian or me complaining. We had some crying last night, and I can hear him madly sucking on his fingers right now, but I love that he's found a way to soothe himself. We can tackle the naps later. :)

The side effect of this, which everything I've read supports, is Ethan's ability to sleep through the night. (The books are right!) Apparently now that he has the ability to fall asleep on his own, the nightly awakenings he has don't make him cry out anymore - he can put himself back to sleep most of the time. The last two nights he's been asleep from about 6:00 pm to 6:00-6:30 am. Wow. Ironically, Brian and I are still tired - we are so used to getting up in the night, Brian's been doing nightly forecasts for a winter storm project he's coordinating, and frankly I just want to check on the boy!

He's entering this golden age of babyhood, I think. :) He's making the most adorable noises (including yawns, finally, that signal when he's getting sleepy) and just seems so much happier than he was a mere 6 weeks ago. I know someone who said that if she had to make a baby doll, she would pick a 5 month old to model, because babies are just wonderful at that age. They can interact, they're playing with more things, but they're not yet moving around independently and terrifying their parents! (One of my friends has said about her little mobile son, "If it's dangerous, he wants it.")

Riding the Sleep Train?

Well, tonight I'm posting about a subject that I've been reticent to discuss publicly - sleep training. No, not "crying it out". And I couldn't care less if Ethan sleeps through the night right now! (Honestly, since he almost always goes right back to sleep after eating, our time together in the middle of the night will be something that I will kind of miss someday, I'm sure...) What I'm talking about is encouraging Ethan to sleep when he's sleepy - and to fall asleep on his own.

Brian and I have gone back and forth about this, and I'm reading everything I can get my hands on (and have the time for!) about how to help your child sleep. Everything I read encourages parents of even very young babies to put them in their cribs when they are "drowsy, but awake". Our first problem was seeing the boy "drowsy, but awake"! Since he was about 10 weeks old and began to show us he was sleepy by yawning, he would fuss fuss fuss fuss fuss and then zzzzzzzzz..... :) Then, as he moved out of his fussiest stage around 3 months, he would just look more and more tired as the day went on, but had a really hard time sleeping for more than 20 minutes, 30 minutes, etc. during the day. Apparently this is not unexpected for a little guy his age, but I do hate to see him so zonked by 4:00 in the afternoon. We were starting to feel that we weren't doing Ethan any favors by being in charge of getting him to sleep.

So we thought, "He's almost 4 months old - 16 weeks by Thursday. Is it time to train him to fall asleep by himself?" And you know what that means - lots of crying! But tonight took us by surprise. We followed our bedtime routine - bath, bedtime snack, book....and then when I would usually retire to the rocking chair, we instead put him right into his crib and walked out the door. Fully anticipating tears in 5 minutes, I ate dinner hurriedly...and nothing. He did it! He fell asleep in his crib, after having been placed in there "drowsy, but awake"! Brian and I feel like we're playing hooky tonight. Very fun.

Now I'm sure this will not happen again right away. After all, he slept through the night once and it hasn't happened since! And I know that if we continue to do this in the evenings, we are bound to get some tears, and at some point we're going to have to let him do some crying without saving him after 3 minutes! But now we know that he can do it. If we get him at the right time, he can fall asleep in his crib on his own. Go Ethan!

First Week of Daycare (sniff)

Since Brian went back to work this week, we started Ethan with his new wonderful daycare provider. He is going to Vilma's Bilingual Daycare in Urbana, a home daycare (which I really wanted) about two blocks away from our house! Very very very convenient (which we both really wanted!). Vilma seems just wonderful with Ethan - holds him a lot, plays music and sings to him, and keeps the two little girls she has there away from him when they look a little too interested. :) I was very unhappy leaving him the first day, but she was understanding and assured me that I could call whenever I wanted to to see how he was doing! Ethan's mother, the crazy lady, has been picking him up pretty early this week, but I think we'll be on an actual schedule next week so all of us can get into some kind of routine.

Brian was cute enough to document the boy's first day of "school" with lots of pictures - his shoes (so the socks don't constantly come off!), the second outfit he had to get changed into before we got him there, etc.

And once again, the folks I work with have been fantastic. Some email me when they hear I'm back to welcome me and to ask, "So what new tricks is he doing now?" When I show them pictures and little videos, they are nice enough to make the requisite, "Awww!" even when I'm sure they're thinking, "This chick is nuts!" And it's funny, but Ethan is up to new things - every day, it seems! Monday night, after his first day of daycare, he slept through the night - amazing! Brian and I didn't sleep nearly as well - we were both up between 2 and 4 in the morning because the boy had turned onto his side and we were worried he'd flip onto his stomach and suffocate. Of course, he didn't - and he's napping on his side as I write this, which I'm sure is a way more comfortable sleeping position than on his back. We still put him in the crib on his back, but he doesn't stay there. :) He's also eating a ton - apparently he cries mournfully whenever his bottle is done, so I'm going to have to work hard to make sure that the supply keeps up with the demand! His four month Well Baby visit is coming up in a few weeks, and we'll see if he has managed to maintain his weight percentile of 95%. (Brian refers to him as "gifted".)

One thing that he hasn't done yet, but Brian and I are both eagerly anticipating, is to notice the cats. They still avoid him like the plague, and he doesn't seem to register that there are furry moving things near him. I'm guessing that he'll figure this out right about when he starts to grab at things in front of him, which will be an interesting development for all concerned!