New Skills

I heard some scratching noises while Ethan was supposed to be napping, so I peeked in his room to see if he was awake and scratching the sheets . . . but I found him standing in his crib. He's been pulling himself up to standing position on my leg or against the couch or some of his toys, but he hadn't done that in his crib yet since the railing is higher than the things he's been pulling up on so far. He didn't notice me, so I went to get the camera . . .

He was supposed to be sleeping for his nap for another hour, but he decided he was done. Both his naps yesterday were less than half what they normally are :( So I didn't get as much quiet time as I was looking forward to.

Pumpkin Patch

We went to Spooner Farms today with Michael's parents to find pumpkins. Ethan was really good; he was just very somber and wouldn't look at the camera. So for most of the pictures he was looking off to the side and not smiling. We had a couple where he smiled, but they weren't for the cute poses - like the pumpkin row or in the wheelbarrow. He just smiled when we were walking and taking pictures.














The only thing he didn't like was the air horn. There was a pumpkin sling shot where you could put mini pumpkins in a giant slingshot and try to hit targets at the other end of the field. When someone hit the target, they would sound off the air horn and every time, Ethan would spit out his pacifier and scream in fright - he looked so worried.














He likes to sit on Michael's shoulders but grabs at the sides of Michael's hair. I think it makes for a cute picture cause Ethan has this look on his face like "what; I didn't do it."

Brushing Teeth (or lack there of)

I decided to try brushing Ethan's gums since he seems to be teething and the pressure might feel good to him. He usually locks his lips tight whenever I try to feel around his gums to see if there are any teeth coming through. So I thought he wouldn't let me try a toothbrush, but he grabbed the toothbrush right away and tried it himself. I think the fruit flavor baby toothpaste helped.

As you can tell from his shirt, he drooled just a little in the process.

Are we related?

I was digging through my many files of pictures and came across this one of me and Emma (my niece) from January 2006 . . . I don't think we look alike at all. Do you? I mean, the identical scarry smiles aren't that convincing are they?

2 Pet Peeves of the Day

I had to drive up to Redmond for Ethan's Dr. appt today so the long car ride and the errands up there gave me 2 pet peeves of the day:

1 - Why does almost everyone leave the car dealership license plate border/covers on? You know, the ones that say the name of the dealership on the ugly plastic borders. It totally ruins the look of nice clean and new cars. I've always taken mine off cause they're tacky . . . but almost everyone leaves them on. I'll give some of them the benefit of the doubt that they just don't notice or forget that they are there . . . but to the rest of those tacky drivers - ewww. Take them off already!

2 - A lady at the Ben Franklin Craft Store was commenting on how cute Ethan was and then called his pacifier a "binky" . . . I ultimately HATE that word. It's a PACIFIER!!! Not a "binky." Binky was just a brand name of a Playtex pacifier but if you look at the text on left side of the picture, it says "pacifier." If my son had this brand, then I would permit people to say "binky" since this one is. But I refuse to buy that brand so I don't have any Binkys. So they are PACIFIERS . . . NOT binkys!!! And some of you readers may refer to them as a Binky, but if you're talking to me about them, it's a "pacifier" . . . I will correct you if you don't use the proper term . . . this was a pet peeve today, but it will always be one cause that word just sounds like stupid baby talk. Sorry if that offends or bothers anyone, but I despise that word.

6 months & crawling!!!!!

Where did the time go? For about 2 months, Ethan has been spinning in circles on his tummy not able to move anywhere but in that circle, so I was totally fine to walk to the kitchen or get something from his room knowing that he coulnd't get anywhere.

Saturday was his 6 month mark and he all of a sudden started to move forward. He kept his left leg straight and paddled forward with his right leg and pushing up with his hands. Our books say that most babies don't crawl by 6 months but a few do . . . well, he decided to be one of the few.

Then on Sunday he started scooting/crawling with both legs pushing but still on his stomach . . . kind of like a soldier crawl.

Yesterday (Monday) he started getting on his knees and hands and rocking back and forth. He's not crawling on his knees yet, but he's trying to. So it's only a matter of time before he's crawling full speed and getting into everything. It's hard to keep up with him already. He keeps grabbing cables that are tucked under the couch and then when I pull those away from him and block them again, I turn around and he's halfway under the coffee table (which is already pushed off to the edge of the room so he has a bigger play zone).

People kept telling me to enjoy his first few weeks/couple months of his life cause they're the best and he grows up so fast. Well, I agree that he grows up so fast, but his first couple months were the worst of it so far (the first week was fun though cause everything was so new and cute). But he wasn't nursing good - no matter how much my lactation consultant helped me, my body was taking forever to heal, he cried almost non-stop. . . except for when we were at church - I think he likes Jesus best:), and he wouldnt keep to a sleep pattern. He would sleep through the night for a couple nights then beging waking up every 2 hours again for a few days and so on and so on.

Once he hit the 3 month mark, he was adorable again and seemed to get a personality overnight and was fun to play with and slept through the night. My favorite time was the 3-5 month mark. Now that he's crawling, it's going to be a new challenge.

What a weird baby!

Lately, Ethan has been flipping his pacifier sideways and sucking on it for a while then flipping it back to normal. He can flip it with his hands or just with his mouth . . . he's a weird child. But it makes him look like he's smiling funny.

We finished feeding him carrots so he was just in his onesie so he wouldn't get his other clothes dirty. And it was a little chilly so I put him in Michael's hoodie. It was obviously huge on him but he kept chewing on it and eventually spit up on it. Green hoodies look good with carrot spitup . . . at least I thought it was funny.

Yummy and Yuck!

So Ethan has started eating baby food now and he definately has his preferences:
Rice Cereal = GREAT!
Applesauce = Delicious!
Sweet Potatoes = Indifferent, but fine
Green Beans = well, I think the picture below explains his thoughts on beans . . .














I tried feeding him the green beans the day before and he kept trying to throw up and was gagging. I felt bad, but at the same time, the faces he was making were too cute! So then yesterday he was eating Sweet Potatoes good, so then I tried a couple spoonfuls of green beans again and he tried to throw up again. He seemed hesitant to take anymore bites, wondering if he could trust me. But as long as I stayed away from green beans, he ate okay.

I think I liked rice cereal better cause it wasn't anywhere near as messy. It was also a white-ish, clear color, so you couldn't see the mess. Unlike the green and orange baby food he ate yesterday.

New Skill - Sitting alone

If I put Ethan in a sitting position, he can stay that way for about 20 minutes at most so far. He even knows how to balance himself if he starts to tip over. But when he does fall over, it's in a face plant instead of on his side. He never seems to get hurt or bothered by it and doesn't cry, just looks up at me confused or smiling. He kept making that straight lip'd smile - he hadn't done that before but seemed to be stuck that way for a while yesterday.

Over the weekend was Alex and Jasmine's wedding. Now all of my siblings are married. Jasmine looked beautiful. Halfway through the reception, they put on traditional Korean outfits called Han Boks (sp?) which Jasmine's parents has custom made for them and my parents too. The colors were so bright and beautiful. Nathan had one already from his mission that someone gave him as a gift when he was serving in Korea. His style is King's style . . . not surprising that Nathan would have the Regal look. :) But he says the lady made it for him without him knowing which style she was making . . . but I think she just knew him well enough to know that style would suit him well.

Lightning

So there was a very loud thunder/lightning storm on Saturday night. The thunder was so loud it shook things. So I'm guessing the storm was right over us at that point. The thunder woke us up and scared Ethan awake. So while I was trying to calm him down by rocking in the glider, Michael was setting up his tripod and camera to get pictures of the lightning. With his extended exposure attachment, he was able to get some really good ones. We missed some of the awesome lightning strikes since there's no advanced warning when the next one will be.