"routine", rolling, and remodeling

What is routine, anyway? And who really has one?

Ethan is a remarkably good baby. I mean - so-good-you-are-scared-of-how-bad-the-next-one-will-be, good. I'm convinced that no amount of praying that I did over this baby could have ever made him this good. God just made him this way... presumably because he knows how quickly I lose my mind. I border on embarrassment when I talk about how good he is, especially in front of other moms whose babies didn't naturally pick up sleeping through the night on their own. I'm not sure that we did anything to make this happen, it just did. A lot of people ask how he sleeps and well... it's pretty amazing for an almost-4-month-old baby. According to this post, he slept through the night for the first time before he was even one month old (what! That has to be some kind of record), and he's been pretty consistent with that since about two months old. Unfortunately, we do find ourselves waking up to retrieve his pacifier in the middle of the night more and more lately. Last night it was at 3 am, then 5 am, then 5:45, and he finally woke up at 6:20. We're still working on that... but at least it's not a feeding!

a little cross-eyed looking at his projector :)

We don't really have a "schedule" with Ethan, though he does do things similarly each day. I like to refer to it as his "rhythm". We follow the EASY (Eat, Activity, Sleep, Your time) schedule, which is nice because "Your time" is actually my "work time". I do work sometimes while he is awake if he is content to play by himself. We do this in 4-hour increments most days, except when he is exceptionally cranky. Austin can usually hold him off and keep him closer to his schedule, but since mama has the milk, he goes crazy if I'm holding him and he is remotely hungry! He'll usually wake up, eat/play for the first two hours of the schedule (eating only taking 15 minutes or so) and then sleep for the second two hours of the schedule, and then so on. It's nice to have a two-hour chunk to myself. I am not looking forward to the days when Ethan just has one or two naps per day!

Ethan waving hi!

It seems like we're always tweaking Ethan's schedule - while we used to do bathtime anytime throughout the day every other day, we now are transitioning to a bedtime routine and bathtime after his dinnertime feeding. It's so easy to fall into one routine and think that your baby will always be in that routine, when realistically, it will change as he grows (and more quickly than you think!).

Starting to grasp & hold things (and insert EVERYTHING
into his mouth).

We go to the doctor next Monday, January 27th to get Ethan's 4 month shots and check-up. He is a little chunk and already in 6-9 month clothes. I have a love/hate relationship with the doctor appointments because we LOVE our pediatrician and love seeing Ethan's progress on paper, but we hate to see him cry!

Sweet smiles, all the time.

Wednesday, Ethan rolled over from laying on his back to his front for the first time! He nailed front to back a couple of months ago, and we think the next milestone will be sitting up. Since we're already one what we call "the downward slope toward mobility", I'm excited to see him sit up. He is so much fun to play with now! I am enjoying the last bit of the "blob-like state" but really looking forward to seeing Ethan and Austin get to play.

We go pantsless more than you'd think.

In other non-Ethan-related news, we are hosting a community group at our house starting February 9th! If you live in Houston and are looking for a new church, check out Bayou City Fellowship, and feel free to come to our community group. We're there most Sundays, and the group will meet at our house on Sundays at 5 PM. We're also looking forward to getting back to working on our house (er - I am at least). I've decided to start slowly painting our trim white (someone please explain why they thought beige/tan was a good choice for EVERY surface in this house!!) and paint the red part of our "dining room" (future purpose of the room is TBD) taupe. I think I have a weekend project!

Here are a few shots of our NEW WINDOWS! I can say that we have immediately felt a difference in how our house heats. Suddenly 68 degrees is slightly stuffy when it used to be COLD! It didn't completely soundproof our house, but I guess that was an unrealistic expectation... too bad, because when the garbage truck was trying to crunch Austin's umbrella for 5 minutes this morning (it was broken but opened up when they dumped it in) I would've really liked it to be a little quieter!

Ethan's window

Living room windows

Office - currently being converted into a playroom!

Another shot of the office/playroom... more to come when it's done :)

The bath update is on hold as we expect it to cost around $8,000, but (obviously) don't want to pay that much. Moving a toilet is no joke. If we don't hire someone to do the entire bathroom, we may start ripping it out on our own - or I may out of insanity/disgust - and slowly piece it back together. DIY projects certainly save a lot of money!

xo,