6 month checkup

We are 93rd percentile for height (28"), 80th percentile for head size (17.5"), and 50th percentile for weight (17 lbs 11.4 oz, which will change the more real food he eats). Tall and skinny and a big head to boot! Wonder where that came from!

Ethan can sit up unsupported, roll both ways, pull himself up (only with his parents' hands, fortunately no inanimate objects yet). He's on the brink of crawling - once he can get coordinated we will be at an army crawl, soon followed by the real deal!

Unfortunately, Ethan does not just have a cold. It looks as though there is fluid in his ears. He is one step shy of an ear infection; if bacteria enters the ear, it would become pus, which would mean that he has an ear infection. We are praying for no bacteria and NO ear infection! We think the essential oils we are using are helping, and hope that continues.

We love our long lanky baby and are so glad he is doing so well - sickness aside.

xo,

six months old!

I just looked over my list of posts and was a bit embarrassed that I've only posted one time in the last month - but of course, we have been battling a sickness, which threw us completely out of any semblance of a routine.

It all worked out in the end, though. After two weeks of terrible sleep (compared with his norm) we finally have a working routine, which we haven't seen since February! I'm even trying to make it more of a schedule, so we know what time Ethan goes to sleep (9 PM) and wakes up (7:30 AM) each day. We keep him up late so he can get in more daddy time, but if I go back to work (which is an option right now), that would shift to about 7:30 PM and 6:00 AM.

We're just starting these standard bedtime/wake times today, so we'll see if my plans work well! :) Our general schedule during the day is 3 hours of wake-time and 2 hours of nap-time, so he eats every 5 hours and I get nice, long breaks. It's heaven!

We've also stopped feeding to sleep, which we were only doing before Ethan went to bed at night, anyway. We did this to prepare for the future (not eating right before bed; brushing teeth) and make going to sleep quick & easy. This means we lay him down, give him his pacifier and blanket, turn on the noisemaker, turn off the lights and leave the room... and miraculously, after only crying-it-out ONE time, he gets it, and goes to sleep!

Because he can now put himself to sleep, we know he can put himself BACK to sleep at night when he wakes up. He's sleeping so well now, and while we believe some of that is the result of these new sleep training methods, we know that it is also owed partly to our introducing rice cereal to his bottle, and some baby food during the day, too. This keeps his little belly fuller, longer!

We haven't made much progress where crawling is concerned, primarily because of the cold we were still battling even a week ago, so he spent most of his time being held and sleeping. He loves his bouncer/jumper (whatever that thing is, we love it!) and he spending hours in that thing every day. Training him up for basketball already!

He did NOT want to stretch out - he wanted those feet in his mouth!

I don't have any stats because we don't go to the doctor for his checkup/shots until next Monday (the 31st), but I know he has grown out of his 9-month clothes and into the 12-month clothes! it's amazing how quickly he is tearing through them, though it has slowed down compared with the first 3-4 months of his life... thankfully!

So far, 6 months is my favorite age. He thinks "no" is a game, but he understands us a little better and picks up on things quickly. He also loves to play and we rotate out his toys so he isn't overwhelmed with too many options.

We also got a swing for the front yard, and for a whopping $30 we have lots of entertainment. Ethan loves Bear (we are convinced "Bear" will be his first word) and he loves that Bear is running around while Ethan swings back and forth. It's one of our "resets", or toys/games we use to "reset" Ethan's mood if he is cranky. These things typically buy us about 30 minutes to an hour of happy baby time, even if we don't spend that much time on the swing itself.

I'm off to clean out the fridge and hopefully read a couple of chapters of a book before Ethan wakes up!

xo,

EDIT: I just made this sweet collage of Ethan's monthly/weekly photos, too.

getting over our first cold

We ended our streak of no baby sickness last week - at 5.5 months old, Ethan got his first cold! We think he caught it at church. He is a very strong baby, though, and after about 9 days of cold symptoms, we started to see relief! Today he is asymptomatic, aside from a few little boogies.

I got very little done while he was sick, because there was snuggling and healing to be done. I had to make sure he was propped up on his mattress, swaddled, warm, had his humidifier on, had his baby eucaliptis/spearmint rub on his chest and feet, and suck out more boogies than I care to recount. Do all babies hate that snot-sucking thing?

Since I'm not working from home, we've decided to transform the back office (4th bedroom in the back of the house) into a man cave for Austin (plus my sewing machine - so masculine) and make the would-be dining room - which is attached to the living room - Ethan's play space.

It's safe to say this little boy is without want.
He has never even touched half of those toys!

That play mat was $13.50 after a coupon at Garden Ridge! It helps keep Ethan off the carpet when he scoots, which is great because there's an endless supply of Bear hair in the carpet since he is shedding his winter coat.

Next on my list is painting all of our trim white, which I started when I recently painted the dining room and the entryway, beginning with the living room trim and then the kitchen, followed by the hallway, bedrooms, and then - finally - spraying all our doors! We all know how much I hate painting doors...

Happy to have a healthy baby boy again! And here's this gem, too - three generations of Haynes men!

xo,