November 22: 10 Months Old!

Ethan is 10 months old today! It's an age that I have not been able to even imagine. It seems like it came out of no where and I'm surprised every day on how much he is learning and growing. It seems to be all happening so fast. Maybe the time warp feeling comes from the sleep deprivation. One day, he's 5 lbs and we're bringing him home from the NICU and the next BAM! he's over 17 lbs and talking gibberish and crawling! But what a big boy he has become. He's so much fun.

Yep, he's now crawling. And life as we knew it has changed completely..again. We are constantly pulling Otis' toys out of Ethan's reach b/c Ethan's new favorite thing is searching for them and if we are not fast enough, licking them. And Otis's food dish has been moved into the back hallway because another favorite thing of Ethan's is to tip over the dish and slap the water around. Ethan's loving his new found independence and thinks all of the licking and slapping of water is awesome. To give Otis credit, he has actually handled the toy takeover well. He gently grabs his toy and moves them to another location. But his dish...that's another story. His dish has been in the same place since he was 10 weeks old and this is the one change that he is fighting us on. He has started staging 'sit ins'. He'll plop himself down exactly where he would to eat if his dish were in the proper location and stare at us. If we ignore him, he'll start whining. It's a little unsettling and I admit to having given in a few times already. Only to have Ethan come along and slap the water around. Then Jon comes by with a sigh and moves the dish to the hall again. I wonder how long this will go on? And who knew that moving a dish would be the change that put the dog over the edge :)

This past month we had Ethan's 9 month check up and the NICU follow up. Both went very well and Ethan now has his flu and H1N1 shots, so we're knocking on wood that we can keep him healthy this fall/winter. At the NICU follow up, he had to meet with a psychologist, a physical therapist and a neonatologist. It's all a little overwhelming. It's nice to have so many eyes on him and to hear the praises on well he's doing, but it's also confusing...more doctors means more opinions and they are not always consistent. We do our best to take it all in and then use our best judgement and intinct, that's all we can do, right?

He is now creeping up on 28" long and 17 1/2 lbs. He is officially on the charts for a baby his real age (no adjusted age talk anymore). Small for real age, but real age none the less. He passed all of his 'tests'. Although we were told not to 'walk' him anymore. That was a little disappointing to hear...it's was his top most fav thing to do. (above toy stealing and dish tipping). But the PT said that he was on the cusp of crawling and that if he knew we would help him around by walking with him, that he wouldn't push himself to crawl. She said if we were to stop, he would be crawling within the week. Turns out, she was right... 3 days later, he was cruising around the living room. :)

We're all looking forward to Thanksgiving (read: long) weekend. We'll be in Milwaukee at Grandma Koelsch's and it'll be nice seeing everyone and showing off Ethan's new skills. I'm really starting to look forward to Christmas as well. It's been a while since Grandma and Grandpa Kruse has seen the little guy. Not so much looking forward to the long drive with baby and dog in tow though. We had a really bad trip last year and hit a white out that was so bad, we ended up pulling into small town WI and getting a hotel room. I don't think I could handle that again, especially with Ethan in the car. It was bad enough doing it when I was pregnant. Let's hope for decent weather.

I'll end with a short video, of...you guessed it. Ethan crawling :) This was taken on Tuesday of last week. He's already gotten a lot better, but it's cute!

November 4 - Happy Halloween 2009!

We had a great Halloween here in Chicago. We were finally able to get out a little bit and see friends we haven't seen in weeks, the Nelsons (x2) and the Boutells...and Ethan got to catch up with his li'l gang - Beckett and Baylor. They made quite a cute crew in Wicker Park on Saturday. Although they did not participate in trick or treating or face painting (maybe next year), we all hung out in the play yard area and had a good time watching Maddie swing and run around. Can I also mention how good they all were!?! It was amazing. No crying or fussing at all. We even brought them all out to lunch. It took a while for all of us to settle in and I think the servers didn't know what to do with us, but I have to say it was a very successful group lunch considering the size and age range of our posse.

Ethan's big thing these days: walking. He wants to walk every where. Of course, he can't do this himself, so he recruits whomever is on hand to help him...Auntie Shell, Miriam, Mom, Dad. And in turn, we all have sore backs trying to keep up with the little man. It makes me wish that the old school walkers weren't thought to be such a hazard. (are they really that bad? I'm beginning to weigh the pro's and con's...)

Happy Birthday Mom (Grandma)!!! Hope you like the flowers that Ethan sent you. He's got pretty good taste, right? ;-)