Yesterday, Ethan saw the pulmonologist to be reevaluated for his apnea monitor. We are very happy to say that the doctor wrote an order for him to stop wearing the monitor! YAY! Last night was the first night in his life without being monitored by an EKG or apnea monitor. We all slept very soundly. I thought I would be nervous, but I wasn’t. I guess I knew there was nothing to worry about. I was really nervous when I stopped putting him on the monitor for his naps, but I got over that pretty quickly.

The downside to losing the monitor is that we no longer get to see Dr. Hernandez or the people at Northshore Respiratory. We have had so many issues with poor customer service at the hospital and with my OB/GYN, and it has been quite the opposite with everyone involved with Ethan’s monitoring. They all were always very friendly and caring and showed fantastic customer service and patience. After all the crappy experiences we have had, and all the complaining that I’ve done about it, I can’t forget to mention how wonderful they have been to us!

Ethan is happy to see that monitor go…

And he’s getting better at sitting by himself, until he becomes distracted and falls over:

Aside from the monitor news, we have other news…
Ethan has been practicing with real food for a few weeks now. We started out with just a teaspoon of cereal or pureed veggies, and now he’s moved up to about 3/4 ounce or so. He has tried rice cereal, applesauce, green beans, carrots, sweet potatoes, green peas, pears, peaches, avocado, and banana. He tried avocado for the first time last night, mixed with some banana. He really liked it and ate almost an ounce. He doesn’t really care for applesauce, but he loves peaches and green peas. Next time I am going to try a different apple when I make the applesauce. I used golden delicious, but they may have been too tart for his taste.

On Wednesday, Ethan saw the pediatrician to be weighed and measured. He hasn’t gained much weight in the month, but he did grow 1 1/2 inches! He weighed in at 14 lbs 2 ounces and 25 inches. Still a shrimp, but he is on the charts. She wasn’t worried about his month of slow weight gain.

Allie took some pictures of me and Ethan today before we went on our walk.

Well, I have a variety of pictures to share, so I’m going to combine all these topics in on one big post.

Sippy Cup:
Ethan still refuses to take a bottle, so I’ve decided to go ahead and start him with a sippy cup. Right now, I just let him play with it. He handles it really well, and he likes to put it in his mouth (just like everything else, lol). Maybe in a few weeks, I will put some milk in it and see what he thinks.

Baby in the Mirror:
When I take Ethan with me to work, I take him to the Women’s restroom/lounge to feed him. There’s a couch in there, and there’s a little locker room with a full length mirror and some rolling desk chairs. He loves to look at himself in the mirror. At home, he always looks at me. But when we are at work, he looks at himself, and he gets all crazy. I snapped a few shots with my cell phone today. He was cracking up and trying to grab that baby in the mirror.

Auntie Allie:
Allie dyed her hair ( I should say DIEd her hair) a hideously bright shade of bleach blonde, and Ethan really loves it. He played with Allie the other day at Mom’s house.

Grandmas:

I recently got a few nice shots of Ethan with his grandmas.

Ethan is totally ready for baseball season to begin this month. He’s got his Cardinal’s bat, and its just his size. And he has a cute baseball outfit courtesy of his Mimi.

I took Ethan to work with me on Wednesday. He was very good, as usual. He’s a bit lazy though – we caught him sleeping on the job. haha

He took a little nap on my desk.

Well, at least one for now… I will post more later.

Ethan turned 5 months old on Friday! He was so excited about his 5 month birthday, he stayed up late and partied! LOL, not really. He did stay up late jabbering and squealing, and subsequently slept in on Saturday. He actually slept later than me and Aaron, which was nice because we were able to make coffee and get some chores done. After Ethan woke up and we all had our breakfast, we packed up the car and headed to New Orleans. Its a good thing we all were well rested and had a good start to the day because it was a busy one.

First stop – Pam and her boys. We had a bunch of extra diapers that Ethan has outgrown, so we dropped them off for Ethan’s friends, Linus, Oliver, and Miles. Ethan fell asleep in the car, so he didn’t get to say hi. But Miles did venture out to peek at Ethan. They’ll get more opportunities to meet once we are finished with cold and flu season.

Next stop – Mike and Marissa’s house! We dropped off all our gear and Eris, picked up Mike and Marissa then we headed to our next stop….

Magazine Street! I wanted to check out Sucre, the sweet boutique. It was busy and we waited in long lines of snooty people. I bought chocolate – it was tasty! But, I’m not sure if it was worth the price tag ($58/pound) combined with the wait (at least 20 minutes). We also got some Sour Cherry Sorbet, and Ethan had a little taste. Now that he knows what spoons are for, he’s very interested in anything I’m eating. He was staring at my sorbet pretty intently, so I let him have a taste. At first, he made a tart face, lol, but then he smiled. He liked it!

After we finished at Sucre’, we headed over to the Bulldog to sit in the outdoor beergarden. Ethan’s first trip to the Bulldog – it was a momentous occasion!! He was very hungry and didn’t pay much attention for about the first 40 mins. After his nurse-nap he was ready to see the sights, so he jabbered and squealed for all in attendance. It was a beautiful day to be sitting outside at the Bulldog. We all really enjoyed it.

Later on in the evening, we went to Whole Foods and then to Sake Cafe for dinner. Ethan slept through most of the evening adventures, he was so tuckered out from the daytime activities. After dinner, he stayed up late again and we all watched a movie, then went to bed.

I’m very proud of the little guy. I think we are lucky that he is so well behaved when we’re out and about. He was in a good mood nearly all day long, and he went right to sleep without a fuss when it was bedtime.

The only bad thing about this weekend is that I forgot the camera at home! I’m going to take some new pictures of Ethan soon, and I’ll share them as soon as I do.

Why Walk? Because premature birth touches half a million babies and their families every year. Because babies born too soon are more likely to die or have lifelong disabilities. Because 120,000 babies are born with birth defects every year.

The March of Dimes mission is to improve the health of babies by preventing birth defects, premature birth, and infant mortality. The money raised by the March of Dimes supports research, services, education, and advocacy that help all babies get a healthy start to life. As you know, Ethan was born prematurely and spent a few weeks in the NICU overcoming the challenges of prematurity. While our situation was scary, it was a walk in the park compared to the challenges of many other babies born prematurely or with birth defects. I encourage you help us raise money for a worthy cause by joining us in the March for Babies.

Last night, I formed a team to participate in the March for Babies. Would anyone like to join us? If you’re in the Jackson, MS area, please join our team and walk with us in person on May 10. But, you don’t have to walk with us in Jackson to be on our team. You can join our team, then change your walk location to any of the March for Babies walks around the country. If you join up, I’ll send you a “Walk for Ethan” Team T-shirt to wear for your walk. If you are unable to participate in the March for Babies, please consider sponsoring our team with a small donation.

Check out our team website: “Walk for Ethan” Team Page
And notice the badge in the blog menu – the badge tracks the donations made by people sponsoring Ethan and I as walkers.

Thanks for looking!