On Friday evening, Uncle Matt and Uncle Andy came down for a visit. Ethan was really glad to see his uncles. They had a lot of fun on Saturday hanging out and going guy stuff while I caught up a bit on work.

On Saturday evening, we went to Granny Carolyn and Papa JC’s house to grill out. Ethan had a really good time there also. Granny and Papa supplied the food, Mom supplied the wine, and Ethan supplied the entertainment. He crawled all over the house and jabbered up a storm.

We also had new furniture delivered for the great room on Friday. Our new furniture is really awesome. Ethan is already a pro at pulling up on the new couch and walking along all of the pieces. We got a sectional sofa – queen sleeper, wedge, and a reclining loveseat with console. We also got a huge rug, entertainment center, and coffee table. I haven’t taken any pictures yet, and the room is a mess now with all of Ethan’s toys scattered. I made a fortress out of all of the furniture to keep him from crawling away. I can sit on the loveseat and work while he plays on the rug.

Yesterday, Ethan and I finally got to meet our friends Annie and Sofia! We were so excited! I’ve known Annie for somewhere around 5 years, but we have never met in person. We met online on The Knot NOLA board while we were planning our weddings and we’ve kept in touch over the years through email, myspace, message boards, etc. Last year, Annie and I found out just days apart that we were expecting. Our due dates were just days apart, so it was a lot of fun to have someone to talk to about all the pregnancy stuff and now, baby stuff. Annie, Tony, and Sofia came to NOLA to visit family and they held an early birthday party for Sofia. Ethan and I went to Sofia’s party yesterday to finally meet our friends! We also saw our friends Jennifer and Jack (who’s about to be 1!) and The Tran Family, Beebe, Corine and Ethan (who is a month older that our Ethan). We had a good time visiting with everybody, playing in the ball pit, eating hamburgers, and watching Sofia eat her birthday cake. It was fun to watch Ethan interact with other people his age. He and Ethan Tran shook hands and had a little chat. It was too cute. I brought my camera, but I didn’t get a chance to take many pictures, and I’m not sure that any even turned out. Corine brought her awesome new camera (i’m very jealous!) and she’s got a couple of pictures up on their blog: Tran Family Blog.

So, overall we had a really great weekend. Today was the end of the fun, however. Ethan is in a terrible mood and very clingy. All he wants to do is cuddle and nurse. Teething is really hard on him, I guess. He is just miserable. I can’t put him down or he cries like he’s being beaten. He has no interest in his toys. He just wants me. Luckily, he is content to sit next to me on the loveseat and poke me in the eye and rip out my hair. But for most of the day, he was wanted to lay on me or nurse. The new loveseat is really great for nursing him. I recline the loveseat and put my laptop on the middle console section. Ethan and I lay down on the loveseat and snuggly and comfortable and I can still reach my laptop to get work done. Ethan falls asleep and I’m able to move the laptop back over to my lap while he rests. Unfortunately, he doesn’t stay asleep for long because inevitably, I have to pee about 20 minutes after he falls asleep.

For the last few weeks, I’ve only had to nurse him 5 or 6 times per day. Today, I have already nursed him at least that many times. And if I’m not nursing him, he is biting my arm or my chest. Like I said, he is miserable.

Wearing Dada’s boots

Eating teething biscuits and blueberry puree

Hanging out in the sling

Napping with Dada

Crybaby

Playing in the newly renovated great room before the furniture arrived

Practicing his yoga

Crawling

This is my CHEESE face

He loves the doggy

Astronaut training

And there are more pictures in the web albums, just click any of the pictures above to go to the album and look at the rest.

Ethan had a big day today. He got his first busted lip. Wow, was that fun… He was in a great mood this morning, crawling all over the kitchen and playing with the plastic containers. He was getting really crazy, pulling some stunts, trying to crawl with one hand. Really, I don’t know what he was doing, but his hand missed the floor and he took a face plant. It was awful… I heard his teeth hit the floor and I just knew that he had knocked out a tooth on the tile. I picked him right up and noticed that his mouth was bleeding, but not gushing. I wiped him off and noticed his lip was swelling already. The bleeding stopped pretty quickly and I was able to see that it was just his lip, that the teeth were fine. After a few minutes, he was just fine and went back to crawling like a crazy man.

His happiness didn’t last long because his mouth started hurting from the teething. He has so many teeth coming in right now, its insane. The two on the bottom are just about to come through. I think that they are bothering him the most. I can see one of them just under the gums. The next two on top are also moving in, but I don’t think they’ll be cutting through quite yet. And on top of all of that, I think he’s starting to cut his first molars. I’m sure it will be quite a while before they come through the gums, but they are definitely starting to bother him already. His gums feel really weird back there, like they are opening up for the teeth to come through. He won’t let me look at what is going on. I know it is bothering him though, because his sticks his fingers waaay back in his mouth and chews on them.

Since his mouth was hurting so bad today from the busted lip and the teething, he did not want to eat with a spoon. He had a little yogurt for breakfast, but after just a little bit he started to really throw a fit. He just wanted to gnaw on the spoon. For lunch I decided to make him a little meal of real food. I finely diced some onion, orange bell pepper, yellow squash, and chicken and sauteed it in some olive oil. I really didn’t expect him to eat it, but he LOVED it!!! He gobbled it down by the handful and said “ummmm ummm ummmmmmmm” the whole time. He ate a ton of food for lunch. For dinner I roasted some chicken breasts and made squash casserole. For the first time, Ethan ate the same thing that we ate for dinner. I diced up the chicken and the squash casserole and mixed it together. Again, he ate it up and said “ummmmmm ummmmmmmm”. I thought it was pretty cool that he had so much table food today. He really did a great job feeding himself.

So most of the day, Ethan was really clingy and crabby. He was pretty inconsolable for a while. I had to be holding him and cuddling him or he was crying. I was out of ideas, so I pulled out one of his infant carriers that I hadn’t used since he was tiny. Infantino Sling Rider. I fully expected that he would refuse to sit in this thing since it has a belt to keep him in place and he is really too big for it. Wrongo… he loved it. It was so weird. He thrashed around and screamed and cried while I put him in the sling, but as soon as I put it on, he calmed down and stayed calm and quiet and cute. Amazing… the sling may be my new best friend. We went to the grocery store after work and I should have brought the sling with us. He had a little meltdown in the shopping cart. I had to give him some teething pellets because he got all crazy and started screaming and rubbing his face and trying to pull his ears off his head.

He was in a pretty good mood this evening after he had his dinner and a bath. Aaron was playing with him and there was somehow a headbutt involved. Aaron thought Ethan hit his nose, but he hit his mouth again and opened up the cut on his lip. This time I was able to see the problem – he cut the piece of flesh that connects his lip to his gums. It looks nasty. The incident occurred right about the same time that his motrin was wearing off, so he was all fired up again. Thankfully he calmed down as soon as I started nursing him for bed.

Sorry for the long rambling post with no pictures. I don’t have time for any new pictures right now. Maybe tomorrow…

Ethan had his 9 month visit with the pediatrician this morning. He weighs 17 lbs 2 ounces and he is 27 1/2 inches long. He’s a little short and pretty skinny, but he’s quite advanced on his milestones. He showed the doctor how he could crawl and sit up and pull himself to a stand. And he played patty cake and said dada. He showed off all of his skills.

Well, he did it again! Two in one day… He only got the changing table and his clothes the second time – no pee on the forehead.

I really shouldn’t pick on Ethan though, he’s really feeling awful today. He’s getting more teeth and he’s in serious pain today. Poor guy. He woke up at 4 in the morning screaming and rubbing his face and pulling on his ears. I fed him and he was still crazy. I gave him some tylenol and he finally fell asleep about 30 minutes later. When the Tylenol wore off later in the morning, he was hysterical again. It has been a long day…

We started with the sippy cup yesterday and so far he has done really well. Yesterday morning we left him at my mom’s house so that Aaron and I could go see a movie. He drank about 3 ounces of milk from his cup while we were gone. This afternoon when he woke up from his nap, I tried the cup again. He took 1 ounce of cold milk, then 2 ounces of fresh milk, then another 2 ounces of frozen milk!!! 5 whole ounces! I was amazed! He didn’t put up a fight either. He drank the refrigerated and fresh stuff very readily. He didn’t care for the frozen so much, but he didn’t throw a huge fit.

tomorrow morning we visit the pediatrician for Ethan’s 9 month checkup. I’ll post his stats when we get back.

I’m certain that 20 years from now Ethan will be really glad I kept this blog. Just this post will be enough to make him happy of his existence on the internet. This morning he peed all over himself when I changed his diaper. It hasn’t happened in a very long time, so it was pretty funny.

I put him on the changing table and gave him a stuffed bunny to play with. The bunny is his diaper change friend and keeps him company on the changing table. When I took his diaper off he let go of the bunny with one hand and grabbed himself with the other. Pretty much every time the diaper comes off, he has to grab himself and make sure its all still there. Well when he grabbed himself, he started peeing all over the place.

The first place it hit was right on his forehead! He got a shocked look on his face for a few seconds, then he started laughing!!! He peed all over his own face, his clothes, his changing table, the diaper change bunny, etc. When it was all over and he realized he was wet, he started to cry. It doesn’t help that he hates having his face wiped, so he really went crazy when I had to clean him off.

Everything is cleaned up now except for the bunny. I don’t think he’ll hold up in the washing machine, but I suppose this is the fate of a diaper change bunny. He will come to a dutiful and honorable end.

Well, he’s not so much a cruiser yet, but I discovered that he does enjoy standing and holding on to the couch and coffee table. He can take a few steps from side to side, but that’s about it. Here are some pictures…

I love this one!

Laughing when he fell down

I love this one too

Thinking about taking a step

And then he fell

Ready to get down, so he learned to fall gracefully and land on his butt

Here is another picture:

Technically, he was only 8 months old in that picture, but it shows how excited he is to crawl.

Ethan is crawling all over the place and he is trying to pull up on things. He really wants to pull up on the wine rack, so its about to move to another location. He also wants to pull up on his walker, his swing, the stool, etc – all things that are not stable. He won’t try a chair or something that will stay put. He has to try it on things that will roll or move away so that he can fall on his face. I want to get him one of those toys he can walk behind, but I can’t find the one I want. Any suggestions for a good walk-behind toy?

I am starting to wean him also. I still plan to nurse him in the morning and at night, but we are switching to cups for all of his daytime milk. I have to work in Memphis next month, and Ethan is coming with me. He will have to go to daycare full time during the day, and I won’t be able to leave work and nurse him like I do at home. I talked to our lactation consultant this week to get some advice because I was pretty stressed about doing the right thing for Ethan. She talked it all out with me and gave me some good advice

This week we are working on nursing fewer times throughout the day. He has been a snacker for quite a while – nursing really often for small amounts of time. This week I started to make him wait to nurse every 4 hours. So far it is going really well. He hasn’t complained much. I do feed him a bit more often in the evening if he wants it, but I will not let myself be a “short order cook” as Aaron puts it. He has woken up in the middle of the night starving every night since we started, but I hope that will get better as we get things figured out.

Next week I am going to replace his least favorite nursing session with a sippy cup. He will probably refuse at first, but I will just try a little more each day until he is taking a few ounces from the cup. The week after that, I’ll replace another nursing session with a meal from a cup.

And the week before we leave for Memphis, I am going to give him some formula so he will get used to the taste. I don’t plan to feed him formula instead of breastmilk, but I want to be prepared in case I am unable to pump enough for him. If I give him some formula now, he will be somewhat used to the taste so it won’t be a complete surprise if he has to have any while we are there.

I am also trying to get him to eat more high-calorie solid foods. He used to do well with eating from a spoon, but now he is so independent its hard to get him to eat much. And he is very fickle. He will love a food one meal and hate it the next. And he is so dramatic about it. If he doesn’t like the way something tastes, he will gag and act like a fool.

Today is a good example. I made him an egg yolk scramble with chicken, avocado, and cheese. He HATES it. I don’t understand. I have given him this meal in the past and he gobbled it down. Today, I gave him a bite and he made the most sour face, then he proceeded to gag and act like it was poison. Now he won’t open his mouth for more.

Ethan is 9 months old today! In honor of this momentous occasion, I took a few pictures.

Ethan is getting bigger and crazier and learning new things every day. He can now crawl on his hands and knees instead of doing the swamp thing. He still prefers the swamp thing, but he will try to crawl first. I will write more later… he just woke up from a nap.

Well, I have skipped a few weeks, but I’m going to try to be good from now on.

Ethan has been very clingy lately. He is teething again, which makes him very crabby. He is very particular about who holds him. Sometimes he is in the mood for Dada and sometimes he is in the mood for me. If either of us tries to take him from his favorite person of the day, he gets very upset. Yesterday was NOT my day… This is what happened when I took him from Dada so he could take the picture of us.