In our effort to tire the little guy, we tried our infamous bouncing routine. Unfortunately, or fortunately for our video purposes, he found lots of amusement in being bounced on the exercise ball. He is now 7.5 months and about 21 pounds. He is sitting up and making “ma ma ma” and “da da da” sounds, though he has yet to associate the sounds with either of us. He enjoys listening to all kinds of music and will sit on our laps as we play the piano for him. He usually tries to grab the sheet music so he can eat it. A few weeks ago, we made the switch to cloth diapers and, in conjunction, we are using a toilet training seat. Besides the environmental reasons, it economically makes sense. We hadn’t switched earlier because of the frequency of pees and poops and we didn’t want to spend our days hanging out at the laundry machine. This has been proven to be a good time. Unlike disposable diapers, Ethan gets irritated after one pee in his diaper, whereas in disposables he could pee three times and not be irritated. We are practicing with the toilet seat so that he will want to use that instead of peeing in the cloth diaper. So far he uses his toilet 4-6 times a day. We just let him go with the flow and don’t force anything. He has been eating solid foods since January and now eats two meals a day of solids. Laura is making most of his food, though we buy his rice cereal and a few organic baby foods. He eats apples, squash, pears, and popcorn. So far he has enjoyed everything he has been given. We recently introduced him to an all natural brand of Cheerios cereal that allowed him to work on his hand and eye coordination. He rarely actually eats the cereal. By the way, just kidding about the popcorn. We left him alone with our neighbors for the first time a couple weeks ago. We were nervous about it, but let’s just say that when Laura came home to pick up, he almost didn’t know she was there because the four year old in the family was entertaining him so well. It was a great experience for all parties involved and hope our little guy will continue to feel at ease with his babysitters. His sleeping schedule is great, though actually getting him to bed isn’t always easy. Once he is down, he will sleep 9-11 hours a night. In the daytime, he usually does a late morning 2 hour nap and a mid-afternoon 30-60 minute nap.
Ethan is sleeping, not suffocating, with his dog Blue.
Ethan’s first snow hike in the forest.
Duff and Ethan hanging out with the toys.
Ethan galloping on his horse Norm.
Ethan riding on his dog Duff.
