Long Awaited Update

Yea - I'm not very good at keeping this thing up anymore...which is really sad b/c so many "milestones" have and are taking place and if I don't write it down or get a picture of it, chances are I will totally forget. Poo!

So, here's what I can remember from the last few weeks.

Monday, April 6th, I decided it was time for Ethan to move to his bedroom. Therefore, I asked my Dad to (once again) take down his crib (out of our room), move it upstairs to Ethan's room and put it back together.

Well, that very same day (April 6th), and to my surprise, Ethan started visiting the "baby blue" room at daycare. I would have thought that LCDC would have informed me prior to it actually taking place, but ... oh well. The good news is that Ethan LOVED it! However, I would have never moved him out of our room if I had known he would be undergoing another major transition. But, he handled both of them pretty well. Typically, the children "visit" for a week then permenantly move the next week, but he was doing so well AND a new baby had already taken over his crib in the infant room, that I went ahead asked them to permenantly move him after 3 days.

The baby blue room is a whole lot different than what I was used too. It used to take me forever to drop him off and pick him up. But now, I'm in and out in no time. I do wish the morning worker was more friendlier, but as long as she's taken good care of our boy, that's all that really matters. I love the fact that all the children lay down at the same time for their midmorning and midafternoon nap. And, Ethan LOVES that they go outside. I think he would sleep out there if we'd let him. He loves to be outdoors.

Thanks to my friend, Brandi Snider, Ethan also began a new eating schedule the same time as the "moves". He now eats...
- Breakfast at 8am - 1 stage 2 jar of oatmeal, granola or cereal and an 8oz bottle
- Lunch at 12pm - 1 stage 2 veggie and an 8oz bottle
- 4pm - 1 stage 2 fruit and 1 stage 3 dinner
- 7:30/8pm - he gets his last bottle which is when he goes to bed for the night.

The week before (March 30th I guess), I felt like it was time for Ethan to learn to go to sleep on his own instead having to be rocked to sleep. Which again was sad to me. I always said that I would rock Ethan 'til he was 18 if he'd let me. But he wouldn't let me anymore. Each night it was getting harder and harder to manage him and get him to relax and go to sleep. He was fighting it; wanting to get down and play. So, once again, I took Brandi's advice. I was very uneasy about letting him cry it out, but I must say that it went much better than I had expected. The first night, from the time I put him in his crib 'til he fell asleep was about 20 minutes...which I thought was good. The next night, it was only 5 minutes. And, the third night, Ethan was asleep before I ever got out of the bedroom and into the living room. Needless to say, that was the extent of that. Nana B visited that weekend and we had lots of stuff going on (Easter Extravaganza at NCC and Anna's prom). So, we were off schedule a good bit. And, as you read above, the following Monday is when he moved rooms at daycare and at home. Now, he is so pooped from playing so hard at school, that he falls right to sleep after his last bottle. Sometimes before he finishes his bottle.

Needless to say too that he has been sleeping back in our room again. But while he was in his own room, Ethan did sleep longer in the mornings which was great for me b/c I could get ready without having to juggle watching him at the same time. The reason he's been sleeping in our room again (in his pack-n-play) is b/c he got sick AGAIN (fluid on ears and eye infection). He was extremely clingy. It took me awhile but I think lying down was causing pressure on his ears. I eventually got smart and laid him on a pillow. Yes, an adult pillow. And, that seemed to work great. So, anyway, that's how he made it back to our room. I must admit though, I love having him in there with us. I don't have to worry about him being upstairs all by his little lonesome self. I did start noticing though that he wasn't sleeping as long in the mornings; waking up at 6am, then 5:30am, then 5am. Can't go back down that road again.

Not realizing that we were expecting Severe Thunderstorms, I made up my mind last night (April 23) that he was going back to his crib...which he did. But, I quickly brought him to our bed when the thunder and lightening started. I have a lot fears, but one of them is that when we have severe weather, that a tree will fall onto our house...which would hit him first seeing that he's upstairs. That might sound crazy, but we've had 3 trees fall in our yard in a year, damaging our fence twice and our shed. I'll try his crib again tonight; we'll see how it goes.