15 month appointment

Stats: At his appointment today, Ethan weighed 22 lbs 3 oz.  This is down to the 17th percentile, so we are supposed to be making sure we feed him a high calorie diet.  He loves fruits and veggies, which is good, but he needs more calories.  It doesn't help that the kid never sits still!  He as 31 inches tall (50th percentile), and had a head circumference of     (80th percentile).  She said he looked great.  Unfortunately today's dr appointment diagnosed another ear infection...grrr...

Clothes:  Size 4 diapers and mostly 12-18 month clothes, a few 24 month, a few 2T, and a few 9-12 month here and there. 

Sleep: He sleeps around 11 hours without waking at night.  He goes to bed shortly after 7 then gets up at 6:45.  He usually "talks" himself to sleep.  At daycare he takes one nap from 1-3 pm, and at home he was taking two 2 hour naps (10:30-12:30 and 3:00-5:00), but the last two weekends, he has not wanted to fall asleep for his second nap on Sunday. 

Eating:  Breastmilk in the morning, then whole milk, and lots of other solids for the rest of the day.  He loves fruits and veggies, tolerates meat, loves beans, and loves cheese and cottage cheese!

Milestones:  Since the middle of September all four of his first set of molars have come in.  These have made him quite cranky unfortunately.  Ethan is getting very good at listening to our instructions, and usually does what we ask.  He is really good at doing puzzles, which is great for his age. He is not talking a lot yet, but loves to babble.  Everything is "dat" (that).  He also says "dun" (done), uh-oh, mama (not very often), and dada (all the time).  He signs milk, eat, and more. 

Firsts:  First time carving a pumpkin, first trip to the pumpkin paradise, first trip to the discovery center, first hot air balloon festival, and first time playing at the mall play place.

What we are looking forward to: the upcoming holidays.

What we are dreading: more temper tantrums that come with the age he is!

Miscellaneous: Ethan absolutely loves playing outside.  He loves riding his trike, and walking around in the yard.  I am very nervous for what we will do when it is winter and too cold to go outside!

Halloween - trick-or-treating and pumpkin carving

We trick-or-treated multiple times - which meant more use from the costume.

We went to CVS two weekends before Halloween for a free picture and Ethan wore his peanut costume.  Then we went trick-or-treating in downtown Topeka the week before Halloween and at the mall the weekend before Halloween.  He wore his baseball costume to both of these events.  Then, the day before Halloween we went to Momma Morai's house since she was going to be gone on Halloween.  He wore his peanut costume again.  On Halloween we stopped by our neighbor's house as well as a few friends - he was a baseball again this time.  He had a great time and really enjoyed his buckets! 

On Halloween we also carved a pumpkin.  I'm usually not that into Halloween, but it was fun this year.

Even peanuts need to play!

 

Pumpkin Paradise

We took Ethan to the pumpkin farm this last weekend.  He wasn't that into the hay rack ride (especially when the tractor driver was driving crazy), but he tolerated it.  He loved playing around on the playground and picking out a pumpkin.  We had a great time!

Sometimes things are harder on mom.....

Sometimes things in parenting are harder on the mom than the child.  The topic of this post is weaning.  Breastfeeding is something that I truly enjoyed.  I loved that bond I felt with Ethan.  Granted, I didn't not like when it hurt, but breastfeeding is something I am so glad worked for us.  Honestly, it was what was "easy".  It wasn't always the most convenient, but it worked for us.  By the time Ethan was 1 we were breastfeeding morning, night, and 3 times during the day (when he was home with me).  When he was at daycare, he did morning, night, and once during the day.  When I went back to work in August I did not pump during the day any more and Ethan took frozen milk at daycare.  Over the next few months we slowly took out the "after daycare" feeding.  That was tough.  Basically in order to do this we had to spend the evening out of the house.  He was fine whenever we were out and about, but if we were home, he wanted to nurse.  After about 2 weeks of going somewhere every evening, we finally weaned away from this feeding.  One of the hardest parts of this was that Ethan learned the sign for "milk", so he would go over to the chair we nurse in and make the sign for milk.  It broke my heart to see him do that and not feed him.  

I honestly planned on nursing the other times during the day indefinitely.  I planned on letting Ethan take the lead.  Then, I found out that I was going to be taking a 4 day trip for school to Chicago at the end of November.  I then decided that I wanted to wean by then as I did not want to worry about pumping and bottles and making sure he had enough milk, etc.  I kept putting off the weaning, as I was not sure I really wanted to.  Finally, the second night of parent teacher conferences when Patty helping Jed watch Ethan I decided that it was going to be the night to try to put Ethan down for bed without nursing.  Usually when I was gone he would get a bottle of thawed milk before bed.  That night they put him straight to bed, and he slept all night without fussing (just like normal).  Since then (Oct 18) he has went to bed without nursing every night.  Sometimes he will cry when Jed is taking him downstairs, but once he gets the pacifier, he is fine.  This past weekend we did not nurse during the day either, and my mom put him down for naps without nursing.  He slept great.  Weaning off the night time and day time nursings has not seemed to bother him at all.  Honestly this hurts my heart a little.  I know how silly this sounds, but it makes me feel like I'm not as necessary anymore.  We are still nursing first thing in the morning, and I am still debating on giving this up.  Giving up nursing has been a lot harder for me than I thought it would be.  I thought I would enjoy being done with nursing, but that has not been the case.  I miss that special bond we have. 

Anyway, I needed to get some of my feelings down on this topic.  Breastfeeding has caused me to question my mothering abilities a lot in the past 15 months, but it has also made me feel so good to provide that for my child. 

Reading with Ethan

Notice we are reading separate books here, haha!

We love reading with Ethan - if only he would sit still long enough to read a book - haha!

Puzzles!

Ethan has a new found love for puzzles in the past couple months.  He is really good about handing you a puzzle piece and pointing to where it is supposed to go.  He is still working on putting the piece in himself, but he is definitely making lots of progress!  He is so smart!

Kansas Discovery Center

Patty's old job had a picnic and gave free tickets to the Kansas Discovery Center.  We had never been and had been wanting to visit, so we were glad to accompany Momma Morai!  Ethan had a great time, even though he did fall, bite his lip, and it started bleeding!