"Look What I Can Do!"

If Ethan could talk, I swear he would say this at least once a day. He's growing and developing at an amazing rate. He's now over 14 lbs, almost to doubling his birth weight! And he seems to learn a new skill daily.

For example, let's take his grabbing skills. A few days after Christmas, he reached out and grabbed something for the first time, and it just happened to be my grandmother's finger upon his first time meeting her. A couple of weeks later, I'll never forget that moment of shock when I stood him up in front of me, only to have him reach out and grab my teething necklace and bring it to his mouth to chew on it. Now, less than a month after reaching for the first time, he's grabbing everything in sight, bringing it up to his mouth and passing objects between hands with ease.

He's more and more mobile. He's been steady standing for quite a while now, but he's also gaining some balance. We're working specifically on sitting up, but when he's on his tummy, he brings his knees beneath him and tries to crawl. At this point, he's only succeeding in turning himself in circles, but he's getting there!

As far as sleep, after 3 weeks of the 4-Month Wakeful, he's finally back to sleeping 10.5-11.5 hour stretches in the crib, which is quite a relief! He's still throwing fits at bedtime, but hopefully that, too, will get better with time.

There are two big milestones that I'm waiting on now. I'm excited for when he can sit by himself so that he can more easily entertain himself while I do schoolwork. I'm also excited to start experimenting with solids. I know that technically we could start trying now, but there have been so many studies linking obesity, diabetes, and allergies with the introduction of solids before 6 months that I'm not going to risk it. Plus, I'm dreading having to deal with solids-poop (which is no longer water soluble, so it has to be dumped in the toilet before washing).

There's more to write, but nap time is apparently over so it's time to eat again before heading off to Daddy's office for lunch with his coworkers so it'll have to wait.