4 months: Put your feet together!

Saw Ethan doing this for the first time today. His usual habit is to lift his legs up in the air and he still does, but I also noticed that he was putting this feet together, toes to toes. How cute! :)

Ethan at 2 Months

I shall pen this down before Ethan turns 3 months old!

 

Just a few weeks have made a world of a difference. I'm thankful that I live in an era of technology where taking down snippets of our lives is much easier and accessible. Thankful. :) However, the greedy person in me wish for a camera to me with me 24/7 so as to be able to capture down all the wonderful moments. Wait long long, Mavis.

 

So, it's move on to the updates on our Ethan.

 

HEIGHT & WEIGHT: around 7kg
We brought Ethan to our assigned PD at KKH when he has just turned 2 months old for a routine check. At that time, his weight was at 7.05kg and his length was 60.5cm.

Normally, newborns would put on about 1kg per month and that would mean, at 2 months, Ethan should be around 5.5kg. Naturally, we were concerned if he was overly heavy or if it was a concern at all. However, doc was pretty cool about it as Ethan has the length growth to boot his weight increment.

 

Our lil Ethan and his little muscles bring a lot of fun and joy to the family. :)

Because of his good growth, he can no longer fit into most of his newborn  or 3m clothes. He is mostly wearing clothes tagged 6m to 1 year.
 

HAIR: His hair is still brownish in nature. It has a strong tinge of bronze. Almost like I've done some highlights on his hair. He still has a big turf of hair on his head; thick and fluffy. It's very much thicker in the front but much sparser at the back, probably because he has been sleeping on his back all this time. I've seen a few strands of small hair on his pillow so I think he is starting to shed his hair like most babies do.  I want to try growing it out for him to see how it would be like but the daddy doesn't seem too keen. HEHE!!

 

EYES: Ethan's eyes are still in a dark brown-black shade.

What amazes me is his ability and willingness to hold long moments of eye contact and then smile sweetly to melt my heart. :) To me, it's like his way of telling me... hey mum... I know you love me. I love you too. :)

MOVEMENTS: Ethan enjoys moving his hands up and down and kicking his legs whenever he is having fun with his toys. Same goes when he's upset. Haha. His kicks are pretty strong , must say! 

He has started to like grabbing onto his swaddle cloth. I think the cloth gives him comfort as very often, he would be able to fall asleep while holding onto the cloth. Apart from that, he likes to rest his hands on my chest when feeding. He has also learnt to grab people's clothes. 

As for his legs, he loves to 'stand' on his legs which I think is still too early for him so I would try to minimise that as much as possible.

With his legs, he's able to shift himself up or down the bed so we can put him too close to the edge. 

SPEECH: Ethan likes to talk very much. Whenever I talk to him, he would always look at me in the eyes and smile, before answering me with his baby talk. He is usually very soft and goes "aaawww oooohhhh..."

We observed that there were several occasions when he shouted out "nen" or "nen nen" and most recently, "ma". We are very well aware that these sounds carry no meaning to our Lil baby at such a young age but we just couldn't help by rejoice when we heard them. :)

MILK INTAKE: Due to a few episodes of bad merlioning, we have decided at the start of his 2nd month  to direct latch Ethan rather than bottle feed like before. This has helped very much with the merlioning issue and it has also reduced a lot of anxiety in both mummy and baby. This is because I don't have to worry about warming the bottle quick enough when he's hungry and Ethan would have food in the quickest time possible. He used to take as much as 160ml till 180ml and looking back, I feel that it's too much. I have no idea how much I'm giving him now but I would give him only one side of my breasts each feed.

LIKES:

- He loves his Fisher Price musical mobile. Like totally L.O.V.E. haha! My mum was telling me that I should buy one for him after she has observed him looking at the moving fan and the flaps of the air con. So off we went to search for the musical mobile... He can stare at it for a long time and very often, he would be cooing and moving his hands and legs in delight. 

- He likes to have conversations. He loves it when people look at him.in the eye and need chat with him and he would reply with his own  baby language.

- He likes to be carried, especially for bedtime and when he wants to look at his surroundings.

- He loves to have his head stroked when he's about to fall asleep. :)

- He likes looking into mirrors. Looking into the mirror would make him smile and kick in delight. 

- Weird but true, his favourite part of the house is the kitchen. Whenever he's crying or being fussy, a walk into the kitchen would almost always calm him down immediately. 

- He likes white noise - specifically that of the washing machine.

- He enjoys long walks and bumpy rides so he always sleeps very well when we are out. 

- He loves our old bear, Oli. He would look at Oli, reach out to it and try to touch it and also try to have always conversation with him. What surprised us was how he managed to grab Oli and brought him up a short distance. We thought since he likes bears, we should give the other toys a wash so that he could play with them. But nope, he only likes Oli and Oli only.

- He loves pooping. You will always see a cheery and active Ethan post pooping. 

Dislikes: 

- He dislikes getting his nails cut. Or to be more specific, he hates to have anyone touch his fingers or hands. -_-

- Till now, he still cries bloody murder most of the times during his bath. 

- He dislikes waiting. Waiting for anything that he wants, that's it.

- He dislikes being left alone. He likes to be surrounded by people and have conversations. 'Me-time' is totally not his type of thing. 

- He dislikes being changed out, specifically when we have to touch his hands or when we have to pull sth over his head.

- He dislikes tummy time. While he can hold his head quite steadily for a while, he dislikes having to push and support his head when on his tummy. 

- He used to love lying on my tummy with his tummy to mine. He would then rest his head on my chest. Gradually, he became more active and loves to hold his head upright, turning left and right with ease. We rarely carry him in a lying down position anymore unless he's going to sleep. 

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Time really flies and by the time I go back to work, I wouldn't be be the first to witness all these growth in him. Till then, let me enjoy these magical moments with him. :)

A Promise

I held his pinkie with mine and said, "Let's be best friends forever."

He looked into my eyes and let out the sweetest smile.

A promise is a promise, little boy. Mummy loves you. :)

The worst has happened

The worst has happened. Yesterday was a very eventful day and on top of that, I fell ill. Hubby is not around as he's working overseas and I am down with bad chills and fever as high at 39 degree  Celsius.

I don't dare to touch Ethan at all, for fear of spreading the fever to him. The worst has happened - not being to touch, cuddle and care for my child. But I know with my mum around, he's in good hands.:)

Mummy misses you very much, Ethan boy!

Ethan and Mummy

After I've given birth to Ethan, the excited hubby helped to send pictures to my family, relatives and friends, informing them of the good news. The replies I got were all the same - that Ethan looks very much like me. Or some said he looks exactly like me when I was a baby. Looking back at the first pictures taken, indeed, it is so. The similarities are so interesting, especially when we are of different gender.

The little one has a lot of hair. This was usually the first thing visitors commented on when they first saw him. (He even has hair on his ears!) I didn't have as much, but it was comparable. He also takes after my bun face and thick lips.

His lovely eyes, nose and ears take after his Daddy. Quite a 'fair' mix isn't it? Hehe

After interacting with Ethan for 3 weeks, we found other non-physical similarities between us as well. Just like me, he likes to do lazy stretches and also likes to sleep with his two arms spread open, as if he is trying to lift weights. Haha, of all things to take after, right?

Oh well, I'm writing this post after barely sleeping for 3 hours last night. I can't deny that it's a love-hate relationship and it can be very draining physically and emotionally. Moments when he fussed excessively, I'm just thankful that I could walk away and let my mum handle him while I regained my sanity. But looking at him when he smiles and when he's drinking his milk with a contented look... It makes everything so much more bearable and worthy. :)

Ethan, mummy is looking forward to know more about you as you learn more about us as well. Let's get along well! We love you! ♡

The Last Time

Saw this on my mummies forum and thought that it's a good reminder to self.

:)

Ethan, Our Boy

ETHAN

Strong, Firm and Enduring

He's our boy. :)

Welcome, little Ethan! ♡

Let's do a quick update! :)

Overjoyed and brimming with love and pride - we are proud parents to little Ethan! ♡

I often imagined about how Ethan's birth process would be like but things would not always go our way, right? I had imagined my water bag to burst naturally (and also imagined all sort of funny possibilities where it might burst - workplace, supermarket, public transport!!)  therefore kickstarting the labour process and I had also imagined that the labour process would be short and sweet and that I would be able to push the baby out easily.

However, since I was already overdue, Ethan was induced and I was told that an induced birth would likely be more painful and take longer. The water bag burst naturally, but only at the 8th hour into labour. And by the time I was fully dilated, I was too tired to push, and probably too high on gas too! Baby Ethan was not out yet even after 1.5hours of pushing. Raaaah. Haha, nothing according to what I've imagined but it's fine. All is good! :)

Our lives have changed completely upon his arrival and it's only for the better. While he has brought the meaning of sleep deprivation and being patient to a whole new level, my heart melts when I see him smile.

Speaking of smiling! He smiled at us on the 2nd day of birth and yesterday (31st Jan 2015) he laughed for the first time! Hehe. Couldn't remember what made him laugh but it was such a precious and sweet moment. ♡ Can't wait for the next milestone!