Almost 8 pounds!

So I am a little behind on blogging.... again! So on Tuesday we celebrated Ethan's 1 month birthday. See... he gets 2 birthdays. He has April 2nd, the day he was actually born and then he has July 10th, the day we were expecting him. This date really doesn't mean anything but for awhile I think we will be referring to his actual age and his corrected age. With preemies they tend to fall behind on the usual "milestones" with babies. This is why they also refer to his corrected age. Since the first 3.5 months of his life he was still doing the growing he would have done in the womb those months don't really count in his growth. However, yesterday we had a follow up appointment with his pediatrician. Ethan weighed 7 pounds 15 ounces! Almost 8 pounds! He also said that next month we will talk about starting him on solid foods! EEK! I was like, what?!?!? But then he told me that with term babies that you typically start them on solid foods between 4-6 months and next month Ethan will be 5 months and he really doesn't see him far behind the "schedule." So that was good to hear. I am considering making Ethan's baby food. If any one has done this or knows more about it I would love to hear your suggestions and tips on it.

Ethan has also had a few moments that he has just been sooo cranky and wont stop crying. Well I think we have figured it out. He wants more to eat! He left the NICU eating 50ml. Sometimes he will only eat 40ml but other times he eats 120+ml! We are still trying to figure him out but another mother told me that once we do figure him out he will change! What! I thought things just got easier! He has also been fussy when we lay him down at times. Such as in the middle of the night he wakes up fussing so I pick him up and put him on my chest and he falls asleep. My mom says she is sorry. I said, why? She said because that is how I was. I wouldn't sleep anywhere but on my parents chest so she said to me when I was little "I hope you have a baby just like you." Yeah, thanks mom ;)

The doctor asked me yesterday if I wanted to get rid of the monitor. I said yeah but not yet. He laughed at me. Well we have been decreasing his caffein slowly. He was at 2.2 ml and he is now at 1.2 ml. He will be off it completely in a week or so. Then I would like to have the monitor for another week just to make sure. I am crazy like that. He doesn't need it. I just like to make sure ;) He told me next we will try to get him off the prevacid for his acid reflux. I would like to get him off of this soon too because a friend of ours had his baby on it for awhile and it caused some other issues because it prevents your stomache from making its natural acid. I don't like having him on medications. But it is hard. When we were in the NICU we were just like "do what you have to do to make him better." I just think some NICU's tend to use medications as an answer vs. others. But now that he is on them we have to ween him off.

I love this picture. Notice his legs in the air. He has been lifting his head and moving and while doing so he tends to be balancing on his belly!

Well, we can't always have happy baby pictures ;)

Just chilling in his pack and play. Mark picked up a new binky for him but he doesn't like it. He likes the one the hospital used and that is it. Good thing they sell those at Target in case we lose all the binkys they sent home with him.

You can sort of see the monitor in the background here. It is put in a little tote so we can just carry it around our shoulder. It has a long cord to it which is nice so you have some room to move with it but it can be dangerous when walking if we are not careful.

Spending some time in our backyard...

Is he not the cutest?!?!?!

I just want to point out that posting these pictures took over an hour to load. Why? Well when you live in the middle of no where the internet doesn't work if it is raining. Yep, I decided to load the pictures while it was raining! Oh the things you take for granted!