I’m walking! 

Ethan survived his first hurricane. George had to work during the storm so Ethan and I stayed with friends for a couple of days. Ethan has had difficulty the last few times we stayed away at home sleeping. He seems to not like being in a different place and screams at bedtime. We have traveled a lot with him since he was born and he never had problems until very recently. When we stayed over for the hurricane, he screamed himself to sleep, then woke up about two hours later screaming. I could not get him to go back to sleep until about 3am. It was quite a rough night for both of us. By the following night he seemed to be used to his new bed and went to sleep fine. Our house survived the storm well, we just lost some trees. Power was restored after about 36 hours. Since we have a generator we were fine. Hopefully there will be no more storms this year.

Well we went on our date but Suprise! I was taken to a friends house on the way to dinner where friends were waiting to suprise me for my birthday. I was very suprised. I had no idea George was cooking something up. It was such a nice time and I enjoyed being out with friends without the little one. It was nice to feel special and cared about by everyone. My expectations of what George is capable of has gone up a few notches. Who knew? Thanks to everyone for a lovely evening.

Since I am turning 30 soon, George made arrangements for us to go out on our fifth date this weekend. By fifth date I mean the fifth date since Ethan was born. Yes I am keeping track. We used to go to the movies nearly every weekend before we had Ethan, so each date is highly valued and appreciated. However, it looks like we won’t be able to go because of the pending hurricane. George will probably be called into work. Oh well and I was so looking forward to going out.

Ethan practiced standing up on his own today. The whole sticking his butt up in the air thing is cute. He walked a little when I held out his bear for him to walk toward. We’re making progress.

It turns out that the MMR fever may have been a virus. The doctor doesn’t really know. After his fever ended he had a rash all over him. They said it could have just been a virus, or a response to the measles shot, or the roseolla(sp.?) virus. Whatever it is he has not been happy. He starts crying for no reason. He follows me around the house whining all day. Nothing seems to help him, poor thing. I think his throat must hurt because he hasn’t been eating. We’ve stayed away from his normal activities and I for one miss the adult contact. We look forward to rejoining society next week.

Ethan had his MMR shots about a week ago and the doctor said that if he developed a mysterious fever a week later, then it was from the shots. Well he had a fever of 103.4 yesterday. That’s pretty high for him-he was not his normal self. He wouldn’t do anything, just stared at me. Today he is back to exploring with a lower temperature.

I love reading child development research. When I used to work with parents I would constantly bore them with child development facts. If I were more skilled in math and statistics I think I would have enjoyed going into developmental psychology instead of counseling psych. My reading lately about one-year-olds is based on research from the Yale child study department and is quite interesting. Ethan is right on target with refusing to eat food he used to like and being moody. So I guess I should be pleased that he is developing appropriately rather than being annoyed when he refuses to eat. I actually was pleased the other day when instead of throwing everything on the floor he signed “milk” because he didn’t want to drink water and “all done” when he didn’t want any more food.