Waiting in suspense

So we have yet to see photos of the other hairy gorilla a.k.a. Craig Israelson. I don't blame my sister for this problem because she is still at the hospital and little Craig is still in the NICU. However, I talked to my mother the day Craig was born and she told me she would post a photo she shot of the new little man on our family Web site. It has been two days since he was born and still no sign of him. I have been checking the site about every two minutes- not kidding.

If you feel like some of my rambling passages have changed since you last read them (to the three people who have actually read them) it may be because a little bird a.k.a. Ryan Roe has changed them. Apparently he feels that I am giving a little TMI about ordinary things and he's concerned that other people will be grossed out to the point of throwing up. I bet you wish you would have read my last posts now, don't you?

Two hairy gorillas

Great news. I am now an aunt. Well, a blood-aunt. I have been an aunt through marriage for the past three years (since I married Ryan, duh) and as much as I love those little munchkins, I am uber-excited about my new little nephew. He was born to my sister, McKenzie, at 12:12 a.m. today. It was a very long labor. Her water broke at 3 a.m. yesterday. Little Craig finally came out, but his umbilical cord was wrapped around his neck three times and he had had a bowel movement inside. He couldn't really breath when he came out. They rushed him away and gave him oxygen. Now he is doing much better, THANK HEAVENS. He is Ethan's first cousin on the Maughan side and those two are going to be good buddies when they are a little older.
In true Maughan fashion, Craig popped out with an entire head of hair and then some. After all, his father, Ryan Israelson, has little to no hair. But Kenz's good, hairy genes pulled through on that one.
Hopefully he'll have the same long, brown ear hair that developed on the back of Ethan's lobes. Ethan's hair is now white-trashishly long but I don't think he can get a haircut until he can sit up by himself. Hopefully that's not too much of a long way off.

Squeals of ...joy?

Ethan is wearing his very last clean outfit today after pooping all over about 10 others (ok, that's an exaggeration) during and after church. He sure had a lot to get out of his system. It's going to be a long day of working to get poop-stains out of everything tomorrow.

Last night, Ethan squealed (squawked may be a better word) throughout the entire hour-long journey home from Sandees. This is a new thing and we are not sure why he does it. The very high-pitched shouts are often accompanied with a large smile, though sometimes they seem tied to the frustration of being stuck sitting backward in a baby seat. He does it every time we get in the car and it sure makes me giggle. But after an entire hour of it, the high-pitchyness of it all got me thinking about jumping out of the speeding car on route 66. Of course, it's much better than last time when he screamed bloody murder the entire way home.

Amazing hands

The other night, as I was singing Primary songs to Ethan during part of his bedtime ritual, he discovered something very odd: his hand.

It's not like he hasn't been using his hands for the past few months. On the contrary, one of his favorite things to do with his hands is stuff them in his mouth. He's also beginning to grab things that are placed by his hands. And, when he's sitting in his stroller or relaxed in the swing or on my lap he just plops his hands down on his thighs and sticks them there. He loves to watch my hands as they move about, tickling him or motioning to songs.

But I'm not sure he had ever realized that his hands were actually there - or actually his - until the other night as I was finishing up the second verse of "I am a Child of God." He pulled his hand up to stick it in his mouth (of course) but about halfway there, that right hand just stopped. And he just stared. It turned to the right. And then to the left. It opened. It closed. It captured his attention.

Now, every once in a while, he'll reach for something but stop right before his tiny fingers get there. And he'll just stare in awe of those hands.

Symbiotic relationship

Ethan's favorite item to take hold of and bite down on is the knuckle where my thumb joins my hand. It seems to soothe his aching gums, but it also has helped me. I noticed that this morning my thumb was throbbing from arthritis. When Ethan put so much pressure (that kid has some serious jaws) on that joint, the pain went away. So while slobber was oozing out of his mouth and down my wrist, I let him continue to gnaw away at my finger. It felt nice.
The little man has also kind of figured out what gets a rise out of his parents. He knows that when he laughs, we love it. So he takes many opportunities - funny or not - to laugh. For example, he just thought that me dressing him in his Sunday clothes at 7 a.m. was hilarious. The kid giggled like there was some sort of inside joke that I didn't know about. My favorite is the courtesy laugh. We'll do things that used to get him to laugh (patty-cake with his feet, tickle-wickle) and he'll laugh before you actually do it like he knows he's supposed to laugh but it's really not that funny anymore.
Ethan has really become such a joy. For a few months there, I thought I might give him up for adoption. But now, he is a relaxed, happy baby. We sat at the DMV for more than 2 hours today and he just relaxed on our laps almost the entire time.

Teething

Yes, it's that dreadful time. Poor little Ethan has been very sad all day long. At first I thought he had relapsed into his old ways - crying all day long no matter what you did. However, his efforts to stick his entire fist into his mouth and chew on it and his constant slobbering led me to believe he might be getting an early tooth. He didn't sleep well last night and hardly slept today. Right now we are letting him cry it out in his bedroom (it's his bedtime) and I feel so bad because he's probably in pain. We did give him some Tylenol, so hopefully that helps soothe him. Poor little guy.

A thing for beautiful women

As Ethan becomes more and more aware that he is not the only person in this world, he is starting to flirt.
At church yesterday, I watched him stare at women until they looked at him. Once they made eye contact, he would make this huge, chubby-cheeked grin that elicited quite a few giggles from ward members. He's beginning to understand how to make a woman's knees turn to Jello.
He has become a happier baby recently and I believe it's because he's actually getting some sleep now. Before, he wouldn't nap and slept horribly at night. Now, though he still wakes up a few times a night, he takes long naps and goes to bed around 8 p.m. (Hooray!).
I will probably get a knock on the door from DCFS in the next few days for writing this, but I'm putting Ethan to sleep on his stomach! That's a BIG no-no in the baby world, but otherwise, he doesn't get any sleep. He takes all his naps on his stomach and falls asleep that way at night, then I roll him over once he's sound asleep. Mom tells me that once they are four months you can let them sleep on their stomachs, but everything I've read tells me that you are not supposed to do that until they are one year old. However, IT'S THE ONLY WAY TO KEEP ME SANE! So he's on his stomach right now. I go check on him every ten minutes or so. I figure our parents put all of us on our stomachs when we were babies, right?

A big Friday night for the little guy.

We took Ethan down to the weekly Jazz concert at the art gallery on the mall in DC. Megan bought a baseball cap for him before he was born and we were finally able to use it. He looked so cool in his little hat with a raccoon on it. Almost every one we saw said, "ooohhhhhh!" We sat on a couple of Ethan's blankets under a row of trees. We were the only sober ones there. It was hot and muggy and we just hung out for a couple of hours. When it was all over, we jumped in the car and went over to Georgetown for some dessert. We got a park and started walking up M street when the rain started to fall. We made it back to the car before it really started raining hard. It was a fun night. We just came home and ate some ice cream we had in the freezer. He was so tired but still screamed for 45 minutes before he could fall asleep.