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Little Miracles · Ethan
Bible Verse of the Day

Ethan

All about Ethan

Ethan ADORES music.  As mentioned in my earlier 13th month report, he would clap his hands whenever he hears any music being played.  When the TV is tuned to MTV, he would pause to look at the TV and clap his hands.  When he plays with his toys that emit music, he would clap his hands and smile.  Last night after watching American Idol, I was singing “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough”, and he clapped when he heard me singing… is that awesome or what?

So far he has 2 musical intrument-like toys.  The first one given by Ethan’s Ah Koo and Ah Kim is a mini keyboard with options to choose different sounds of different musical instruments.  We can produce tunes on the keyboard itself, but there is also a shortcut button.  When the shortcut button is pressed, the toy will play one of 4 melodies.  Our boy has learnt the shortcut “key” and will press this button to get the melody and then clap his hands in glee! Pssst….. I think it was Daddy who taught him the shortcut button!

The other musical instrument toy is a banjo, presented to Ethan by Uncle Kong Aik, one of Pete’s colleagues.  Ethan hasn’t quite mastered it yet, but he certainly tries!  He still claps his hands when we play the tunes on the banjo for him though.

Since Ethan started to walk, he has been very inquisitive and goes around mostly on his own around the house.  I love to play this game with him:

I would put him on the floor and I will move a few feet away from him.  Then I will motion to him to come over by calling his name and extending my arms.  He would then look at me, smile adorably and then take a few steps towards me.  When he is about to reach me, he steps would quicken as if he was running, and he would then *run* into my arms.  Sweet.

… well, for about 2 hours only…

Yesterday (Wednesday) was Pete’s futsal day, so after we pick Ethan up from Mrs Tan’s place, I spent the evening with Ethan. 

It’s more challenging now because Ethan is VERY mobile and VERY kepo, so he will move around really quickly from room to room.  I played with him for a while, then I fed him, and then we watched American Idol together  🙂 and waited for Daddy to come back.  Then Ethan had his warm bath before his bedtime at 9:30ish. 

Cool way to spend a Wednesday night huh?

Ethan spent a major part of his 13th month receiving angpows during the Chinese New Year festival and a minor part of it battling a cough.  During Chinese New Year, he had loads of new clothes to parade in, almost one new set each of the fifteen days of the new year.  We also bought him his first pair of sandals (this one’s easier to wear than his Adidas ones because this one’s got velcro).

Weight
9kg.  He lost 100g when he was sick, but gained back the weight as of last week.

Height/Length
Not sure, but more than 73cm, since he can reach the ground on both feet on tiptoe when he gets on his toy train vehicle.  I don’t have a photo of him reaching the ground on tiptoe *yet*, but here’s a photo of Ethan on the train 🙂

Teeth
Still 4 in total: 2 central top and bottom incisors.  4 more incisors on the top and bottom are fast appearing.  Either the whites are visible or the tooth can be felt through the gums.

Motor Skills

  • Ethan can now walk pretty fast, although in a wobbly manner.  He is learning and exploring the entire house, moving from room to room.  He is not afraid of the dark and if he finds himself in a dark room, he can move to the door and open it.
  • Ethan can squat very well (signs of really strong quadriceps and hamstrings).  I have even caught him squating and reaching for an object (while squating), then standing up and then returning to squatting position.
  • Throwing things is the highlight of the day.  When we take him home from the baby sitter’s, he will trash everything in sight… all his toys will be thrown around the floor, and Pete and I are resigned to picking them up over and over again.

Communication & Social Skills

  • Will clap his hands whenever he hears any music, whether from his music toys (he has a toy piano and a toy banjo), or if someone sings to him. 
  • Will wave bye-bye when prompted.  But even when the people he is bye-byeing to is out of sight, he will still be waving.
  • He is ticklish when I kiss him on the tummy.
  • He has started showing some signs of independence, and sometimes will crawl to avoid Pete or me when we attempt to pick him up.  When we do pick him up, and all he wants is to be free to roam on the floor, he will make a quick diving motion, and if we still resist letting him down on the floor, he will attempt to bite us.  Yikes!
  • He has begun to thrown tantrums when he does not get what he wants.

Food

I introduced some legumes and honeydew, besides introducing “Ikan Jenahak” – not sure if it is “Kalat-hoo” but he loves it all the same.  The one item that he absolutely loves though?  CHEESE!!  Our boy will wallop a whole slice if we allow him to.

I’m still providing food cubes to Mrs Tan, our baby sitter, to make it easier for her to cook Ethan’s porridge.  So in my freezer, I have ice trays filled with food cubes such as fish cubes, tomato cubes and vegetable cubes.

Not the shopping.  Not the discounts.  Not the crowd…but….

The ESCALATORS!!

Ethan has an afinity for escalators.  He loves it when we go on the escalators, up and down, up and down…he can do it all day long.  Sometimes, after we get off an escalator and walk away, he would complain and indicate that he wants to go on it again.

The other day, when he was posing for the Jusco Photogenic Baby contest photo shoot, the photographer could not get a really good shot, because our boy was busy staring in awe at the escalator that was just beside the photo shoot station.

I remember I myself was pretty awestruck by escalators when I was a little girl too… could this be an inherited trait?

Ethan is so much better now.  I knew he was already back to his old self when he woke me up giggling in his sleep last Saturday morning.  Can you imagine?  He slept till 9a.m.?!!

We still fed him his medication through the weekend, because we wanted to be certain there would be no recurrence of the illness.  Guess what?  We only found out yesterday that the syringe that we used to administer the medicine needed to be positioned at an angle so that the medicine will be shot right down his throat, giving him no chance to gargle or cough it up.  So last night, we promised Ethan that it would be the absolute last time he would be taking the medicine.

This horrible coughing illness has been a force to be reckoned with, and I am SO GLAD that we will soon be rid of it forever. 

Recovery time:

Pete – 8 weeks
Joyce – 4 weeks
Ethan – 1 week

Another amazing fact from Ethan boy, courtesy of being an exclusively breastfed baby!

Ethan woke up this morning coughing and sneezing even more than he did yesterday; I even detected some phlegm when he coughed.  We fed him his Rhinathiol and Polaramine, despite his fierce protests… it always tugs my heartstrings to see him cry and scream like that when we try to feed him medicine 🙁

After dropping him off at the sitter’s (with instructions to give him more milk and water, and to wipe his nose), I called Dr Jessica to inquire what could be wrong.  She reassured me that the symptoms for his illness would tend to take a turn for the worse on the 3rd or 4th day, before becoming better.  As long as he wasn’t wheezing (which was a sign of bronchitis), there should be nothing to worry about.  She also said I could bring him in for a quick checkup in the evening if I wanted to be further reassured and for her to check Ethan too.

I then called Mrs Tan, our babysitter, and she proudly proclaimed that Ethan had finished his entire morning feed of 5oz of EBM at one go and was feeling better already.  In fact, he was taking a nap when I called.  I was glad. 😀

After work, Pete and I took Ethan to see Dr Jessica, who again confirmed and reassured us that his lungs were clear.  She cautioned us, however, that if his breathing was rapid (more than 40 breaths per minute), we should inform her.  She instructed us to continue with the medication and hopefully with the breastfeeding, he would be all well tomorrow.

Dearest darling Ethan boy, Mommy and Daddy are praying that you will get well soon!

Ta-daaaa!!!

After some fiddling and twiddling, ….. we are proud to unveil a brand new site for Ethan, entirely owned by us! 🙂  Nice or not? 😀

Yes, yes…that’s why I have not been posting anything in the past couple of weeks.  Busy playing around with my new toy, … ahem …site!

By the way, all the old posts are still available in this new site (I managed to migrate them over from the old blogger site) so please update your bookmarks and links accordingly.  I’ve also enabled COMMENTS on this site, since I have received feedback that my faithful readers (Ethan’s aunties and uncles, grandpas and grandmas) all are itching to say stuff but could find no way of saying it.  So there… commenting is available now… (postdated commenting also available, so if you want to comment on previous posts, feel free to do so!)

Ethan came down with a fever this morning.  38.2 degrees.  Not sure if it’s accurate, cos I didn’t have the time to get an ear thermometer yet, so I had to use the underarm mercury thermometer method.  We took him to see Dr Jessica, and she confirmed that the bacteria from my cough had spread to him before his flu got better.  His fever had shot up to 38.4 degreen then.  So unfortunately, she had to put him on antibiotics.  She prescribed Axithromycine, which is from the same family as Erithromycine (the antibiotics that I took), and Ethan was to take it for 3 days.  She also prescribed Rhinathiol (for cough) and Polaramine (for flu).  Paracetamol also, but we were also provided with the suppository option, since Ethan rejects medicine taking orally. Sigh…

Tried giving him the medicine… he blew the medicine out.  Then when we shot it straight down his throat, he gargled the medicine and refused to swallow it.  We also tried alternating the medicine while feeding him soup, but our boy was not willing to be outsmarted.  He would check the spoon to see if it’s clear (i.e. soup) or red (i.e. medicine) before taking it.  So… it was certainly a chore to give him the medicine, and heart-wrenching too, I might add.

I hope he gets better soon.

 

We made a trip to Taiping for the Chinese New Year reunion dinner and of course, Ethan was the center of attention.  Everybody was eager to see him walk, albeit wobbily…

Food was aplenty, but too bad it was still too early for Ethan to take any of it; he could only take Mommy’s “moi” 🙂  Every year, I will contribute one dish for the reunion dinner, prepared in my humble kitchen. Ahem!  This year, it’s “tau-eu-bak”, recipe courtesy of my Mom.

We spent the 1st day of CNY in Taiping.  After exchanging angpows, we visited a close family friend, and had a scrumptious lunch there.  Ethan was busy monkeying around (pun intended) and playing with the oranges.  Highlight of the visit: he decided to present his “gift” there … yup, you got it… he POO-ed!!!  Ethan’s Grandma and Grandpa, Ah Koo and Ah Kim stopped by in Taiping on the way home from Alor Star in the afternoon.

 

 

2nd day of CNY, we paid a visit to 2 other relatives and then we traveled to Ipoh (my hometown), where Mom cooked a delicious dinner and invited some relatives over.  Jiu-hoo-char, Assam fish, bak-kien…. I am salivating just thinking about it.  Ethan had his first encounter with Aunty Jen Na, Aunty Ree Na and Uncle Jen Son (aged 10, 8 and 6 respectively).

Unfortunately though, Ethan came down with a slight fever in the night, and kept us all up.  Thankfully, I brought along his paracetamol and gave him some in the morning.  We had a family lunch at YMCA Ipoh and then left for Penang.

As soon as we reached home in Penang, Ethan was crawling all over the house, amusing himself with all his toys.  There…. a summary of Ethan’s first New Year 🙂

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