Standing

Ewan has being doing laps of the coffee table and cruising along walls for a few weeks now, but he managed to stand without holding onto anything for a good 30 seconds several times today. It's only a matter of time before that first big step!

Clapping

Just quickie, for a development uppdate.

We attended the USC MD/PhD program's graduation dinner this evening where Jen was able to bask in her new PhD status.

After dinner they always hand out awards to those who have graduated both the MD and PhD parts of the program, and during the ceremony Ewan joined in with all the clapping. It's the first time we've seen him do this in context and was an exciting little milestone.

Ah Da!

"Ah Da!" = "all done!"

We think we can claim these are officially Ewan's first words. They are most often used when he is on the changing table naked in the middle of a diaper change, when he most certainly is not Ah Da.

He also uses it at the end of meals with the hand waving baby sign to mean the same thing.

More Teeth

Ewan now has 4 teeth, but the new pair at the top were not the ones we were expecting. Rather than the top front pair coming in, the ones either side have come in first. If the middle two don't hurry up we're going to have a little Dracula on our hands!

Good Morning!

This morning Ewan had a feed at 5am then went back to sleep. We got up at 7 am and left Ewan still sleeping with his bedroom door closed. While we were getting dressed Jen noticed the door to Ewans room was open.

"Did you open that, Fraser?" she asked.

"No, but I think I know who did....."

Sure enough there was a smiling little boy standing at the end of his crib poking his head around the door frame. "Good Morning Mom & Dad! Time to get up!"

So not only is he now standing and babbling when he ready to get up, he can apparently use door handles too.

Time to lower the mattress height in the crib to the last notch at the bottom we think!

Chicken!

Chicken, Ewan's first meat was on the menu today. Dad made him Chicken with apple and sweet potatoes. Yum!

Pulling himself up.

Today Ewan worked out the final part of how to pull himself up using a table, chair or anything else he can grab onto.

He is VERY proud of himself

Willful? Me?

We unleashed the beast on Grandma and Grandad today! They had Ewan all day......and he did not slow down in consideration.

They did the usual routine after breakfast of some play then a nap. Once he was up they took him for a walk around Caltech campus and met up with Jennifer for lunch. They all met a the Broad Cafe and had a picnic. Ewan had fun wearing Grandma's sun hat and flirting with other folk at the Cafe. However, he also showed off his latest little developmental trait. Despite having his own food he was determined that he was going to have the tomatoes off his Mom's plate, and put on quite the tantrum when he did not get his way. This was probably the most willful he been about anything to date.


_________________________________________________"Do you like my cool new hat?"

"Hey I want Mom's tomatoes!"________________________"NO? Then I'll just pout under here!"

Grandma Climbing Frame_________________________________Playing horsie with Grandma

___________________________________________________________Grandad talks to the turtles.

__________________________________Playing "peekaboo" on the bench.

Ewan, Grandma and Grandad spent the rest of the afternoon touring more of the local area and then playing together at home. It had been a busy busy day and lots of fun! It hit's you when when he's gone to bed and you stop though. The little guy is super fun, but just has boundless energy and if you've not had a slow warm up (and especially if you still have some jet lag and an early start) then taking him on can be quite exhausting.

"Refused to Nap"

This is a phrase we read more and more in Ewan's daily daycare report when we collect him in the evening. It refers to the recent development of him being of the opinion that he no longer needs his afternoon nap. Obviously he has far more important things to do. We did not him to begin doing this regularly till he is almost 1 year old, but this is happening so often now we think this is now his routine. He did it again today, taking only a 90 minute nap in the morning. He was so tired by 6pm that he crashed out in the car seat on the way home and that was him done for the day.

9 month checkup

Ewan had his 9 month doctors check up today. No injections were due today and he was pretty much A-OK. He is still a little wheezy from the perpetual daycare cold so he will still need daily nebulizing to keep his airways fully open and increased doses when he is suffering more from colds, but its no more than we have already been doing. Once the true spring arrives we're hoping the cycle will be broken.

His official stats today were:

17 lb 12.5 oz (10th percentile)
28" height (45th percentile)
46 cm Head circumference (75th percentile)

So he's a little top-heavy! Apparently his low weight is nothing to worry about at this stage. A toe prick test showed that his hemoglobin was a little low, but he's not anemic. We'll just make a conscientious effort to up his iron intake, which means time for Dad to start cooking him some meat.

None of this effects his activity. He was all over Mom in the waiting room and into every toy he could reach for in the process. He's doing just fine!

Waving "Bye-Bye"

Ewan started waving about a week ago, but it was never associated with any particular event. This week he is waving "bye-bye" to Mommy in the morning when Dad takes him to daycare and she leaves for work. It is very very cute. So far it is just Mommy that gets this special treatment but we're sure he'll start waving to everyone soon enough.

Babbling

Ewan is doing lots of babbling now. He lets out streams of gobbledygook more and more frequently. It's not just the squeals and coos that he's done since he was very little, but some kind of attempt at coherent communication. It's usually when he gets a little frustrated with something (lack of pacifier in mouth, a toy that is not cooperating, a parent that is not cooperating etc etc) and he is apparently telling it, or us what he thinks. We're excited by this development and are looking forward to the day that something that makes sense splurges out in the middle of the stream of nonsense, whether it is on purpose or not.

Tooth Two Breaks Through

Just a quick update to announce that Ewan's second tooth broke through today as predicted within a week of the first.

We hope this means a short while with less pain for him and more sleep for us all!

We'll try and get a picture if and when he cooperates.

1st Tooth Breaks Through

Our money was on his bottom front left tooth making it through first, but today while we were Skypeing with Grandma Colleen we discovered that his bottom front right tooth had cut through first. He was chewing on Jen's chin, a favorite since he started teething, and she noticed that it felt a little rougher than it had done before. It has not emerged enough to get a picture yet as he always sticks his tongue over it when we try but we'll post one as soon as we can. The left front tooth should only be a matter of a couple of days behind.

Teething

Well, Ewan is finally teething...for real this time. When the drool and the fussiness increased we wondered if this was finally time for his first tooth. We have wondered before but been disappointed. Now, however, we have visual confirmation of two tooth buds just below the surface of his gums. That's right, two!! Ewan is getting both of his bottom front teeth at the same time although it looks like his left one will break through first. We are doing what we can to ease his pain but no one is sleeping well. Hopefully he'll feel better soon and look even cuter (is this possible?) with his new teeth. Sorry, no pics of the tooth buds...you can only see them when Ewan is in full scream.

Object permanence

Object permanence is the term used to describe the awareness that objects continue to exist even when they are no longer visible and Ewan has it down. We have seen his understanding developing for some time and now that he is not quite as easily distracted it is clear that he knows something is still available when he can't see it. This is a great step developmentally and it makes peek-a-boo tons of fun. So what's the downside you ask? As Mommy and Daddy have both found out, the end of bath time is now awash in tears. As previously posted Ewan loves his bath and eating his bath toys. Now when we take him out of the tub we are greeted with wailing unless a co-bathing dinosaur is wedged solidly in his mouth. He is also not a fan of being taken from his toys to have a diaper change. Something tells me this is just a sign of things to come...

And he's crawling!

He's by no means motoring yet and still ends up stuck in one spot with his limbs flailing from time to time, but today we think it's safe to say we have a crawler!

Lock up your remotes, phones and quite frankly anything that is not already tied down!

Ewan's first finger food.....almost.

We had a go at feeding Ewan some Cheerios this afternoon. He knew what to do in principle but the execution fell a little short.

For those about to rock, we salute you!

It's been a while since we posted (sorry, we've been a bit busy and Mom and Dad have both had an evil stomach bugs the last couple of weekends) so when we dressed Ewan this morning he looked such the little dude in his jeans, Converse "All Stars" and AB/CD T-shirt (not AC/DC - take a close look at the print - it does not say what you first think) we had to take a picture and post it.

With this new edgy attitude look we thought it was time to start increasing the baby-proofing around the house. Actually it is because Ewan is SO close to crawling. Frustratingly so for him. He has the motion in the arms and legs right, and can push up with his arms and rotate on the spot using his arms, but the legs and knees are not getting the traction just yet. Dad spent the day putting loose cables in covers on the base boards and putting covers on all the sockets that are not in use, baby-proof covers over the plugs that are in the sockets and putting latches on the fridge and the cupbaords etc. Tomorrow we hope to finish stage 1 by moving all the stuff on low shelves up to higher ones. Fortunately, some of the work is already done because we have cat-proofed certain cupboards and other places already.

In other news, Ewan's diet is getting ever more diverse. His meal selections now can be anything form the following list (alone or in combination): rice cereal, oatmeal, whole-grain multi grain cereal, peas, sweet potatoes, pumpkin, stewed apple, stewed pair, green beans, banana and of course his milk.

Finally, we are only giving him one dose of his Pulmicort medication a day after we had to take him back up to full treatment levels over Xmas and New year. We really hope we're not tempting another relapse by posting this but his breathing is much better than before Xmas and we have everything crossed he keeps improving so we can drop treatment altogether when LA gets over its cold snap (Some areas of LA and just north actually had snow fall and settle earlier this week!)

On The Mend

Ewan's health has taken a big swing for the better this last week.

His cough is much much better and he is down to one dose of the Pulmicort a day and completely off the Albuterol. On Friday he had his 6 month Check up at the Doctors. She was pleased with his progress but decided he should stay on the Pulmicort until the winter flu season passes.

While he was there he got his booster immunizations and a Flu shot. He was very brave and only cried when the needles went in.

His latest stats are that he is 26.5 inches long, his head circumference is 44 cm, and he weighs 15 lb 9oz.

On another note, the other night he showed off his new trick. Holding his bottle himself. He's been hanging on to the bottles for a while, but this week he took control!