I wish that I could say I have been good about blogging this month. But really I am cheating and using the date changing function to fill in July. It isn't that we have been all that busy, but just that after working all day and taking care of Ethan at night, then trying to clean the house, well I just get tired.

So, the 4th of July weekend was relaxing. We were alone and we cleaned up the house. It needed some thorough cleaning, and de-junking. We send quite a bit of stuff to the local thrift store and feel pretty good about the rest of the house.
We also had a BBQ with some friends of ours in our small backyard.

Mia worked on the 4th because she was getting paid her normal pay plus the bonus pay for an open shift plus holiday pay. So, since we couldn't do fireworks anyway, it was a good day for her to work.

And of course, the boy was cute as ever. He is 7 months old, and I have been better about getting some pictures of him up.

It is surreal to me that June is over. I can't believe how quickly the year is passing us by. Ethan is nearly 7 months old and before we know it he'll be hitting one year. I can't even imagine him being a year old.

I still feel like it was just yesterday when the hospital sent us home with a pat on the back to take care of this precious little life all on our own. We've made it this far, but as I said, I still feel like this new father who isn't sure what to do with a real child. A child living in our home. All the time. Every day. It is so surreal.

But, when I come home from work, and see him sitting on his blanket, looking up waiting to see me. And then he smiles and gets so excited until I come over and he can give me a big hug and try to eat my shoulder, that's when I remember that it has been 7 months. That's when I realize just how much Ethan loves us and how much I love him.

Our boy just keeps growing and growing. This week, we swear he is on the verge of crawling. He can easily arch himself up with his arms to look at someone standing over him. And in the last few days he has even managed to get up onto his knees, but can't seem to get anywhere after that.

Today he's made great progress pushing himself backwards, but that doesn't help him get to the toys we put just a little out of reach to encourage him to crawl. Well, I'm sure he will get it in good time.

My company launched a new site last Thursday, but I was out before it went live. So I got to see the updates over the weekend from home, but didn't hear the story about it until I came back to work today.

Mostly everything went smoothly. For the size of the change we made to how our site was structured, built, and referenced on the Web, it was pretty smooth. Now we are getting back to prioritizing what needs to be done. And that includes writing a lot of new pages.

This is exciting for me because I want to have a job that is heavy on the writing. I'm getting a better feel for my company's voice and tone, as well as learning about image formats (there are a ton). It's a great learning experience for me. We are both very glad that I was able to find (and get) this job because we feel like we can finally feel more settled where we are. Which is good because our house is getting filled up with stuff and I don't know how we would move it all.

Mom got in today on her way to her master's classes this summer. We were excited to see her and she was excited to see Ethan.

Even though she was only in town for one night and one day, we had a great time. Ethan loved the attention (he always does) and Mom loved getting to spend so much time with the boy.

It is amazing how much he has changed since Christmas. He is so much bigger, more alert, and seems to learn new things every day. This weekend he decided that he wanted to laugh just as much as possible. Every time someone picked him up he would smile and laugh. He has the cutest laugh too. Mom caught some great pictures of him smiling, something we have been trying to do for a while.

I find going to the dentist to be almost relaxing. Maybe that is quite the right word for it. Let me explain.

Once I am in the chair and the dentist is in the room, I fold my hands across my stomach, with the fingers interlaced, and close my eyes. As long as I don't see the needle going into my mouth I am fine. Once I am numbed up, the rest is easy for me.

I had a root canal done today. At least the first part of it, and I think that I dozed off near the end. So, maybe relaxing is the right word after all.

Another thing that I find interesting about the Dentist is how oddly sensory it is. Like I said, I close my eyes so vision is gone. And the dentist numbs your mouth pretty well, so most touch is gone as well. Our dentist uses the rubber dams to keep stuff from getting into the tooth he is working on, but it also keeps his work from getting into your mouth, so taste is gone too.

This leaves only hearing and smell.

The smell of getting dental work done. It's impossible to describe the exact smell of hot tooth as the dentist drills, but I find it very distinctive. It's an interesting smell that reminds me of where I am. Hearing the drill whir and smelling the smell of teeth getting heated from the friction is a powerful memory of my dentist visits.

However, even though I can relax during it, I'd still much rather not have to go to the dentist for fillings and such. Just regular cleanings and check-ups.

Well, today is my first Father's Day. It's quite the feeling to know that I have a little boy to take care of for the rest of my life. I'm glad that we have him though. He is such a cute boy and brings so much to our family.
Sometimes we get a little worn out trying to keep up with him, but when he laughs or smiles or plays with us, we forget about all that and it's worth it. The last couple of days have been especially fun because he has been getting all excited to see me when I get home from work.

He starts waving his arms and smiling at me and making faces. We usually play until it's time for him to go to bed, then I get him ready and put him down.

He is such a cute, cute boy and so much fun to play with. I look forward to being here with him as he grows and develops.

Ethan slept through the night!!!

I have been sleeping on an air mattress in the living room the last few nights. Fortunately it's not for anything I did :)

We are trying to get the boy to sleep through the night on his own. Up until now his mother would get up and feed him once or twice a night to calm him down and put him back to sleep if he woke up. We decided that this needed to change because neither of us was sleeping very well.

He is actually doing alright. He still wakes up but he also has been putting himself down after a couple (read: 20) minutes. So, Mia was able to get some sleep and I am hoping to catch up once he stays down for a full night.

We went up to look at some pictures of Ethan today, and we also decided to go to the beach. It was quite an adventure. We layed out our towels and set Ethan down to get some sunscreen on. He promptly kicked sand all over himself, including up by his eyes which he then started to rub. He was already a little tired, and fussed and cried while we put the sunscreen on him. Once that ordeal was over, he was a little happier and we took him out to the water.

He has really grown to enjoy bath time so we thought he would like the water too. He didn't mind it, but it wasn't his favorite. And if I took him out to where it started to get cold, he really didn't like it.

So after about half an hour we packed up our bags and headed home. It wasn't quite the beach trip we had hoped for, but next time we will know better what to do.