A Thanksgiving Surprise

Thanksgiving started on Wednesday evening when Paul and I left work around 5 p.m. to go over the river and through the woods to Grandmother's house we go.

Okay, it was more like two hours in bumper-to-bumper traffic on I-5.

Thank goodness Aidan was already at my parent's house.

So, we got to my parent's house and unloaded the car. Just before we changed out of our workclothes and got ready for dinner, Mom and Dad announced that Aidan had a "new trick."

Mom set a baby bottle of diluted apple juice on the floor about four feet away from Aidan and said, "Okay, Aidan. Go get your juice."

Without much hesitation, Aidan did an awkward but very speedy crawl and got his reward. It was awkward because his right leg wanted to get up and walk while his left leg stayed on the ground and wanted to crawl. Not bad for his first time.

But it wasn't his first time-- he did it earlier that day when we were at work. One of the prices you pay when you work full-time. But, it was fun looking at Paul's face full of amazement, pride and surprise. It's hard to describe what it feels like to watch your child learn something new; it's almost like you are experiencing it along with them.

As I watched him snatch up his bottle and enjoy his baby cocktail all I could think of was how that was one more thing to be thankful for this year.

That-- and all the stuff on our living room floor at home that we are going to have to stow away to prepare for baby proofing.

"Mama"

Today started off like any other workday morning.

At 6:12 a.m., Aidan woke up for his morning nursing session. After a quick diaper change, he groggily managed to nurse for a good 6 minutes non-stop.

As he is apt to do, he takes a break, rubs his eyes, sighs and goes back to work. Or sometimes he looks around the room for a minute or two before remembering the task at hand.

Today, at 6:22 a.m., my baby stopped nursing, looked me straight in the eye and said, "Mama."

Not, "mamamamamamamama." Not, "dadaadadaadadadad." Not "damamdrrrrrgrrrrrammamamadadadamaga."

"Mama"-- just like that. With just one word, he told me "I know who you are and I can say your name."

Being Mama is good.

"zuuuuKINI!"-- and other words we say to get our babies to laugh

In case you didn't recognize the word in the title, that would be "zuchini," the vegetable. But said in just the right way, it can make a 7-month old laugh like mad. Here's another one-- "spaaaaaaaGETTY!" (a.k.a, "spaghetti!") Picture six parents huddled with cameras in front of these little guys yelling these words at them. No wonder the kids look bewildered.

That's how we got this picture (and a lot of others) when we visited Fairbank Farm last weekend. It was Baby Reunion #7 with Aidan's baby classmates from our birth class. Every month us parents meet up and see how our babies are growing, swap baby stories and catch up with what's happening in our lives. It's always a good time and it's comforting to share our gripes and successes with each other. A lot of our friends have kids that are either way younger or way older than our kids, so for some of us, this is our only way our kids socialize with kids their own age.

I highly recommend Fairbank Farm for an outing for the littles ones. Kids 10 months and younger are free. They are only open in April and October, but admission is only $2.50 and you get food to feed the animals. Besides pigmy goats, geese, chickens and other fowl, they also have pigs. There was one sow that just had a a bunch of piglets. They were all piled on top of each other in a little pen with a heat lamp attached. Mama Pig was in a separate pen. One of the moms commented that if that was her, she'd be a little pissed that she was separated from her babies. I'm thinking Mama Pig was getting a break before the next multi-feed.

We dressed the kids in costumes for the first time and surprisingly, they didn't pitch a fit. Some babies don't like to be enclosed in hats and hoods. Not these kids. They took it all in stride. We are already looking forward to the babies' 1st birthdays (all in March) and have already planned our next monthly get together.