car talk

Our best conversations are usually when we are on the way home. We've picked Aidan up from daycare and he's has his afternoon snack while we talk about our day.

[Paul and I are talking about something at work]

Aidan: Stop talking-- I want to talk!

Us: What's that, Aidan?

Aidan: Stop talking guys.

Us: Okay, Aidan. You talk. What do you want to talk about?

[Silence]

Aidan: I can't talk. You help me guys.

-------------------------------------------------------

Aidan: Mama! I want more booty!

Me: How do you ask nicely?

Aidan: Booty please!

Me: The whole thing, please! (Lately, I've been able to get away with just giving him "the look" and I don't even have to say anything.)

Aidan: Mama, can I have some Pirate Booty please?

------------------------------------------------------

Us: Did you have fun at school today, Aidan?

AIdan: Uh-huh. (Usually his mouth is full with grapes, oranges, or the aforementioned Booty)

Us: What did you do today?

Aidan: I play with playdough and I pinched [child's name omitted to protect their identity and Aidan's reputation]

Us: Aidan, it's not nice to pinch your friends. You shouldn't pinch your friends.

Aidan: It was funny--- bwaa ha haaa!

Us: That's not funny, Aidan.

Aidan: It's he-larious!

-----------------------------------------------------------

bombs away and target practice

two weeks ago, aidan started  wearing "big boy" character briefs. we have been lazy in the potty training department. we don't want to push and we know that aidan knows the steps to "the process." he just doesn't care to put all those steps together. 

so, we were surprised when his teacher encouraged us to put him in underwear, saying she'd be happy to help him out and clean him up. 

the first two days were, in a word, gross. pee-wet thin cotton is one thing. thin cotton coated with poop is quite another. paul has been the lucky recipient of the poopy pants.

after those two treacherous days, the rest of the week was great. he stays dry for most of the day and we (as in the parents) have trained ourselves to take him to the potty every 1 - 1 1/2 hours.

as a grown-up, you don't have to think about these things; you just... go. but toddlers haven't learned to listen to that little alarm that goes off in their brains when their bladder/gut is full. it's more fun to keep playing with your lightning mcqueen cars and thomas trains than to stop, drop trou and sit on the potty. think about it-- for the majority of their lives, they've become accustomed to steeping in their goo until the parentals changed their diapers. it's another transition that is going to take some time. and patience. and more underpants-- otherwise, i'm going to be doing laundry every day. 

paul has come up with two ways to get aidan excited about going potty. so far, so good.

target practice:  it's exactly what you think. aim and shoot at the targets floating in the toilet. so far, we've had cheerios (a traditional favorite); mini marshmallows and, in a pinch, little rolled up balls of toilet paper. aidan loves target practice and proudly announces he hit the targets every time.

bombs away.  this is relatively new and is a work in progress. no bombs yet, but we've been able to get aidan to sit at least for a minute. 

yet one more milestone to work towards.

Omama!

last week, aidan saw barack obama on tv, which spurred this conversation:

aidan: what's obama?

mama: obama is our president.

aidan:  our prezdent?

mama: yes. president obama.

aidan: obama? that's obama?

mama: yes.

aidan:  obama. ooobama. omama!

mama: no, Obama.

aidan:  omama! obama! omama! obama!

"obama-omama" is now aidan's favorite funny thing to say. 

sleep, sweet sleep

i am happy to report that we are now back to our regular sleeping schedule. okay, he wakes up at least once during the night, but goes back to sleep. and, he sleeps until 5-5:30 a.m. that may sound early to you, but it is just fine by us.

no one wins in a standoff with a toddler

here is the winning recipe to ensure you and  your spouse will not get any sleep for two consecutive days:

1. 1 toddler, 2 months shy of his three year birthday
2. same toddler, moved to preschool and shorted the usual transition time between the current and new room due to snow storm. just before the holidays, no less.
3. the holidays. nuff said.
4. two nights with nana and papa
5. getting back to the old routine
6. toddler learns how to turn a door knob and open their bedroom door (natch!)

stir together, simmer and get one ornery toddler who refuses to go to sleep and/or sleep through the night, effectively rendering parents into zombie like state for next day of work.

on tuesday night, aidan sat up in his bed after storytime and announced "i'm not going sleep." eventually, he laid down. but, once mama got up to leave, he stood and screamed and cried for "my mama!" door closes, end of story. oops-- not so fast. where did he learn to turn the door knob? why is he coming out of his room and coming downstairs?! doesn't he know that 9-10 is mama and daddy's time to unwind?!? nooooo!  almost two hours are spent escorting aidan back to his bed, hearing him cry and having him come out. he finally gives up and goes to sleep-- only to wake up at 4 a.m. ugh.

wednesday night. the worst night ever. aidan refuses to go to bed. thus begins a 2-hour stand off where we no longer close the door (which ticks him off.) after telling him it is night-night time and he must go to bed, we spend the next two hours escorting him back to his bed, helping him climb into in, patting his head and leaving (all without saying one word.) he is furious. paul and i sit on our bed and wait for him to come out of his room to begin the entire process again. we tag team and takes turns escorting him back and forth.

after an hour and a half of this, aidan is showing signs of wear. he no longer walks down the hall between our rooms. instead, he walks to a nearby stool a couple of feet from his doorway and rest his head on the stool. we escort him back to bed, he struggles to climb up, he seems to settle for sleep, but yelps when he sees we aren't going to stay by his side all night.

10 minutes later, i've removed the stool. he now walks to the coffee table and rests his head on it. 

at the two hour mark, after paul has escorted him to bed and we hear him scream in protest. he stops suddenly. we peek outside our door to find aidan sound asleep in his doorway. game over. he's safe, sound and we aren't going to attempt to move him to his bed.

two hours later, he awakens. i quickly get him into bed and he falls back to sleep.

one hour later. guess who's up and ready for more? ugh.

paul has me go downstairs to get some sleep. i have to go to the basement because the pitter patter or footsteps, followed by paul's bigger footsteps and the accompanying carrying on are too much. i set my alarm for an hour so i can relieve paul.

the hour goes by too fast. i head upstairs and find that the game continues. it is  5 a.m. paul is inclined to keep this up until our alarm goes off. i say, cut our losses-- let's go to bed and heck, if aidan wants to come to bed with us, so be it. we've been telling him all along he can come to our bed in the morning. when i tell him this, he gleefully says "okay!" and jumps into our bed. 

damn.  that's what he wanted all along.

so, we sleep. i sleep through the alarm and paul has to wake me up. aidan is asleep. we have breakfast. he sleeps. we get ready for work. he continues to sleep. paul gets him dressed and he's half awake. by the time i get dressed, i assume they've gone downstairs. but i look over at our bed and aidan is still asleep, but fully dressed. we finally get out the door to head for preschool and work. coffee is no longer a nicety-- is is a necessity.

it is thursday, 9:57 p.m. the kid is asleep! and instead of catching Z's, i'm blogging. 

good night. sweet dreams!

"that's poops!" and other aidanisms

here is the latest batch of aidanisms to kick off 2009:

poops: used as a filler word to describe a sentiment (usually something he doesn't like or agree with). example: "no! that's poops!" or used as a comedic device. example: "santa poops is coming to town... hahaha!"

that's not  working so much. said when, well, something isn't working.

i don't like that! pretty self explanatory, no?

mama, daddy, can i have a cookie now? pretty much when we get home, before dinner. at least he asks each of us if we want a cookie and he will give us one. he sure knows how to share.

mama, daddy, can we watch movers and mickey now? our after dinner, pre-night time ritual. 

what happened? what's happening? what he says when my dad is trying to figure out how to turn on the tv and cable to find aidan's shows (see previous aidanism)

i don't watch super goo! it's scary! aidan loves watching imagination movers, but for some reason, the episode called "super goo" where mover rich and mover smitty get stuck together with mover's dave's sticky invention didn't sit well with him. it was, well, scary. 

oopsie! his version of oops. he's usually dropped or spilled something when he says this.

no, daddy, no-- stop dancing! what aidan always says when paul starts bustin' a move to the theme song of imagination movers.

that makes me mad...  GRRRR!  aidan scowls and growls. his eyebrows furl. he reminds me of my dad when he's pissed. :)

that makes you happy!  what he says after he pinches/kicks/hits you and you say you're sad. he then gives you a kiss and says "i'm sorry!"

i want hangerber and stir fries!  translation: "hamburger and french fries"

i'm a good boy!

it appears that this will be the year that aidan "gets" christmas.

last year, he enjoyed ripping paper off presents. he was introduced to santa, which resulted in this adorable image of horror:



this year, he is already talking about being a "good boy so santa brings me presents under the tree. every day."

we are emphasizing the "good boy" aspect, pointing out that throwing his food, making raspberries with a full mouth of food and talking back are not "good boy" behaviours and santa "doesn't like that."

don't even think of praising good behavior with anything other than, "you're a good boy, aidan!" i forgot what "good" thing he did, but i praised him with a "you're awesome, aidan!" to which he replied, "no! i'm not awesome. i'm a good boy!"

he said wha?!?

the last two months have been a flurry of new aidanisms-- paul and i continue to be surprised by the words coming out of our son's mouth. there are some phrases i still don't get (like "mikojojoboyo"-- i've tried to repeat it back hoping to figure it out, but he just laughs. like it was a joke he made up with his day care buddies to see who could get their parents to say it first. 

here are the some of aidan's key aidanisms; at least the ones i can remember off the top of my head:

"i don't like that." or "i don't like it."

emphasis on the word "like." the first time he said it, he wasn't a fan of the freshly baked banana bread i had made. what made this funny was the fact that aidan didn't like that he didn't like it. he likes everything! eventually, he went back to the kitchen counter where he put the "offending" banana bread pieces, tried another taste, and triumphantly exclaimed, "i like it mama! i like it!"

"that's not funny."

he is now the judge of what is funny. what i say or what daddy says in conversation is "not funny."

"stop talking!"

this is accompanied by his little hand clamping down on your mouth while your lips are flapping.

"that's funny! HA!HA!HAAA!" (his toddler evil laugh)

usually, it's not funny. and he's doing something he's not supposed to.

"i'm sorry!"

he has gotten really good at apologizing when he's done ya wrong. but today, he was running into things with his little motorcycle and he ran into my bag, toppling over my daytimer. "i'm sorry. i made a little mess!" it was the cutest thing i'd ever heard.

he sings! he sings all the time. today, he started singing one of the imagination movers songs. here is a video of him singing happy birthday to his tito. so cute!

let me hear your body talk

for the past month or so, aidan's daycare has been helping him transition into the older toddler room. he would spend the mornings in the waddler room (read "not potty training") and spend the afternoons with the toddlers. three of the girls in that room were with aidan in the waddler room until about 5 months ago. (that whole girls potty train faster than boys thing, I suppose.)

today was his first entire day in the toddler room. it was touch and go for a minute there-- "i want to go upstairs!" he said, clinging to paul. (he wanted to go to the waddler room where he would see miss gerilynn (our favorite filipina) and get his morning hugs and kisses.) luckily aidan's little homeboy, CM., transitioned along with him. CM was sitting on the floor playing with toys and he was excited to see aidan when he arrived. actually, it was CM that offered a toy car to aidan, who then said "Hmm!" and let go of paul long enough to set him down next to CM for a little playtime.

we walked out of daycare with a conspiratorial "whew!"

picking him up after work, he was outside playing with the girls. he had a great day. apparently, all three girls brushed his hair. and, there was the following comment on his daily report card made by his teacher:

"i was standing with aidan while he was on the potty. while we were waiting, he said, 'come on pee-pee. it's time to come out!" his communication skills are awesome! LOL."

who said he could change the bedtime routine

once upon a time, we had a bedtime ritual that was like clockwork:

7:30 p.m. - the family watches mickey mouse clubhouse
8:00 p.m. - brush teeth with mama or daddy
8:05 p.m. - put on a fresh diaper and jammies
8:10 p.m. - kiss mama or daddy goodnight (depending on who was tucking him in that night); blow kisses as he goes upstairs. mama or daddy reads him a story. after the story, we turn off the light and aidan crawls into bed.after about five minutes, he's asleep.

8:35 p.m. mama or daddy comes back downstairs and the little tyke is down for the night.

mind you, the nights were not always this smooth. sometimes aidan didn't want to brush his teeth. sometimes the alternating mama/daddy taking turns didn't sit well with aidan. "mama's turn" he would decree, even it was daddy turn. and, sometimes aidan needed to cry it out for 15 seconds before settling down.

well, now it is more than a year later and aidan has decided to change up the routine. sigh.

7:30 p.m. - the family watches mickey mouse clubhouse
8:05 p.m. - mama and daddy tell aidan it's time to brush his teeth. he says, "no way."
8:10 p.m. - finally getting his teeth brushed, but he takes FOREVER. he decides to play with the water instead. when he's done he might dump water all over the sink. he then runs to daddy or mama (whoever isn't helping him) to "show off his shiny, white teeth."
8:20 p.m. - putting on a fresh diaper puts aidan into wrestling mode. he will not stay still. if you try to pin him down, he laughs his head off. if you try to take off his shirt, he either giggles incessantly or gets mad and cries because he doesn't want to take off his shirt. it takes 2 minutes to calm him down.
8:23 p.m. - kiss mama or daddy goodnight (depending on who was tucking him in that night); blow kisses as he goes upstairs. rather than sit on your lap and take in a story, aidan wants to sit in the chair. or play with a toy, ifyou go thru the list of books to find out what he wants to read, he says, "no." he will then take a book andtell you his own story. sometimes he says actual lines from the book. it is cute and makes for a moment
of pride, but when it's almost 9 a.m., it tries your patience!
8:45 p.m. - lights out-- but now he asks for the light to be on. you finally convince him it's night-night time and the light needs to be off. he will lie down, only to sit up in bed and make random announcements like,"boogies. boogies are in the nose." or "daddy at the hockey game. go,go, daddy go!"
8:46 p.m. - sleep time. or a good one minute cry before settling down.


maybe it's the longer summer days and the light nights. we'll ride out the summer and hope some semblance of the old routine makes a comeback.

holy crap-- it's been over a month since i last blogged

it's already june?!

i have been too busy to write-- bad for a blog, but great to know that i am spending time with family and friends. work has been busy and it promises to pick up now that i'm in the midst of building an online branch. 

ooh! intriguing!

aidan continues to regale us with his spunk and "where the hell did that come from" phrases. lately, my posts have been clips of video of managed to get on my little cannon s1000 (which, frankly, has enabled me to capture more aidan moments than i can ever remember.) i figured why attempt to describe his latest "thing" when i can just post the video and have you see it for yourself? 

so here's what's been going on with our lil stinker:

• he's sleeping in a toddler bed. a fairly smooth transition. he fusses for about 10-15 seconds when we leave the room and then he sleeps through the night. 
  
• sometimes, he freaks me out. this is related to the sleeping in a toddler bed. he can climb down and walk over to our room. one time, he was standing quietly at the end of the bed and i looked up and saw his little shadowy figure. it kinda freaked me out.  usually, he will wake up around 5:30, pad over to our room, walk over to my face and gently pat my cheek to summon me from my sleep so i can lift him onto our bed. we can usually get another hour of sleep in. ahh...
• he's a talker. "no WAY, mama!" "no WAY, daddy" (with me, he uses a "get outta here" hand gesture. "no problem!" (sometimes used correctly; sometimes not!) "nice shirt, daddy." "pretty, mama!" 
• mr. manners. suddenly, he says "bless you, mama" "bless you, daddy" when you sneeze or even cough. he also says "thank you," after he gets what he asks for (saying "please," of course.) oh, and he finally says "sorry, mama" or "sorry, daddy" when he does something wrong.
• time out! speaking of doing something wrong, he's been in time out a lot recently. little infractions we are trying to nip in the bud now, like putting his feet on the table while we're eating (we lowered his high chair and now it's no longer an issue. only took us 5 days to figure that out. duh) he still likes to throw his food, especially when he is already full and doesn't want to eat anymore. nevermind that WE are still eating and trying to enjoy our meal.
• car games. one of his recent faves is to say, "daddy asleep again?" this is based on jeff, the the blue wiggle that has a penchant for falling asleep anywhere (isn't that narcolepsy?) in any case, he says "daddy asleep again,"  to which paul "falls" asleep. did i mention we are in the car when he plays this game? did i also mention that paul is driving?!? paul pretends to fall asleep and then aidan gets a kick out of yelling, "wake UP daddy!" and then laughs and laughs when daddy sputters awake. he's started to play "mama asleep again" and "aidan asleep again." aidan pretending to sleep is hilarious. he has the heavy breathing and the head to the side down, but he doesn't quite get that  you should close your eyes for the best effect. 

i think this post summarizes the latest happenings over the last of the month-- at least with aidan. this weekend will be busy. besides being father's day weekend (happy dad's day!), we will be going to the tiny tot's teddy bear picnic program at benaroya hall (thanks, storm, for the tickets!) with our friends the gruenders. and on sunday, we will welcome back scott, susan and their brand new baby, milo. aidan will get to play with his little cousin. (paul and i like to refer to milo as "aidan's little brother." :) it will be interesting to see how he interacts with an infant.

sorry seems to be the hardest word

for the longest time, aidan has never been able to say "sorry." the funny thing is that he knows when you say it and why-- he just refused to say it. when prompted by me or paul for him to apologize, he'd instantly cover his eyes with his hands or arms as if to shield himself from the shame. it was his version of a wordless "sorry."

it has just been in the last week or so that he will now say, "sorry!" but, as the elton john song-inspired post title implies, it is still hard for him to say. the other day, aidan pinched me when i didn't pick him up. (you wouldn't think such little fingers would hurt, but he's a little crab, i tell ya!.) so i prompted him, "say sorry, mama." to which he replied:

"sorry daddy!" (paul got a laugh out of that)

prompted again, he then said:

"sorry, mickey!"

prompted again, he then said:

"sorry mower!" (that would be his plastic toy mower in our kitchen)

finally, he said "sorry mama" and then went on his merry way.

at least he now says "bless you" whenever you cough, sneeze or blow your nose. so there's hope yet of raising a well-mannered little boy!

taking turns and other new things

this was a banner week for a 'what's aidan learned to do/say' lately.

taking turns. aidan is big on taking turns. aidan's turn, daddy's turn, mama's turn. for the first time, aidan exercised the freedom of choice and decided that it was mama's turn to read him a story before bedtime. "are you sure? don't you want daddy to read to you" i would ask him. "no, mama's turn,' he insisted. i have to admit it felt good to be the chosen one. it used to be that paul and i had a separation of duties-- i help him brush his teeth and paul changes his diaper, puts his pjs on and takes him upstairs for a bedtime story and 'night night.' there are drawbacks, like having it be mama's turn 2-3 nights in a row. even when i was out with girlfriends for dinner the other night, it was "mama's turn." sorry, paul.

birthday! aidan turned two on the 12th of march. we had a small get-together for him last weekend with family. there were a couple of presents from me and paul that he hadn't opened a day or two afterwards. after dinner on tuesday, i asked aidan if he wanted to unwrap the presents. he said, 'birthday! birthday presents!" that surprised me because at the actual gift opening at his party, he was a little cranky and wasn't totally into the opening presents thing.

easter eggs! we picked up aidan from school today and apparently they colored easter eggs as an art project because he had pink dots on his face, arms and a blue-green hand. obviously, more than eggs got dyed-- we have a human easter egg. we tried washing it off at home, but the dye is stubborn and we managed to only make it fade a few shades.

daaaddy! maaama! it used to be that aidan would wake up in the middle of the night or would be less than enthusiastic about going to sleep so he would cry it out a bit and then finally go to sleep. since then, his cries have turned into plaintive cries and screams of 'daaaddy!' and 'maaama!" the first time, it just melts your heart. it still pulls at the heart strings, but somehow your own exhaustion helps temper the guilt and you're able to let him cry it out (after about a minute or two, he finally goes to sleep) or you quickly go to his room, assure him it's okay, and rub his back for a bit to soothe him to sleep.

a seinfeld vocabulary

in the last two weeks, aidan has been picking up phrases, repeating them and using them randomly like mad. something flipped his language switch into overdrive. i have to be careful; he has already been exposed to mommy's litany of swear words. oops.

as responsible parents, paul and i are making sure to teach him 'please,' 'thank you' 'i'm sorry' and all the other polite phrases expected of a well-behaved child. but we're also having a bit of fun with him. hopefully he won't hold it against us.

we started with, "you're kiddin' me!" which sometimes comes out 'you're killin' me,' which is actually funnier.

yesterday, he learned "get out!" ala elaine on seinfeld, complete with the shove. (he doesn't shove very hard; we made it more of a hands on shoulders kind of thing."

perhaps "giddyap" or "salsa" will be next. stay tuned!

brushing teeth

for several months now, aidan will only brush his teeth with mama.

i can't remember exactly how that happened. paul usually does the night-night routine, which included the teeth brushing , diaper changing, and tickling into pajamas. for some reason, aidan pulled the mother of all tantrums because paul wouldn't "let" him do something. so i stepped in and now i am his co-brusher of choice.

here is the routine:

i pick aidan up and go the foot of the stairs.

"is this where we brush our teeth?"

"Noooo..." aidan says.

we then go to the closet, the fridge, the kitchen sink, the laundry room and the garage door before finally stopping at the bathroom. (lately, he'll say "noooo" even if it is the right room, with a sly look on his face as if to test me.)

"do we need this?" (i point to the step stool)

"we need this.: (aidan agrees)

he then climbs the steps and i hand him his cup, toothbrush and toothpaste. he likes to squeeze the toothpaste on his tigger brush, which he does pretty well. he always says, "there you go!" then he asks me to turn on the water.

now since he is only almost two, he isn't the most prolific of tooth brushers, so i give him a chance to do it himself. he's pretty good with the front back and forth routine, but that's about it. so about a minute into it, aidan will hand over the brush and then i get to finish the job while he plays with the water, filling the cup that holds his brush and then taking sips. somehow, i brush his teeth between the sips and the water pouring. he's much better about opening his mouth lately, but it used to be quite a game for him. i found that if i start with brushing his tongue, the rest of the mouth follows.

then, he pours the last of the water and we put the brush and toothpaste back in the cup. sometimes he'll make faces in the mirror or play with the water left in the sink. then, finally, he runs to daddy for his goodnight story-- but not without blowing kisses to mama.

for the next few days, paul will have to do toothbrushing duty while i'm attending a conference. i hope aidan doesn't put up too much of a fight!

it really should be called the Sucky Six

i'm reading "the happiest toddler on the block" right now because i was such a fan of "the happiest baby on the block" and the swaddling techniques we learned. learning to swaddle aidan helped to calm aidan and helped us keep our sanity in those first three months of parenthood.

the funny thing about the toddler on the block book is that dr. karp, the author, compares toddlers to chimps. mainly, because human babies and baby chimps follow the same development up until 18 months and then human babies start to out-develop the chimps with their language skills and whatnot. 

every time i read these kinds of books, i'm struck by how aidan is a textbook example of whatever i'm reading. for instance, dr. karp talks about how there really isn't a "terrible twos." really, the tantrums and behavior associated with the "TT's" begin six months earlier, at age 18 months. (thus the title of this post.) at 18 months, aidan would fall to the floor and cry, go the the stairs and rest his head on a stair to cry, or run off a corner of the house howling and then, as quickly as it blew up, the tantrum disappeared and he was sweet ol' aidan again. 

of course, dr. karp says that while tantrums may taper off, they will rear their ugly heads again, though not nearly as much.

tonight was a good example. we had a late start for dinner because we had to pick up paul's car from the dealership for some routine maintenance. aidan was grumpy. he wasn't hungry. he wanted mickey. NOW. (we watch the mickey mouse clubhouse before he goes to bed.) even after paul walked him over to the couch to get the recording started, aidan was still upset. "yes, i want to watch mickey. wah-wah-wah." complete with tears and sobs. he was getting what he wanted, but he was tired. it was a meltdown, a little one, but a meltdown all the same.

i haven't gotten to the tactics yet of how to "deal" with toddlers and their tantrums yet. i was tempted to skip the beginning pages where dr. karp attempts to explain his theories behind his methods, but i keep thinking i'm going to miss something if i do that.

i'll be sure to post what i've read and whether it's worked. stay tuned!

 

hugs, not drugs

after a week of battling a bug, coughing fits, 10 days of antibiotics and passing a decorative pebble (more on that later), aidan is back in fine toddler form.

a couple of days ago, we picked up aidan from school as usual. on this particular day, he decided not to grab his coat and head out the door. instead, he ran around the room and decided to play peek-a-boo in the corner behind a stack of toddler chairs.

his playmate, lana (who we refer to as "aidan's girlfriend" because she appears to dote on him over the other boys) followed suit. while she was hiding, aidan looked around and asked "where's lana?" we pointed to the corner where he was previously and said, "there she is!"

aidan then walked over to the corner, and with arms outstretched, gave lana a big, cuddly hug which she seems to enjoy.

this was the first time i had ever seen aidan hug anyone that was not "family." it makes me wonder who else he's snuggling with during his school day. hmmm....

Moved by music

When I was about 4-5 months pregnant with Aidan, I was driving home from work and changing the radio stations in the car. Marvin Gaye's song, "Let's Get It On" was playing. Less than a minute later, Aidan moved in my belly. It was his first dance move.

Fast forward to Aidan's baptism. He was five months old. During the service, he sat in awe as he watched the musicians sing. He didn't move a muscle until they stopped singing.

I love that Aidan likes music so much, from the playtunes that come out of his toys to the jingles on t.v. He loves the Kia commercial where the salespeople on the floor sing "So Long, Farewell" from the Sound of Music. No matter what he is doing-- playing, crawling, tossing his shoes, drinking from his bottle-- he will stop and watch this commerical. Sometimes we will sing the song to him, but he doesn't give us the same attention as he does the professionals on t.v.

Lately, Aidan will sing while he plays. You can't make out any words, but he definitely hits high and low pitches, oohs and ahhs-, ba-ba-bas, da-da-das, ma-ma-mas-- and a raspberry or two thrown in for good measure. Sometimes, he will dance and bounce in place. Or, wave his hand and turn his head from side to side in time with his music.

Is this a hint of musicianship to come or just a phase? Only time will tell.

Biting the hand that feeds him

After months and months of teething and drool, Aidan finally cut his first tooth a little over a month ago. He has one single bottom tooth. When he lets me, I'll take a peek inside his mouth and see several other teeth that seem to be ready to pop, but they just hover there, just beneath his gums.

Not having teeth hasn't stopped him from enjoying what the Gerber folks like to call "finger foods." Melt in your mouth veggie puffs, zwieback toast, biter bisquits-- Aidan can obliterate them with just his gums. He's the jaws of life in miniature. Lately, I've been feeding him some of my food at dinner. So far, he's had plain spaghetti noodles, rice (which he mostly just plays with), teriyaki beef (he LOVES that), corn mush from Chevy's and salmon. So far, he is an adventurous eater. I hope this continues!

You wouldn't think that one little tooth could do any harm, but think again! Aidan is still teething, so to soothe his gums any bare finger, forearm or other available body part will do. I've committed to nursing Aidan for a year-- that's only two months away and good thing because guess what else Aidan's likes to bite. (ouch). The other night, we were all playing on the floor. Aidan crawled up to Paul and pulled himself up. He then took a nose dive into Paul's chest and managed to bite Paul's man nipple! "Now you know what it feels like!" I told Paul. But, he had the benefit of cotton fabric to lessen the full effect.

Aidan has also left his mark on his crib (his crib rail is riddled with tick marks and scrapes) and the end of our dining table (where his high chair is) is also marked with his scrapes. He likes to gnaw on our end table in the living room (his fave spot) but we're not worried about it because is metal.

All this destruction and he only has one tooth!