pitchin' a fit

wow. i'm still tired after what happened this afternoon.

aidan had his wellness checkup today. paul and i had to pick him up from daycare-- waking him up from his nap to take him to visit dr. wong. he was in pretty good spirits.

then, we got to the children's clinic waiting room. the last time he was here, he was pretty sick. maybe it he was still groggy. maybe memories of feeling bad came back. whatever it was made him cranky. he wanted to be picked up and then he wanted to be put down, only to ask to be picked up again. he wanted to sit on mommy's lap and then daddy's and then mommy's again. these were not good signs.

then his named was called and we went into the examination room. major fit pitchin' ensued. the nurse, a really nice lady with a three-year-old of her own, somehow got his measurements even though he was writhing and crying hysterically. we had to strip him down to his diaper and he was not liking that at all. once the nurse left, the wait for dr. wong was interminably long. aidan could not be comforted. he was crying so hard he was almost hyperventilating. in between sobs, he managed to tell us he wanted to get dressed and leave;

"shoe?? shoe on? shoe on??" (translation; 'get my shoes on and let's get the hell out of here!')

"shirt-shirt-shirt?? shirt on? pants?" (translation; 'get me dressed and let's get the hell out of here!)

"open door?" (let's get the hell out of here already!)

paul and i were pretty much in a sweat, each taking turns holding and comforting mr. grumpy pants.

i finally ran to the car and got binky and mickey mouse. (we are trying to wean aidan from the binky, limiting it to the car and bedtime, but this was a frickin' emergency!) apparently while i was out doing that, paul found that stroking aidan's face and talking to him softly started to calm him down. 

by the time dr. wong got to us, aidan was the perfect patient. apparently, better behaved than the 10-year-old she had seen before aidan.

by the time we got him dressed and out the door, he was back to his agreeable self. of course, ol' mom and dad were pretty much wiped for the rest of the afternoon. thank god we didn't have to go back to work. and that we won't have to go through this until his next check-up-- when he's three!

and then he was TWO

that's right. my baby is now two. 

it's amazing how fast the 2nd year goes. when your baby is born, it is such a monumental effort to get to that 1-year mark. every week is a milestone. you get through hundreds of diaper changes, feeding sessions, pumping sessions,  worry that he's going to roll over on his stomach when he sleeps, go to doctor's visits every three months, hoping to get past that official milestone where your baby is safe from the dangers of SIDS. you take lots of pictures of every smile and smirk-- real or 'just gas.' the first word, the first crawl, the first piece of solid food, the first steps, the first of many plastic outlet covers that will inevitable break your manicured nail.

you get the picture.

in year two, you're no longer worried about keeping your precious child alive-- you're trying to keep up with them! aidan is a talking, walking, running, jumping, climbing bundle of energy. every day he surprises us with a newly picked-up phrase of facial expression. he is learning free will and choice-- and he's starting to exercise it. it's an amazing and sometimes trying time, but i wouldn't miss it for the world.

i was out of town for work and got back in time to give aidan special birthday hugs, snuggles and bedtime story time. at daycare, they posted his birthday sign on the door and had cookies with the other kids. his lola and lolo picked him up from daycare and had lunch with him and daddy. before picking me up at the airport, dinner was had with nana and papa for more birthday grandparent celebrating. by the time he saw me, you could tell he was a little tired from the day's festivities, but within minutes, he smiled and screamed 'mamaaaaaa!' as if he finally realized i was really home and here to stay! 

we'll be celebrating his birthday this sunday with family. the theme; mickey mouse clubhouse. stay tuned for pictures1

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!

 

nit picking part iii

we brought aidan to daycare today a little earlier than usual, prepared for a long line of kiddies and parents waiting to have their heads examined, so to speak.

nothing. we dropped him off as usual after playing 'push the cars across the round table' with a few of the kids. i guess the waddlers are safe from the nit picking. 

i hope they're able to keep those little buggers at bay. (i'm referring to the nits, not the kids.)

nit picking part ii

when we picked up aidan this afternoon, there was a letter to parents. 10 kids had cases of lice. for the next 7-10 days, they are going to check the kids' heads for nits before you drop them off. eek.

nit picking

oh, man. did we dodge a bullet today.

we dropped off aidan at daycare a little later than usual. we were getting into our good-bye routine when one of the daycare staff came in with rubber gloves on. apparently, a child was found with nits/lice so now all the kids had to be examined.

"since you're both here, i'll do aidan first so that if he has 'em, you can bring him home."

great.

so while she was very gentle about the whole process, aidan (who was already fussy for some reason) did not enjoy having his hair lifted from his scalp in search of the offending nits. we got a quick lesson in nits-- if you see white stuff and you can blow it away, it's dandruff. if the stuff doesn't move, its nits.

lucky for us, aidan has a little dandruff. i've never been so happy to have a child with dry scalp.

i did it!

we picked up aidan as usual on tuesday and he was in the older toddler room. occasionally, they will put aidan there if there are too few teachers to the ratio of kids in the younger toddler (known as the "waddler" room) or if they are short staffed. aidan is one of the older 'waddlers' and since he is turning two next month, i think they are slowing transitioning him into the toddler room. he appears to like the teacher and kids in that room.

anyway, when we picked him up the teacher said he used the potty today. that's why he has the sticker on his hand-- it says "i did it."

we were so surprised we forgot to ask how they got him to "do it!" we've had a potty in our bathroom for a while, but he mostly is interested in standing on it and sitting on it as a chair. he seems to be teetering on the edge of embarking on the potty training journey, but we haven't pushed it. it may be starting now-- i can hardly wait. can we allow ourselves to start imagining life without diapers and wipes?

rock of ages

well,more like pebble, really.

the weekend before i had to go out of town for work, we visited nana and papa for dinner. it was a nice time and we were towards the end of our visit when we suddenly caught aidan grinning mischieviously as he had something in his mouth. we didn't think anything of it since he had been helping himself to peanuts earlier. a quick sweep of his mouth with a finger didn't reveal anything was in there, but his binky was found near a scattered pile of decorative glass pebbles on one of the low tables.

naw, he couldn't have? could he?

it wasn't until monday, when i was in washington d.c./virginia that i got a text from paul around 10 p.m. "mom just called. aidan passed it-- all is well."

what a relief-- you think you can watch your kid's every move and then something like this happens. according to my mom, i swallowed a nickel at his age. luckily for both of us, we got through our experiences unscathed. you can bet that the counters are clear whenever aidan visits papa and nana's house from now on.

when i got home from my business trip, my mom (and aidan) gave me a present. here it is:

i knew that someday i would be a recipient of gifts made by aidan, but nothing that was actually "made" in aidan. ick.

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....

random pix with the new camera

we have a nice camera-- it's a sony that we like to use for special occasions and vacations. but, it's big and bulky, and i like to be able to point-and-shoot and take candids. so, i picked up a cute little canon that is smaller than my ipod, but fast and enables me to take pix without a flash.

i've been playing around with it over the last few days. here are a few pix of aidan being tossed in the air (as only a daddy can do), stomping on the last remnants of snow after last week's storm and scoring a basket with his new indoor hoops.

i'm hoping that having the camera more handy will encourage me to take more pictures of aidan and his antics, as well as whatever wierdness i run into during the ol' 9-5.

making room for "vocal"

every day after school, we get a report card from aidan's teacher telling us how he was, what he did, what he ate and what his favorite activity was-- it also tells us how many hours he napped. his standard report card usually shows that he has been happy, playful, cooperative; that he ate all of his meals; that he took a 2-3 hour nap and that he needs more wipes or diapers. sometimes we'll get a note that says he had fun with art projects or playing outside.

on this day, we got this:




the teacher actually wrote in "VOCAL." At the bottom of the report card, she commented that Aidan learned a lot of new words that day. We still don't know what words. I guess they'll come up in conversation one of these days. I wonder if he blurted out "fork?"

hatin' the high chair

i guess it was only a matter of time. aidan eats all his meals at school sitting at the table in his own chair-- why should home life be any different?

for the past week or so, aidan puts up a fuss when we put him in his high chair. he doesn't want to belted in. he doesn't want his tray attached. uh-uh. no way. get that thing away from me. nooooo!

so the other night, we set up the booster chair we usually cart around with us when we go out. it belts onto any chair or slides into any restaurant booth. it changes our seating arrangement somewhat because now aidan sits at the head of the table with paul and i flanking him on either side.

now who's in charge?

he managed to eat his dinner, but splattered pasta sauce all over the placemats. i'm going to have to pick up some plastic ones with numbers and cartoon characters or something.

this morning, he ate his breakfast at the table like a big boy and exclaimed "all done" after his last bite of cheerios and yogurt.

there goes one more piece of baby furniture to storage.

the "hard drop-off"

we just learned that term today when we attempted to drop off aidan at school today.

due to the snow, lot of kids hadn't made it in yet. he was exciting to go to school this morning, but somehow actually being there pitched him into a tantrum of toddler proportions.

they combined the kids that were there into another classroom other than his regular one until more kids came in. i think that's what set him off. he went running down the hall and we had to carry him back writhing and crying back to the room.

i came into the room just as i heard paul explaining to one of the teachers that aidan usually isn't like this; but he's been on a tear the last few days. the question she has asked (i learned later) was "is aidan usually a hard drop-off?"

i wonder what other daycar/school lingo the teachers use, particularly after the parents leave...

never say never

okay, so many months ago i said "ta-ta" to blogger thinking wordpress was oh-so-much better.

well, it wasn't.

the layouts were clean. the site was always accessible. but, wordpress doesn't allow you to use the cool badges and widgets services like flickr and shoutmix let you create (unless you're hosting your wordpress blog on your own server) which i wouldn't dream of doing.

so, now i'm in the process of manually moving over the posts i have on the wordpress blog because wordpress doesn't have a function to export posts into blogger. (but they do have a tool to import posts from blogger.) bastards.

i won't be able to move comments over, which sucks. sigh.

thanks for taking me back, blogger. i shouldn'ta left ya in the first place.

a preview to the terrible twos

It started last Friday with Aidan not quite his easy-going self-- and he suddenly became a drooling machine. Teething, Part II.

When he first started teething at 4 months, he whimpered and cried, but he was easily comforted with a teething ring and a little extra cuddling.This time around, Aidan knows how to voice his discomfort. Not related to the teething (but the timing sucks) are his temper tantrums. If you don't pick him up right away or he's not able to do something his way, he cries and screams. He'll usually stomp off to a corner or around the dining table to "cool off" and then he comes back, pouting. His latest dramatic trick now has him dropping his head down on folded arms on one of the stairs or leaning up on the garage door with hands covering his weeping face. It lasts less than 20 seconds and then it passes.He should audition for All My Children.

It is hard to watch your child in pain. Because of the teething, he would wake up every 1.5 hours. Paul and I haven't pulled late night duty in a long time and man, talk about painful. 

Aidan LOVES to eat, so it was heartbreaking so see him take a bite of bread, only to cry out in pain because his gums were so tender.Children's Tylenol is a good thing.

I'm happy to report that today, he was in much better spirits-- almost the Aidan we know and love. He ate his yogurt and toast with vigor this morning. He napped twice today. He played and had fun at Robbie's 5th birthday party and managed to have some cake. It was a good day. 

And now, he is asleep-- hopefully for the night.A couple we met at the birthday party today have a 5-year-old girl and a 6-month old boy. We were talking about Aidan's 'terrible two' preview. They said by the time the two's came for for daughter, the 'terrible' stuff was old hat (guess she began her terror early.) They said what people don't tell you about are the Threes-- the kid takes on an attitude, making the two's a breeze.

I can't wait.

what aidan says

momma/mommaydaddy/dad-dee
papa
nana
lolo (comes out "no-no" cuz he hasn't gotten his "L's" down yet)
lola (comes out "oh-wa" cuz of the "L" thing)
banana (nana)
apple (sounds like "bappo")
bagel
more
please (sounds like "preas!")
thank you (sounds like "tat too")
potty
up
down
cool
vacuum
cooking (emphasis on "king" so it sounds like "co-KING" Sometimes is sounds like he's saying "cocaine." Yikes.)
ding (as in "why buy a mattress anywhere else-- ding!")
eat
boobies (yes, those kind)
no
yeah! (like his papa says)
mower

back from the beach

Last week, we were in Cannon Beach for our annual family vacation. Our week-long stay includes the following tried-and-true traditions:

1. We don't get out of the house (usually) until after Noon.

2. We go the Cannon Beach Bakery for coffee and an assortment of yummy pastries. At least once during vacation, Bill will pick up pastries on his way back from church and Paul and I will pick up pastries if we are up and about in the morning. (Easy to do when Aidan gets up at 5:30 a.m.) We end up with doubles of everything. This year, it happened twice!

3. Bill makes amazing french toast using Cinnamon Bread from the Cannon Beach Bakery.

4. We go to the beach (duh). We walk to Haystack Rock and checkout the sea life at low tide. This year, there weren't as many star fish. And, we had two days where we didn't have any wind at all.

5. This is the one week where bacon and eggs are consumed like no other.

6. We visit Paul's favorite Oakley premium dealer, Cleanline Surfshop. They came through for him this year, sending him they're entire inventory (2) of Art Chantry Hi Jinx Oakleys. (His previous pair was stolen. A long, sad story.) They also sent a free t-shirt. Check 'em out-- they are nice people and the owner is cool.

7. We visit the Nike Factory Store in Seaside at the outlet mall. For some reason, that is the only place I can find shoes I like.

8. If it is rainy, we see a movie at the little cineplex in Seaside. This year, Paul and I got to see Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.

New this year:

1. Aidan played on the beach for the first time. (He was only 4 months old last year and he was covered up from head to toe because he was too young for sunscreen.)

2. We watched a lot of Disney Playhouse. (Aidan is beginning to slowly watch things other than commercials.) Little Einsteins. Higglytown Heroes. Choo Choo Soul. And, of course, The Wiggles. Hey Baby. Doodlebops creeps me out. Mickey Mouse's voice is irritating. Oh, but this is about the kids, huh?

Even though the weather was so-so, it was still a fun time. You can see more pictures of our trip on my Flickr.

crib notes

A few minutes ago, Aidan climbed out of his crib for the first time ever. We are still amazed.

We just got back from vacation. We figured he would have a little trouble getting to sleep since he's been sleeping in a twin bed (with a bed rail) for the last week. He was fast asleep when Paul put him in his crib, but he woke up soon thereafter. We decided to let him cry it out for a few minutes before going up and checking on him.

As we sat downstairs in the living room, we noticed that his crying seemed to get not just louder, but closer. We quickly went upstairs to discover that he had climbed out of his crib via the bar stool which he used to shimmy down to the floor. He was crawling around near the closed gate at the top of the staircase crying.

We've removed the breathable bumper around the crib (Paul thinks he used it to give him a boost.) And, we've moved the bar stool and the steps I use when I place Aidan in the crib. Tomorrow, we'll trying lowering the crib to the last notch left. However, I think it may be time to turn the crib into a daybed for our new-found daredevil.

the camera puts on 10 pounds AND a few years

Last weekend, we had our first family portraits taken-- it was a gift Paul gave me for my birthday. I'll post some of the proof shots soon, but I just had to get this one up. This is Aidan at 15 months-- he looks like he's FOUR.