Learning about Christmas

We were at Ariel's for dinner. Aiden was looking at her manger when he points at the baby Jesus, "Baby?"

"Yep, that's a baby."

He points at the Virgin Mary, "Mommy?"

"Yep, that's a mommy."

Then he throws his hands up in the air, "Where's Daddy?!"

Uhhhhhh. That's a little tricky.

Parenting Stories

When Aiden and I get in the car in the mornings to go to daycare/work, I let him bring a cup of water and a snack cup of dry cereal.  He usually has cereal leftover that he eats during the ride home.  That way he's not miserably cranky when we get home and I have a minute to make dinner before a meltdown.  The water, however, is generally too hot to drink in the evening after a day baking in the car.  But the other day, he had Goldfish crackers for some reason and he was asking for a drink of water.  I felt bed for him with his dry, cracker mouth so I tested out his water.  It was cloudy that day, so the water was only warm.  I decided to go ahead and let him have a drink.  I handed him the cup and told him he could have a drink of it, but it was hot.

He took a drink of the water, took the cup out of his mouth and stared quizzically at it for a minute.  Then he looks at me and says, "Coffee?" 

The kid thinks any hot beverage is coffee.  Cracks me up every time.

Continuing with Aiden's tendency to generalize everything, he thinks all skulls are pirates.  He has a book about pirates and we've watched Pirates of the Caribbean a few times.  He's noticed the skull and crossbones on the black pirate flag, so now he associates it with pirates.  With Halloween being right around the corner, there is an abundance of skulls around.  He is constantly screaming, "Pirates!"  I look around for a pirate only to find a skull of some sort.  At least I know what he's talking about now.

He also wants to go to the store every day after daycare.  Sometimes when I need just a few items, I'll run by Target on my way out of town.  Aiden loves it.  I'm not sure why.  I guess we frequently stop in the toy section for a birthday present and he gets to play with everything.  Maybe that has something to do with it. 

To go to the store we have to pass a statue.  So when he gets in the car, he starts screaming, "'Tore! 'Tatoo!"  Most of the time, I have to say, "No, we're going to go past the trains and then go home."  Statue and store, or trains and home.  Funny what my life has reduced to.  ;)

ABC's

I have some photos I really want to share.  Since I didn't have time to load them last night, I'm going to show you a fun video instead.  Hopefully I'll find the time and energy to get them up tonight.  Bahhhh...

The ABC's are a big part of my life right now.  Aiden sings the alphabet all the time (several sections of letters are mushed together, but he does pretty good).  He has toys that sing the alphabet.  And there are lots of toys and books around the house that teach him the alphabet.  I'm just going to bring you into my world a bit.

The Alphabet 2 from n9ve on Vimeo.

Imbeciles

Yesterday when I was driving home from work with Aiden, I had a moment of road rage.  I was in the middle lane, coming up on a PT Cruiser that was following a big rig in the right lane.  RIGHT as I was about to pass them, the PT pulls in front of me.  No warning.  I slam on my brakes and mutter, "Really??"  I check for cars over my shoulder in the left lane, see no one coming, so I pull over into the left lane.  The PT pulls in front of me AGAIN.  "REALLY?!  UGH!"  I slam on my brakes AGAIN as the PT driver looks at me in his side mirror.  I check over my right shoulder for oncoming cars, I flip on my blinker and as I'm turning back forward the PT SLAMS on his brakes.  Dude.  Are you trying to kill us? 

At this point, I have to swerve into the middle lane to avoid an accident.  As I'm passing the wacko on the right, he throws the car into the left exit lane.  GAH.  So glad we made it out of that alive.

A minute later, I'm in the right lane two miles from our exit.  There's almost no one in that lane, so I decide to pass on the right.  No reason to cross two lanes to pass a guy in the middle lane, just to get back over in that right lane for my exit.  But as I'm getting ready to pass the guy in the middle, he speeds up, so I can't pass him.  At the same time, a truck pulls onto the entrance ramp.  I try to gas it to avoid both vehicles, but there wasn't enough time.  So again, I have to slam on my brakes. 

From the back seat: "Really?"

Aiden decided to put his two cents in about all these dumb drivers.  EXCELLENT.

I swear, I am not usually a brake slammer.  I generally drive about 70 mph.  I know that is above the normal posted speed on the interstate of 65 mph, but in my defense, at least a third of the other vehicles on the road are staying up there with me.  I just had a particularly crazy drive home.

Word of the Week

Aiden has recently begun using a very annoying word.  "Huh?"  And it's not like he uses it just one time.

"Aiden, can you come sit at the table please?  It's dinner time."

"Huh?"

"Can you please come sit at the table?"

"Huh?"

"COME HERE."

"Huh?"

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

The other night, Travis was getting Aiden dressed in his pajamas so I could hear them through the baby monitor.  Aiden said something that I couldn't quite decipher over the radio waves.

Travis' response, "Huh?"

Aiden then replies, "Huh?"

Now I know where he gets it from.

Mickey the Mommy

Aiden has recently begun calling us Tabis and Mickey. We would prefer to go by Daddy and Mommy, so we were contemplating on how to handle the situation. We came up with the following resolution: 1) Start calling each other Mommy and Daddy all the time. 2) Ignore him when he calls us by our birth names.

Yesterday I picked up Aiden from daycare and we were only a couple blocks away when Aiden quietly says, "Mickey?" I wasn't sure if he said 'Mickey' or 'Mommy', so I waited a moment.

"Mickey?"

Silence from my end.

"Mickey?"

Again with the silence.

"Mickey?? Mickey??? Mickey?!?! MICKEEEEEEYYYYY!!!!"

Silence.

"Mommy?"

"Yes, Aiden?"

This one's all over the place

So I think I'm pretty much recovered from whatever that two-week long cold was that I had. I'm still dealing with some drainage, as is Travis, which means I probably have a couple more weeks of this nastiness. But at least I don't feel like hell anymore.

Travis didn't know what to do with himself now that the patio is finished. We are taking a break from the yard renovation work so that he and my dad can go over the final plans for the wall. To keep himself busy in the meantime, he bought some cedar and is building an ice box for us to leave on the patio.

I can think of other things he could do to keep himself busy (clean the bathroom, vacuum, dust, etc), but at least he's doing something useful. When he's finished, I'm going to try to find some sort of metal decoration to nail to the front of the box. I'm sure Travis would like to put the state of Texas on the front. I'm going to have to veto that.

Ramdomness: Yesterday, Travis' co-worker sent this picture of Travis with the caption "Squirrel Master".



I am continuing to feel more and more rested. It would probably be better if I would go to bed by 10, so I'm going to make an effort to do that, at least during the week.

Aiden keeps learning to do more and more everyday. It's exhausting really. Here are all the things he's learned to do in the past month:

• Climb out of his travel crib


• Climb on top of the dresser in his room (I had to take everything off his dresser)


• Stand on the railing that lines his bed (so he can see out the window to what we're doing in the yard)


• Open his bedroom door (but he can't unlock it yet, so that's a plus)


• Open the back exterior door

Do you see how this can be exhausting? He got a hold of the baby powder that was on top of the dresser after he figured out how to get up there. This is what Travis found when he went in to find out what Aiden was doing:

Here are a few of the things he's been doing lately that I see in a more positive light (meaning NOT exhausting):

• Walk up and down the stairs without a helping hand (There is a downside to this - he can now jump off his bed and futon, shaking the entire house.)


• His vocabulary has gone through the roof recently. He says things like, "Callaway's barking," "I break it," "Look Mommy! A jungle!" (when point to the trees on the side of the road)


• He's in the process of learning how to do regular puzzles, as opposed to knob puzzles.

He has also shown a recent interest in ONE movie. All of my friends with kids a little older than Aiden have complained about their child having an obsession with a certain movie. That means that one gets played over and over again, causing the parent to go insane with Pixar-overload. Aiden's current favorite is Robots. I think it's a cute movie, so I haven't gone completely bat shit over it. Yet.

Maah!

Ever since the time change, the sun has moved back directly in front of us for the drive into work every morning. That means Aiden SCREAMS until I get the sun visor up in front of him. I got lucky and it was cloudy a couple days this week, so I didn't have to swerve like a madman trying to one handedly unfold the visor and set it in place.

On Tuesday, during the drive in, we had the visor in place while Aiden read a book. That kept him entertained while his view of the road was obstructed. He was quietly reading, when he sweetly asks from behind his wall, "Momma? Momma?" Ugh, adorable.

He has been so great since his four molars broke through the gums. He still has his moments, but that is totally doable. I will take that over 24/7 angry cries ANY DAY. His molars are still pushing up, so there are times when he needs a little Ibuprofen to quiet the random outbursts of tears. He likes to play by himself again, which is wonderful. It makes preparing dinner much easier for Travis and I.

I have noticed lately that Aiden likes to ball up his blankets and cuddle up on the pile on his tummy. Tuesday night I talked with Travis about putting a pillow in bed with him. I'm pretty sure he's past the suffocating-in-his-sleep stage, but we are still worried about him using such an item to help propel himself out of his crib. I understand that IS a possibility. We went for it anyway. We found the flatest pillow we could and through it in one end of the crib. He LOVES it. He just curls up on his tummy, head on the pillow. I'm sure it's a nice change from his hard, flat mattress.

Just within the past month, I have noticed a few developmental increases in Aiden. He is suddenly able to hold a crayon like you normally hold a pencil to write, as opposed to the caveman grip he used to do. He also is able to scoop yogurt out of the cup and feed himself with a spoon. It's still a big mess, but he is getting so good at it. The only downfall with that is he absolutely refuses help from us (like when he gets to the hard-to-reach bottom bit).

Aiden has also started to copy words we say. I can point to something and repeat the name of the object, then sometimes he says it too. Of course, it's Aiden's version of the word, but it is still obviously an attempt to copy me. Just the other day he said "maah" for milk. That was huge for me because I had noticed that he has made no effort to SAY the word for anything we taught him the hand sign for. Milk is one of those. Now he makes the hand signal AND says "maah, maah".

He's growing into such a cute little guy! I love it!

Aiden: 14 Months and Growing

This kid is OUT OF CONTROL! I just mentioned to Alexa the other day that there are so many small steps he is making in his mental growth that are not really blogworthy. But! Maybe if I put a few of them together into one post, it will be worth reading.

First, I have really been meaning to get a photo of Aiden with Mr. Lion. This photo was taken during his nap on the ride to Louisiana this weekend. This stuffed animal is a gift from Rachel that is just the perfect size for Aiden to carry around and sleep with. When he gets tired, the first thing he does is search for Mr. Lion. Lately, he's been chewing on his face and mane, which leads me to wonder if those 1-year molars might be working their way out.

Here is a short list of words Aiden uses on a fairly regular basis. Although, they are all his form of the word. No perfect English just yet...

• Shoes
• Bye
• Light (as in the one on the ceiling)
• Momma/Dadda
• No (and the head shake to go with it)
• Yes (sounds like 'nine' though - weird)
• Callaway

When he's hungry, he does the hand sign for hungry. He likes to meow at the cats. And whenever he farts or poops, he waves his hand in front of his face and says pssshhew! Occasionally he'll copy a word I say, but he hasn't picked them all up in his daily usage so far.

Aiden has two books that have sounds and hand movements to follow along with and he is excellent at that. His favorite includes a bunch of animal sounds that he copies to the best of his ability. The other is a 'wiggle your fingers, touch your nose' type of book. He steadily amazes me with his consistent learning.

Pointing has also become a favorite game with our son. He points at everything and usually says "ooo" at the same time. I try to figure out what he's pointing at and relay the proper word to describe it. Although, sometimes I'm pretty sure it's just a distraction method he uses when we're trying to get him to do something he doesn't want. Like when I say, 'let's go change your diaper' and Aiden points behind me at something that must have my attention now. Ha!

This past Saturday, Aiden was ecstatic to find Travis at home when he woke up in the morning. I was holding Aiden and we walked into the bathroom to watch Daddy in his morning ritual (brushing teeth, cologne, hair, etc). Travis and I were crying from laughing so hard when Aiden copied his entire hair routine: splash water in hair, squirt gel in hands, smear gel over hands, run hands through hair. Aiden copied every step along the way.

What to Expect the Toddler Years told me to expect our toddler to start copying us soon. It was right.

There are a zillion more small things, but I won't bore you with hours of reading on my 14-month old. I just wanted to put it out there how much fun it is to raise a kid. Constant amazement.

Freight Train

The house I grew up in had train tracks that ran through the backyard. As a parent, the thought of that stresses me out to no end. Apparently my parents were numbed to the idea since they moved in before I was born. I'm sure it helped that they taught us to respect the trains.

When Ariel and I were little, we used to run into the backyard when a train stormed through and scream at the top of our lungs. The rumble of the train would drown out our screams and it was exhilarating. No one ever told us to be quiet when we screamed as a train passed. We could be as loud as we wanted without any consequences. If we were feeling extra zealous, we would run to the edge of the hill that the tracks stood on and make a motion with our hand like you do to make a semi driver honk his horn. Most of the time, the train honked back. Excellent memory.

I like to think Aiden's getting a little taste of that every time I vacuum.

Vacuum Fun from Nicolette Ward on Vimeo.

Bad babies go to jail

I only get to hear the word 'mama' out of Aiden's mouth when he is upset, and even then it is far and few between. 'Dada' on the other hand, has a regular show in Aiden's speech. NOT FAIR.

Baby Jail from Nicolette Ward on Vimeo.