Aiden goes to the Zoo

So it was a absolutely beautiful day here in Nashville, so I decided Aiden was going to go on his first trip to the Zoo. I had only been to the Nashville Zoo once previously, and several new exhibits have been opened. Our Zoo is a beautiful well laid out place, and the first time I was there I thought it would be a good place to just go for a walk. An annual membership only costs $55 and will get me, the wife, and Aiden in as many times as we like for a year. My goal is to get down there once a week or more to go for a stroll and see the animals. It gives me a chance to get some needed exercise, and a chance to get Aiden out of the house and experiencing animals, and other people. He was more interested in the other people that were all around him, rather than the animals way off in the distance. But it was still a lot of fun. The pictures below are of Aiden staring down a meerkat. A couple of pictures of us in the bird Aviary, where I actually managed to get one of the birds on my hand, but it flew off before I could get it up close to Aiden for a picture. And the two of us outside the elephant exhibit. There are three elephants in the background of that shot, but they are too far away to actually see them in the picture.

All told we spent about 2 hours down there and uncle Jonathon came along and pushed the stroller while I carried Aiden, and took the pictures for us. Good times had by all. Now hopefully he will sleep all the way through the night after such an exciting day.

Checking In.

No, Sorry... no video's for you today. But I wanted to pop in and say howdy to anyone who makes a point of checking this site on a regular basis. I know it has been over a week since my last update... It just seems that things keep getting busier and busier. You would think that with only working 15 hours a week I would be able to find the time to sit down and type up a update once in awhile. But the fact is, Taking care of Aiden really is a full time job in its own right. You know they always say that, but until you have done it, it really doesn't hit you.

People without children can sit back and go "you stay at home with your kid? Sheesh, what a life!" And that is kind of the way I thought about it before Aiden joined us, think of all the free time you will have. But the truth of it is, at almost 9 months, you can't let the child out of your site for a minute or he will have fallen and bumped his head, or gotten into the dog's food, or who knows what else. With as few naps as our little one takes it is hard to get the laundry done, let alone do much of anything else. I haven't gotten to go golfing in eons, and the little things you used to just do "whenever" now have to be planned out around the baby's schedule. And heaven forbid you get home with a load of grocieries, bring the baby in, unpack everything, and realize you forgot the butter. Running back out just isn't as simple as it once was.

Not that I would trade any of it for anything. Being a parent rocks! I just didn't know what I was getting into way back when. It's an adjustment. It really is.

All that to say that yes I still have videos I need to upload, and yes more pictures will be coming, but I will just have to get to them when I can get to them. It is hard to set deadlines when your day is filled with the smiling face of a nine month old. :-)

Update

It is well past time I got these photos up from the rest of Aiden and Daddy's journey last week. It has been a pretty busy week since we got back home, so getting time to update things has been kind of tough. So the first set of pictures are from our visit with Daddy's Dad, and then a few more from visiting Aiden's Mimi. There is video, but I will have to go through that and figure out what Blogger will let me upload in a day or two.

Right now our big project is getting Aiden to sleep in his own room. Yeah, we're finally doing it. It's tough because we kept him with us through the acid reflux and exzema, primarily so that we would feel like we were getting some sleep since we just had to get up and walk a couple of feet to the crib and get him settled down. But then suddenly we have an 8 month old who is not sleeping through the night and has not spent any measurable amount of time in his own room.

So, everyone has different theories on getting baby to sleep in their own room. It basically boils down to two general ideas, the "cry it out" or Ferber method and the no tears method. After very little research, but lots of advice from friends we opted for the Ferber method. We started the process on Monday night, unfortunately things didn't go so well, as daddy thought he would help mommy get some sleep by taking his book and reading in the chair next to Aiden's crib while he cried it out. An hour long marathon cry ensued, until Aiden finally gave in to exhaustion and fell asleep.

The following night we went with the so called plan, putting him down, sleepy but awake, and walk out of the room. 5 minutes after he starts crying, go in and comfort him and settle him down, repeat this 5 minute process until he falls asleep, second night is 10 minutes, and so on.

Well I can't tell you how each individual night has gone, but tonight I put him down, he cried for about3 minutes and has been quiet ever since. Last night he cried for about 10 minutes before quieting down... then I made the mistake of going to take a peak and make sure he was okay, he saw me and started bawling.

Each night we have gotten him down somewhere between 10:30-11:30 and he has slept until about 5:30 each morning, with the exeption of Saturday morning when he slept until 6:30. He may have slept later on Friday as well, but a HUGE Lightning crash at 5:30 woke him up and scared him.. we're trying not to give in and bring him over to our bed in the morning for more sleep, but that thunderstorm warrented a little extra attention. Saturday morning after a bottle at 6:30 we let him cry it out again in his crib until he fell back asleep and slept until 9. So we are getting there.

Hopefully before too long we'll have that baby who sleeps blissfully for 11-12 hours straight in the night. I dare to hope. :-)

Enjoy the pictures!!