ROUTINE!?

Are we finally starting to see the emergence of a Routine in the baby’s schedule? It sure seems that way. Aiden has started working into a pretty good schedule of going to bed somewhere between 9-10pm and sleeping (with a grump or two in the middle) until about 8am. At that point he has a bottle and plays until about 9:30-10am when it is time for a morning nap. Daddy usually curls up on the couch with him and we nap together until 10:30-11 when it is time for breakfast. Either a thing of veggies or fruit and about ¼ cup of Oatmeal Cereal and it is time to play some more. Another nap around 1, and 2:30 is time for lunch, same menu as breakfast, but reverse if he had fruit for breakfast he gets veggies for lunch. He’s added an afternoon bottle, usually about an hour or so after his lunch, and dinner is between 6-7. Maybe another brief nap before he gets a bedtime bottle around 9-9:30 and starts all over again.

This has started to establish over the past week or so, and while he has a bad night or two for the most part he is sleeping pretty well. Things are looking up.

God has a way of sending us little reminders of how lucky we are. As much as Aiden has seemed to have issues with his eczema and acid reflux, he is really a great baby. Coming in to work today I saw some people wandering through the resort with a young boy probably no more than 18 months old who was strapped into a wheelchair, he was obviously happy and full of life, and he greeted me as I walked down the hall, but I couldn’t help but think those parents sure weren’t expecting that when they found out they were pregnant. My thoughts and appreciation go out to parents whose children demand more than they were prepared to expect. I am not sure if I would be as capable as many of them are. Our little one is perfect. He is healthy and energetic and I am thankful every day for that. As much trouble as it seems he can be throughout the day, he really is wonderful, and when I get home from work and he is asleep, I can’t wait for the next morning so I can hold him and play with him and see what kind of new things he is ready to accomplish.

More Video!

Got three videos for you tonight...

First is Aiden taking a few hesitant steps. He doesn't do it on a regular basis yet, but every now and then we can get a couple of steps out of him.

Second one is Aiden Clapping. He discovered this talent on Saturday, and has been clapping ever since... it is pretty cute.

Finally, a 2 minute video of Aiden playing Hide and Seek in our throw blanket. This is a very funny video, we like it a lot.

Enjoy!!

A couple of milestones

We've had a couple of milestones to brag abut really quickly. Both happened on Wednesday...

First mommy and I were each on one of the couches in the living room, when Aiden stood up on his own, and took three hesitant little steps. He hasn't repeated the performance yet, but we count that as his "first step" all on his own. Next week he'll be running... Yikes!

He also made it up the stairs completely on his own for the first time Wednesday, a feat he has since repeated several times. Now each time he goes up the stairs one of us is standing behind him very cautious to make sure he doesn't fall. But yesterday morning I was sitting and watching television while he played in the middle of the room. I saw him head over toward the front door (to pull the dog's tail) so I turned back to the tv. I look back in that corner, and no Aiden. I start looking around and Oh dear, he is halfway up the steps. So we're having to put the baby gate at the bottom of the stairs to make sure he doesn't go on any field trips on his own. For the most part he doesn't try to go up the stairs if one of us is not upstairs for him to go find, but yesterday for some reason he thought it would be a great idea.

videos

Photos?

So we have a collection of photos from about Mid April through Today. They are in relatively close to chronological order, but maybe not entirely.

Today Aiden went to the swimming pool for the first time. He enjoys the bath so much now that we got him some little swimmers and took him to the pool. Obviously he really enjoyed that adventure too!

Videos to Hopefully follow!

9 month's old! Where'd the time go?

So after must anticipation and build up, here are three videos from our no longer quite so recent road trip. Sorry it has taken so long to get to these, there just always seems to be something else that needs to be done. I am going to TRY (no promises) to do a photo update tomorrow as well. It is all I can do to upload 150mb of video to Blogger tonight.

As for current events, well, Aiden had his 9 month check up last week. Everything seems to be fine, he is 20 pounds 12 ounces and 28 inches long. He is hitting all of his milestones that he should be and the doctor is happy with how he is doing. We go to the dermatologist on Thursday (Finally) top hopefully get some better answers about his Eczema.

Aiden can stand on his own without support for anywhere from 2-3 seconds to up to about 30 seconds at a stint now, and it won't be too terribly long before he takes those first shuffling steps. He creeps all the way around our living room, going from the couch to the end table then crawling over to the next item in line and standing up and creeping along that. We've got most every cabinet latched now but he still is finding ways to get into everything and anything he isn't supposed to be in to.

Otherwise we've been keeping pretty busy, mommy had surgery for her hearing last week and we all had a week at home together while she recuperated. We used the time to do a laundry list of house projects that have been needing to be done for awhile. The big project which will be ongoing for awhile is getting our yard up to par. We're not terribly good gardeners, and the people who owned our house previously had planted a ton of stuff that has just kind of gone to wild in the three years we have been here. So we took some time and cleaned out some things that needed to go including a dead tree in our front yard, and replanted some new stuff. With all of the plants in our yard, all we did was one small section for now, but we hope to tackle one little section each week for a few weeks and get it all knocked out. While we were working on the lawn Aiden sat on a blanket and watched us. At this point the lawn is still too brown and prickly for him to want to play in the grass, so he crawled from edge to edge of the safety of the blanket, but refused to crawl off of it. that was pretty funny.

For our video entertainment today we have two videos from Mimi's house, him doing some of his favorite activities, banging on things and making loud noises. And one video from Granddad's house where he discovered that tearing up newspaper was lots of fun and leaves your hands a pretty cool black color.

Enjoy!