Pictures

Well I am finally posting some pictures for you. It has been a pretty busy week. I've been trying to get my Christmas Shopping done early this year. I have always been Mr. Procrastination, but this year we're going for finished by Thanksgiving. I might actually accomplish it too!

In the meantime, Aiden and I both have some bug, not sure if it is a cold, but it had better not be the Flu since we all got Flu shots. (Daddy has always gotten sick every time he has had a flu shot which is why he has avoided having them, and now he has a flu shot at the pediatricians recommendation and he's sick... go figure).

I'm going to keep this short tonight, and get you right to a couple of new pictures. I am not sure what kind of Face Aiden is making in the first one, I promise he isn't "on anything", Raquel got a free sample size box of Cinnamon Toast Crunch in the mail, and it seemed the perfect size for Aiden, so there are a couple of pictures of him digging in to those. He's also found a new use for one of his Drums, as a hat. And it is COLD in Tennessee, so we have a picture of Aiden all bundled up for the cold weather. Hat and gloves provided by Aunt Nellie.

Ditching the Binkie

From what I have seen and read, it might be one of the toughest transitions that you have to make with a toddler. The trial of getting rid of the pacifier. We have begun the process, and believe it or not, it has been relatively painless. Over the weekend we started by only giving Aiden his pacifier when we were trying to get him down for a nap, over the past three days the only time he has had a pacifier was at night in his crib. It seems to be going well. He is sticking more other things in his mouth, hand, ball, drumstick, dog toys, etc. But he does not seem to be missing the pacifier too much at all.

So we will continue operation ditch the bink and see how it goes. The goal is, I think, completely pacifier free at 18 months. Not sure if we will make that goal, but surely we will be down to only at night and even then only as needed.

We won't be one of those families where a 3 year old child is running around sucking on a pacifier. That may work for some people, but it is not an option for us.

It is getting cold again, and Aiden gets all bundled up for going outside. He's not sure what to think about mittens, but I am sure he will get used to them. We've taken a few pictures and I will try to get those uploaded tomorrow.

More to come... :-)

Molars

We've been thinking for awhile now that Aiden was just getting cold after cold after cold. Not terribly uncommon in children his age, but pretty uncommon for our little boy who was only sic twice in his first year since he was not exposed to the daycare bugs. But for the most part other than one very significant period of cold symptoms including fever, he really didn't act sick except for the huge amounts of stuffiness and snot coming out of him.

Well we ran into some folks the other day who gave us a new clue. Molars. Apparently, when a baby's molars begin to come in this also can be a trigger for congestion and snottiness. So not just the tons and tons of slobber, you also can blame the snot on the new teeth trying to break free.

Aiden had four molars coming in all at once, and sure enough, now that all four have broken through pretty well, his congestion has lessened. He does still have the seasonal allergies, so the snot will never be completely gone, but we're "back to normal". So maybe there is something to the molars thing.

I know I hae been bad about pictures... I need to take some, and it is about time to start working on a Christmas photo/video collection. I'll need to put together more material before I can make that.

Haloween and Check up

So we have a few pictures of our little lion to share with you from Haloween. Overall I think Aiden had a pretty good time, although he was a little overwhelmed by the experience. Our neighbors do a lot of decorating, so there were lots of things for him to look at, as well as the tons and tons of people to check out. We think a few of the decorations that had motion detectors kind of freaked him out a little bit, so that isn't so good. But otherwise a good night. We've experimented a little bit with candy, and he likes anything chocolate, but anything with a colorful coating just ends up with colored slobber all over the place.

Couple of pictures from the night on the bottom... the latter two are him with his grandma and his cousin Dale.

Then today was check up time. Aiden weighed in at 23 pounds 8 ounces, 31 1/2 inches long. This puts him in the 51st percentile on height but only the 30th on weight. They aren't worried about his weight at this point, but if he shows a drop off next time we might have to take a look into that. He's been a finicky eater lately, so that explains a bit. The fact that he isn't speaking any real words yet is a bit of a concern, but the doctor did say that children in bilingual families were usually late language developers, but once they start going they are fluent in both languages, so that works out for the better in the long run.

He got 4 shots today, 3 regular scheduled immunizations and a flue vaccine. Mommy and Daddy have to get flu shots too. Neither of us is very happy about that, as we both have a tendency to get sick after getting the shot and not getting sick when we don't get a shot. But the doctor insists we get it as added protection for Aiden, and we'll do anything for him, so there you have it.

As you would expect we had a bit of a grumpy gus from the shots this evening. We'll have to wait and see if he is up in the middle of the night tonight. Usually he does not sleep through on the night after shots, so we'll have to wait and see. Note to self for future reference, not a real good idea to take the baby to get his shots and then take him to league bowling night 4 hours later. :-)