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. :-)

Still here

Yes, we're still here. It's been a busy couple of weeks so I have had a tough time getting to the blog and posting. Aiden has a never-ending cold. He got over the part where he was running a fever, but he is constantly stuffed up and having a rough time breathing, so we don't have lots of good pictures, or stories to share with you at the moment. I will finally share pictures of him in his Halloween costume since we are just a few days away. He seems to really enjoy being a little lion.

Got a cute video tagged on the end here. Aiden played Karaoke Revolution on our PS2.... must see video.

Hopefully we will have some good pictures from Halloween over the weekend for you, although it is awfully cold here already so we'll have to see if we make it outside or not. As Aiden gets better we should have more pictures and stories to share with everyone. Next week is Aiden's 15 month check up, so I will make sure to post after that and update all of his vitals.

Till then enjoy these couple of pictures and the singing video.

Dancing Machine

We just happened to catch a children's song on Nick jr. as we were finishing one program on the DVR and heading for the next. Aiden took to it immediately, so much so that we had to get the camera, rewind the tv, and capture this video. Thank God for pause and rewind live television. LOL

I think the video speaks for itself.

The Park

We made it to the park on Thursday (after nap time). Aiden had a really good time exploring everything. He loved the swing, and the slide, and the wood chips. Yeah... he had to pick up all the wood chips on the ground and put them somewhere else (especially in other parents' hands).

We spent about an hour and a half at the park, and Aiden enjoyed every minute, climbing all over everything, sliding down the slides, falling down and scaring daddy to death, but just getting up and continuing on. I had to let him keep his pacifier, because if his pacifier wasn't in his mouth he was trying to shove wood chips in.

The pictures and videos probably demonstrate the fun he had out there better than words.

I will say, the park can be a pretty vicious place, parent wise. I witnessed several parents get pretty unhappy with each other. Including one bout where one mom randomly went over and started rummaging through another mom's diaper bag. Then she got all indignant when the owner of the bag was upset about her invasion of the other woman's property.

The other thing I noticed, was the desire to tell some people how to parent, and the battle you have to wage to keep your mouth shut. For instance, there was a little girl, probably about four years old, who fell down on the sidewalk. Her mother was (I think) sitting at one of the picnic tables chatting with some other moms while her little girl bawled her eyes out. I don't know if the girl was bleeding or not, but from the look of the fall, I would imagine she at least had some scraped knees. Aiden even walked by and looked at her to try to see if she why she was crying, but the mom didn't come to the girl's rescue, letting her lay there bawling. Who am I to say anything, but geeze.... call me overprotective, but I hope there never comes a time where I am desensitized to Aiden's cries so much that I ignore him when he might be bleeding.

We went back to the park today and took mommy with us. It was a good time once again, although we didn't get to spend as long since we had to go across town for bowling. But we had a good time, and mommy was able to chase Aiden around some so daddy wasn't quite so worn out.

The Best Laid Plans....

Are often foiled by an Afternoon nap.

Yes, with an absolutely picture perfect fall day outside, I had plans all set out to take Aiden for his first visit to the local park/playground and see what kind of trouble he could get into. I was going to leave about 45 minutes earlier than I usually leave to head to work and drop him off to mommy, head to the playground and let him run all over the place, and then drop off an exhausted baby to mommy, hopefully earning a full night's sleep in return.

Unfortunately, a baby's need for an afternoon nap trumped my grand plans. Aiden fell asleep about 30 minutes before I would have needed to start getting ready for our trip to the park, and slept until it was the time I usually start getting ready for work. So we'll have to try the park idea again tomorrow, or maybe Friday if we go somewhere else tomorrow (like the zoo).

Aiden is getting over his second cold. Daddy got strep and prolly passed on something to the little one, and it showed itself as a cold for him. Babies sure can produce a whole heck of a lot of snot. As was the case last time he was sick, his entire sleep cycle has been turned upside down, and mommy and I have not gotten a whole lot of sleep for the past week. He'll have a decent night, but that is followed by a really bad night. Last night he got up at 3am and was wide awake until nearly 5am. *Sigh*

A couple of new fun and exciting things Aiden has picked up.

He now has found the power button on the front of the tv, and the associated red light. He thinks it is loads of fun to go up and hit the button repeatedly and watch the red light (and the TV if the cable box is on) turn on and off. It's funny, so long as he doesn't do it during an Ohio State Football game.

He's the crowd entertainment during out employee bowling league on Monday nights. Of course the bowling alley has loud music playing and since Aiden can dance to anything, he dances for everyone there at the bowling center. It is really tough to bowl when you have to keep passing a baby back and forth, and follow him all around the lanes keeping him out of people's way, but it is funny too, so worth the effort.

It isn't new for Aiden to decide to unroll the toilet paper, but now he has figured out how to take the roll off of the dispenser. In our master bath that means a pretty heavy iron bar, which he has taken to banging everything with. It is making shower time for me very interesting as I try to decipher the sounds of what he is hitting to know if it is something he could break or not. So far so good on that front.

No pictures today, we've not taken any of sick Aiden. As he is getting better we'll get some good ones. And if we head for our first trip to the park this week we'll make sure to get photos of that for you!