Best customer service!

I had such a great customer service experience with an online store, I had to share it. I had purchased two XL sleep sacks for Aaron on BabyCenter. I had signed up for their e-mails when I was pregnant - they have a great website that tells you what is going on inside your womb each week and afte the baby is born, they tell you about the developmental stages for your baby's age. And they have an online store.

The sleep sacks arrived a week after I ordered them and I threw them in with his laundry. It wasn't until I was folding them to put away that I noticed that one was XL, but one was Large. I already have two in size Large and Aaron is growing out of them. I was annoyed that I hadn't double-checked the sizes before throwing out the packages and washing them. But I contacted customer service to see if I could exchange the item anyway.

I e-mailed on Sunday. I had a response within hours. They apologized for the mix-up and said they would send the correct size out asap as long as it was still in stock. And the one I got by mistake? They didn't want to inconvience me by having me return it. It's mine to keep, give away, donate, or toss out. Well, it's a great sleep sack and we want to have more kids, so I'll just hold on to it for now. I was so thrilled with their service, I placed another order with them that night. I was actually shopping around online for something, but they had the item I wanted and you just can't get better customer service than that.

Another long week

Aaron's symptoms never seemed to become a full blown cold and have mostly gone away. But it seemed to be compounded with teething. And with all 16 of his baby teeth, the only ones he has left are the 2 year molars which I suspect hurt like the dickens. He has had so much trouble sleeping this past week - trouble going to sleep one night, waking up early another night, or just keeping us up for long stretches at night. And I noticed that he is chewing on his pacifiers and his sippy cup spouts on the sides of his mouth like when his molars came in.

Frozen blueberries seemed to help, and the nights we give him Tylenol before bed seem to be the nights he manages to get to sleep. Before waking up crying several hours later. If we are irritable with you, it is because we aren't getting long enough stretches of sleep. I don't know how our friends Mont and Jessica survived with their little Gabe's sleep problems for so long. After only 10 days, I feel constantly on edge and anxious. At least during the days he is happy and playful.

A day at the beach

We took Aaron to the beach for his first real beach day. I say "real" because he has been to the beach before, but he was too young to remember and he didn't get to play in the sand. But I know he likes playing in the sand and I know he likes water, so it was no surprise that the beach was a hit.

At first, he wasn't sure what to make of it. There was a lot to take in. Although the sun peeked out for about 2 minutes, it was mostly overcast and in the mid-70s. And the water was pretty cold. Despite that, there were plenty of families out, dotting the shore with blankets, towels, umbrellas, tents, and people. Plus there were birds and kites in the air. Aaron didn't know what to look at first. But he wasted no time getting his hands in the sand.

After playing in the dry sand near our towel for a few minutes, we took him out to check out the water. It was cold, but your feet get used to it pretty fast.

At first we tried to keep him on his feet in the water, but later, he pooped out and just wanted to sit. So we moved to a spot further back where Thom dug a semi-circular moat around Aaron that the ocean occasionally filled with water.
Since it was overcast and windy, it was a little chilly, so we didn't stay too long. It seems like we spent more time making sure we had everything we needed to go, applying sunscreen, and then rinsing sand off under the beach showers afterwards, than we spent actually on the beach. But it was fun. We definitely need a sand box.

We took a short video:

And a bunch of pictures:

Why do I buy toys?

Cruising

We got Aaron a Radio Flyer wagon push toy to help him along with his cruising. Sometimes I push him around in it, which he also likes, but mostly he enjoys pushing it around with Bear, and two dolls from when I was a kid.



Sometimes he pushes it backwards. (You can see his lower teeth here - those canines are almost completely in now.)

He's gotten pretty good at cruising, but still falls quite a bit. Sometimes, he'll fall and just keep pushing the wagon on his knees.

Clara Grace!

My dad just sent me these photos of my new niece! She is adorable. My mom is staying with my brother and his wife for a few days to help out. Although personally, I don't know what they would need help with - she obviously sleeps all the time! Just look at these precious pictures!

Music

Aaron loves music. He especially loves children's songs that have hand motions. Twinkle Twinkle Little Star being one of his favorites. He will often do the hand motions for a song he wants us to sing. But as soon as you do two lines of the song (if that much), he immediately starts doing motions for another song. If you overheard me following along with him, you'd hear something like this:

"Up above the world so high, like a diamond in the...Head, shoulders, knees and toes, knees and...The wheels on the bus go round and round, round and round...."

When we had Aaron, we were determined that he would listen to our music, and most of the time he does and he responds to certain songs, usually songs with a percussive beat. But we have a music service that allows us to stream music over the Internet, including the ability to pick specific songs and artists. So after taking him to some sing-alongs and seeing how he reacted to classic children's songs, I looked for them on our music service. It turns out that Raffi sings all the classics and then some (he's probably most famous for his song Baby Beluga). I never thought I'd be playing Raffi for Aaron, but you should see the way his face lights up when he hears the songs he likes. This is a video I took of him when he was doing some hand motions along with his favorite songs when he was with Kim on day. They play the whole tune once before singing it which seems to throw him off, but you can see him doing the "twinkle twinkle" part with his hands and then making a diamond with his fingers - just not at the right time.

Sometimes, Thom dances with Aaron to music we like. I came out to find them dancing, and Aaron "singing" along one day, so I captured it on video:

You might recognize the song - it is from one of the Caveman Geico commercials.

General Update (with Pictures!)

I got in trouble with my mother for posting an update without pictures a few weeks ago. Which is why I haven't posted anything in awhile - I either didn't have pictures or hadn't had a chance to take them off the camera and get them ready to post online. Many thanks to Aaron's nanny Kiim for taking these pictures. So here you go, mom, an update with pictures. (Although I'm not sure when she'll read this - I suspect she is over playing with her newest granddaughter, Clara Grace who was born 8/11/08.)




Despite his numerous toys, Aaron's favorite things are still his coffee cans - which have so many uses, and the occasional cardboard box that comes his way. We still stack coffee cans (sometimes Aaron will stack 2 or 3 - after that it is too high for him to add any), but Kim has also turned some of the cans into more elaborate toys. One is covered in red construction paper with an X cut in the top for him to push red objects through (red Duplos, red parts from various toys...). And one has a 1/2" wide slot cut in the lid for putting in plastic cards (those ones you get in the mail for credit card offers or, oddly, from Geico and the NRA in this case), baby food jar lids, and his link-a-doos (small plastic rings which he also likes to have put on his wrists like bangles.)

As I mentioned, Aaron's cousin Clara was born this week. We haven't gotten to meet her yet. She went home on Thursday and I was hoping to visit this weekend, but Aaron is coming down with a cold and I'm worried that I might be carrying germs since I haven't had his cold so I am staying away. Rumor has it that she is adorable, but I have yet to see a picture! She and her mom are doing fine and I hope to visit as soon as I can.

Poor Aaron isn't feeling well and is having trouble sleeping. Fortunately, he is eating well and I'm trying to get him to stay hydrated, but he isn't crazy about drinking out of his sippy cups. He hates having his nose wiped and is fussy most of the time. I'm hoping food, fluids and rest will help him get through it faster, but we'll see. He had a mild cold when he was about 8 months, I think, but this one is already worse and is just getting started.

He just woke up from his first morning nap that he's taken in nearly a week. I've put him down every morning when he is yawning in the hopes that he hasn't totally given up the morning nap (usually he takes it about every other day), but until today, he hasn't gone to sleep. Hopefully he is in a better mood than he was when we put him down. I'll try to post a few more pictures and some videos later today if I get a chance.