Update without Pictures

Life with Aaron is never dull. Some of the latest things we take delight in:

When Aaron wants you to sing "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star", he holds his hands up and says "uh, uh" - mimicking the "up above" part of the song. We do hand motions to this song which he loves and he imitates forming a diamond (in the sky) with his fingers very well. But lately, after I sing the "like a diamond in the sky" line, he then puts both his hands on his head meaning he wants me to sing "Head, shoulders, knees and toes". And 3 lines into that song, he is back to "uh, uh" for "Twinkle, Twinkle".

In his play area, when Thom and/or I are on the floor with him, Aaron will just suddenly stop playing with his toys and come over to one of us, put his head on our chest (sometimes half-way climbing on top of us), then get up and go back to his toys.

When holding Aaron, if I ask for a hug, he will rest his head on my shoulder briefly with his arms around me. Sometimes he will pat me, too.

Some things we don't delight in:
On Saturday, Aaron probably could have used a morning nap, but I had plans to go see my friend Michaela, who I recently found out was moving to Knoxville. He fell asleep in the car about 5 minutes before we got to her house and then woke up when we parked. He did great during our visit (and found their dog who jumped up on us and licked him quite hysterical) and he did great when we all went out to eat lunch. But he fell asleep on the way home and even though he was exhausted, he would not take a nap when we got home. After an hour of waiting for him to fall asleep, it was clear he wasn't going to go to sleep on his own, so I loaded him up in the stroller and walked him around the neighborhood. When he still wasn't asleep, I turned him over to Thom (who had been working in the yard) and he took him for a walk. He never did go to sleep and was a little terror the rest of the night. At dinner, after eating a few bites, he discovered it was the funniest thing in the world to put his finger in his mouth and fling his food back out. We eventually got him to bed, but it wasn't easy and he woke up once before we went to bed and twice more in the middle of the night. Moral of the story - plan everything around the baby's naps, even if someone is moving to Knoxville.

General update:
Our nanny Kim is great. This will be her 4th week with us. She is very good about keeping Aaron entertained and finding new things for him to do. I was comfortable leaving him alone with her the second week and last week, I let her take him to a sing-along in the park - one I've taken him to, but hadn't lately since it was at a day and time when she was watching him. I've never let anyone take him anywhere before and Thom hasn't taken him out on his own, so it was a strange feeling watching her drive away with Aaron in my car. It was the longest I've been alone in the house in over 15 months. They had a great time at the park and she even met up with a woman she knows with a 20 month old son and Aaron and the other baby played together in the sand. She told me before she left to feel free to call and check up on him. I only called once, though, to make sure she'd found the park and that everything was OK.

Aaron is cruising pretty well now. He likes to stand up at the fence between the dining and living rooms and cruise back and forth. He sometimes moves from chair to chair in the dining room, too. and he can also take some steps with someone holding his hands. I saw Kim do it first, and then my friend Heidi, and I finally tried it with him last night. We ordered a walker/push toy which should arrive this week. It is a little Radio Flier cart (not the full wagon) that he can push his toys around in.

One of the things I love about Kim is that she has so much experience with kids. I asked her what kind of toys she thought Aaron would like now (since he seems to be getting bored of his toys) and among other things, she recommended dolls. So I pulled out two dolls from when I was a kid - My Friend Mandy, a blond doll with a soft torso and hard plastic lower legs, arms and head, and a boy Cabbage Patch doll. These dolls are probably 25 years old and my mom had the foresight to save them for me. Which has now saved me from having to buy dolls for my son. And Kim was right on the money. Aaron really enjoys the dolls. He will point out their eyes and nose and enjoys "tickling" their feet while I make different laughs for the boy and the girl.

At Play

We recently visited my friend Biriz and her daughter Alara. Previously when we have visited with them, Alara would run around while Aaron watched in fascination. But now they seem to be at the age where they are interested in playing with each other - at least for short stretches of time. Alara is 6 months older than Aaron, so I think he needed to catch up to her developmentally a bit. My friend Biriz took these wonderful pictures when we saw them playing together. Biriz's photos always come out beautifully. I wish I were as good with a camera.
This second one is my favorite. I love the look on his face.

15 Months

Today was Aaron's 15 month birthday. This past week has included so many firsts. Before I had a baby, I knew about the big "firsts" - first tooth, first step, first word. But now I know there are lots of firsts. In the last week we had the first ride in the forward facing car seat, first time in a pool, first time pulling to a stand on his own, first word.

Yes, today he said his first official word. He has mimicked us and said "dada", but not as a real word (just a long string of "dadadadada". Tonight, when I was holding him before bed, he said "mama" and I kissed him and praised him and he said it several more times. Clearly. "Mama". Not "ma-ma-ma-ma" like he has done. And it was so adorable and sweet and I kissed his cheek and when I'd stop kissing him, he'd say it again so I would keep kissing him. Sometimes he got it wrong and just said "ama", but he did get it right several times and seemed pleased with himself. I hope it happens again.

In the last week, Aaron has also transitioned from 2 naps a day to 1 nap. Starting about 2 weeks ago, he was skipping a nap here and there. On Sunday, he didn't go to sleep for his morning nap until 10am and then wouldn't take his afternoon nap. After he skipped his morning nap on Monday, I decided to just go with it and no longer put him down for his morning nap. He does seem tired in the late morning, but he makes it until 2pm or so, when we've been putting him down for his afternoon nap, And then he seems to sleep for 2-3 hours.

Unfortunately, the last 4-5 nights he has been tough to get to bed. We've pretty much been having to lie on the bed with him before putting him in his crib. Thom, mostly. It's such a bad habit, but he still puts himself to sleep for naps and he has generally been so good about going to sleep on his own, that I hope it is just a phase. I think the problem is compounded by his learning to pull to a stand (which he is doing and then crying), his last molars working their way in as well as his canines still working their way out, and the change in his nap schedule. Hopefully things get back to normal soon.

Water Play

Although we don't have a kiddie pool yet, it occurred to me that Aaron could still enjoy playing in the water. I got out a little tub and some plastic bowls and boats and Kim has taken Aaron out back to play in the water twice this week.

In case you can't tell how much he enjoys the water from these pictures, there is a short video at the end. He loves to splash.

After Kim brought Aaron in from his most recent time in the water, I asked if he had gotten tired of it or if she has just decided it was time to come in. She said "No, he signed 'all done' and pushed everything away." Those signs sure come in handy. She figures he finally got cold. Even though it's been in the 80s, the water was fresh out of the hose, so it was pretty chilly.

Pool

On Sunday, Aaron and I got to go swimming in my friend Heidi's pool, with her 3 daughters. I bought Aaron a floaty-thing at the store on Saturday and was eager to try it out. This picture was taken right after I first put him in. He was still checking things out. But it didn't take long for him to get used to the new experience and start splashing the water.

We had a great time. I haven't been in a pool since before Aaron was born - since before I was pregnant I think. The water was great and we just moved around the pool and watched Heidi's girls play.

Brianna, the oldest daughter, who is 6, had a snorkel and mask on and at first Aaron was unsure about her. She had been entertaining him in the house before we went out, but he didn't recognize her with the mask on and was near tears. Heidi had Brianna take the mask and snorkel off to show Aaron who she was and after that he seemed OK. He was obsessed with watching her, though. And he was very serious about it. He didn't crack a smile for a long time. She kept swimming up and tickling his feet.

Towards the end of our swim, when he was watching Brianna swim around, I asked if he could say "Brianna", wondering if he would at least make a "ba" sound in imitation. Instead, I noticed him doing his sign for banana. Close enough, I guess.

Aaron definitely likes the water. We have an open invitation to go back and I'm sure we'll take Heidi up on it.

Teeth

I went to the dentist on Friday. When he asked me what was new, I said that my 15 month old had 16 teeth already (the 4 canines he was working on have finally broken through, although they still seem to hurt him). So then my dentist asked me how many more Aaron had left to come in. I said I had no idea. I thought he would know. I figured Aaron had at least 4 more molars, maybe 8.

So my dentist told me that Aaron only has 4 more teeth coming - 20 baby teeth in all. I don't know why I didn't know that. But I can now see the light at the end of the teething tunnel.

Last night, Aaron woke up at 12:30. I nursed him and tried to put him back down, but he started crying, so I picked him up again. He was rubbing at his his upper lip. I offered him my finger to bite, but he didn't want that, or his pacifier. So I carried him out into the kitchen, where I sat down and offered him some Joe's O's in the dark. A few weeks back, some Bunny Love cereal in the middle of the night seemed to relieve his teething. After I gave him one, he'd rest his head against my chest and crunch on his cereal. Then he would sit up and I'd give him another. After about 8 or 10, he just sat with his head on my chest and then I was able to put him back to bed.

Cereal in the dark. Works better - and faster - than Tylenol.

Standing

Aaron pulled to a stand on his own 3 times today. The last time was in his play pen and he even managed to side step a little. The first two times were in his play area - once at his cube ottoman to reach his red balloon and once at the fence we now have between the dining room and sunken living room.

At physical therapy on Friday, just during the 30 minutes that Jan was here, he seemed to improve. He pulled himself up with very little help several times. So our main focus now is cruising - getting him to move along furniture and railings once he is on his feet. But the good news is that he seems to be naturally interested in doing this now.

Yesterday we saw our friends Eric and Crystal and their daughter Ruby. She is 10 months and already taking a few steps on her own. It is so strange to see such a little girl already walking. She's just a baby! At 10 months, she is ahead of the curve by a couple of months, so the difference from Aaron is more striking.

New Car Seat

Thom had the foresight to get Aaron the Graco Infant SafeSeat car seat, which unlike their SnugRide car seat, is good for infants up to 30 lbs and 32". The SnugRide, and many other infant car seats are only good up until about 20 lbs, which Aaron reached before his 1st birthday. Which would then mean buying a car seat that can face backwards or forwards. But since our infant seat was good until 30 lbs, we were able to keep Aaron in the rear facing infant seat beyond 1 year (which is the safest way for him to ride).

But he was getting too long for the infant seat and we finally bought a new car seat. We got the Graco Nautilus, which should last us until Aaron is out of car seats and booster seats altogether. It starts out as a toddler car seat, with 5 point harness. Then it can be used without the harness when he gets bigger, and finally, it can be used without the back part, as just a booster seat. Until 100 lbs (in case you can't read the large print on the base). By then, I hope he no longer needs a booster seat.

The car seat arrived several weeks ago, but with Thom's bad back and various other activities filling up our weekends, we didn't get the new car seat installed until today while Aaron was (reluctantly) taking his morning nap).
I couldn't wait to take him out in his new car seat. We went to Target after his nap. Aaron pretty much had this look on his face the whole way there. I think he must have been in shock. Things looked so different. At red lights, instead of fussing as he used to do, he seemed mesmerized by the traffic going by.
His book and his rattle are his two standbys in the car. He flips through the pages and if he gets bored with that, he'll shake his rattle. Or if I want to keep him awake on a car ride home, I'll ask him to shake his rattle, which helps me confirm that he is still awake.
His new seat has a cup holder, which has become his rattle holder. Previously he had to wedge it in the car seat with him under his leg.

He didn't smile the whole way. He just stared wide-eyed. I think he likes it. It was just a lot for a little boy to take in.

Finger Paints - Take I

My new sitter Kim has inspired me to try some new things with Aaron. So I found a recipe for homemade finger paints online involving edible ingredients (not that I want Aaron to eat it, but just in case.) Kim made up a batch on Thursday when she was here, but it was still to hot to play with before Aaron's nap, so I had the pleasure of trying it out with him on Friday.

Aaron likes to take his sippy cup of milk, turn it upside down and bang it on the tray table of his high chair. He shrieks when he sees the milk pattern on the tray and if left to his own devices, he will continue to bang the cup to get milk out and will then rub his hands in it. So I figured he would really enjoy finger paints.

I have to say our first attempt with finger paints was not huge success. In total, it provided about 10 minutes of entertainment before Aaron decided he wanted to crawl around on the back patio.

And during those 10 minutes, he was more interested in playing with the lids of the paint, putting them on the paint jars and taking them off.
He did periodically dip his fingers into the paints. And I would put his hand to the paper, but he didn't seem to care about smearing it on the paper.
Putting some on his chest was much more interesting.
He wasn't quite sure what to make of the paint on his hands. By the way, all the marks you see on the paper were either from me, or from me forcing his hand to the paper. Maybe some day he will get the hang of it.

P.S. There was no indication how long the paints would last, but I hoped they would go a week in an air tight container. Maybe if I had put them in the fridge. They were moldy today.

Progress

Aaron is pulling to his knees all the time now. On the toy shelf, the dining room chairs, the coffee table, and today - the refrigerator.

And he is now crawling on hands and knees more often than he is belly crawling. In fact he probably crawls on hands and knees most of the time.

He even crawls right to my lap.

Gabe's Birthday

Our friends Mont and Jessica's son Gabe turned 2 on Sunday, and we joined them in celebrating - along with about 12 other kids under the age of 3. There were plenty of toys and books to keep all of the kids entertained.

Gabe was actually at our house the night before the party and I took some photos of him playing with Aaron and of him playing with Aaron's block box, but I had the camera on the wrong setting and the pictures all came out horrible. (Note to self: always make sure the camera is in Auto mode before taking pictures.)

Aaron found all the kids and toys very exciting.
Did you watch that video I posted of Aaron making the "ba ba ba" sounds with his wrist? Well, he was trying to do it with his feet at the party. When he grows up, he's going to be the guy at the party with the lampshade on his head.
The party ran into nap time, but he did very well considering.

At one point, Aaron was sitting on the floor and there was a toy that another little boy (about 3 years old) had been playing with. Aaron picked it up, and with his other hand, he pulled on the little boy's shirt and tried to offer the toy back. I was so impressed with him for doing that at 14 months! The little boy, though, didn't appreciate Aaron's kindness. He was a little annoyed that some baby was pulling on his shirt.

We knew most of the other kids and hadn't seen some of them in awhile, so it was a treat to catch up with so many of our friends and their kids at once. And it was great seeing them try to interact. There was mostly a lot of taking toys away from each other.

July 4th

My parents had us over for a 4th of July BBQ. (They invited the whole family, but we were the only ones who didn't have plans.) My mom bought Aaron an adorable onsie with fireworks on it, but it is size 24 months, so it is too big for this year, but I had this stars and stripes shirt I got in a lot of clothes from eBay. I'm not a big fan of stripes, so I saved it for the 4th of July.

This photo shows how he is crawling on his hands and knees now. Not all the time, but more and more each day. Previously he would start out on hands and knees and then his knees would flare out and he would continue with his belly crawl, but this last weekend, I saw him belly crawling, then stop, get up on his hands and knees and continue that way. He is getting the hang of it. It is so cute to me to finally see him crawling on his hands and knees.

We took a few toys over to Grandma and Grandpa's house, including his Duplos.

I have found that the block box my dad made makes a perfect carrying case for a days worth of toys and a few board books. I load it up with different stuff whenever we are going to someone's house that doesn't have a toddler.

Our new sitter Kim started today and she is so great. I spent most of her 4 hour shift showing her around and talking to her, answering questions about Aaron. He refused to take his morning nap, so he was a little fussy when she arrived, but he did pretty well. I'm supplementing her pay with produce from our yard - she went home with a bag of apples, avocados, peaches, plums and tomatoes. With food prices what they are, I don't feel so bad now about paying her $3/hour less than her normal rate.

And now my boy is waking up from his long, and only, nap. More pictures from the rest of our weekend will be coming later this week...

Weaning

I've been starting to wean Aaron for the last couple of months. I guess technically he started to be weaned as soon as we introduced solid foods, but lately I've been trying to get him to replace breast milk in his diet with cow's milk. It didn't start off too well, but after reading comments from other parents online, I tried mixing strawberry Kefir (drinkable yogurt) in with his whole milk. At first I did a 50/50 blend, using 2 oz of Kefir and 2 oz of milk. And when he drank that easily, I kept the amount of Kefir the same, but increased the amount of milk until I was just filling the 8 oz sippy cup the rest of the way with milk.

Usually he will drink the 8 oz mixture over the course of the day. He still seems to prefer water for quenching his thirst. (Yay! I was hoping to avoid the extra sugar of juice, so i'm glad he is a water drinker.) Some days, like yesterday, he drank nearly the whole cup of milk in one sitting.

We are down to just 2-3 nursings a day. I nurse him in the evening before bedtime and again in the morning. If he wakes up in the middle of the night (which he does slighly more than half the time right now), I feed him then, too. He doesn't fall asleep while he is nursing, but afterwards I can put him back down with his pacifier and he will get back to sleep on his own.

On the rare occassion, usually when he is teething and uncomfortable, he will indicate he wants to nurse during the day - either right after I get him up for a nap, or he'll come over to me when we are playing on the floor. (And no, he doesn't bite me - people always ask me that.) 6 weeks ago, it happened more often and I thought he'd never stop nursing. I follow the philosophy of never refusing if he asks, but I don't offer it during the day any more. But his requests are definitely tapering off and I think we will be done within a few months.

I'm going to miss nursing him. He is so sweet and I love holding him close when he isn't trying to get out of my lap. I'll miss how he slaps the back of my arm with his hand, how he plays with his hair with his other hand and sometimes reaches up to squeeze my upper arm or pat my chest. Or how in the middle of the night when I am sitting cross legged on the bed nursing him, he'll put his pacifier back in his mouth and then pat my leg or play with my toes. Then take his pacifier back out and finish nursing.

Scrapping my blog

I've been spending a little time lately working with a new program that is letting me design a book from my blog. I got the free software on Blurb.com. It automatically took my blog (I just chose the entries from 2007) and put them into a book format. It used the same template for each page which consisted of 5 small photos down the outside of the page and the text in the middle. This doesn't work well for pages with fewer photos, so I am going through and changing the template on each page, sometimes adding additional photos that I didn't put on the blog - or when I linked to my Picasa photo albums. When I'm done, I can have a hard-bound book printed out for around $40-50 (for an 8x10 book of about 100 pages). Smaller books with fewer pages can be printed for less - I think prices start under $13. I've been wanting to somehow archive the blog so we have a copy that doesn't depend on blogger.com. This has been the easiest way.

I looked at a few other sites that have software for creating photo books, but blurb.com is the only one that automatically reads in your blog. Wait, I take that back. I did find one called Scrapbook Blogger that was all web based, but there were only about 6 or 8 page templates and it was very limiting. The software from Blurb has a ton of templates. There was one other program (that didn't automatically read in the blog) that had templates I liked better - but the price for a 100 page book would have been $180!

I can't wait to see the finished product. But I think it will be awhile. I don't have a lot of time to spend on it and even thought it is all electronic, it still takes some time for me to get the pages just right. I'll let you know how the book turns out.

General Update

Aaron is moving right along. His physical therapy is going well and he is becoming a master at going from a sit to a stand and crawling over obstacles. He is still working on those canine teeth and has some bad days, but overall he is doing OK.


My niece Larissa is babysitting this week while Madison is on vacation. I've been interviewing for a new nanny the last two weeks. Madison informed me before leaving on vacation that she is probably going up to her new college town mid-July, two weeks before I expected her to leave. But fortunately I had a couple of good candidates.


There was an 18 year old named Kadie about to start college that I really like. She is friendly and upbeat. Last summer she helped rebuild houses destroyed by Hurrican Katrina. She loves kids and wants to join the Peace Corps after college. I was about ready to hire her, but on Monday, I interviewed Kim, a woman who lives about a mile from us. She is the first mom I've interviewed. She has two kids - an 18 year old daughter in college and a 16 year old son. We talked for an hour and the time went by quickly. She was easy to talk to and has a child rearing philosophy seems compatible with ours. She worked for 9 years with special needs kids and was getting burnt out after budget cuts. She loves babies and started out as a mother's helper when she was 9. She is over-qualified and I can't really afford her, but since I can be flexible with her schedule and I'm so close, she's willing to start out at a lower hourly rate.


I decided to hire Kim. She said we can start off with no committment and we lined up 3 days next week. I'm hoping Kadie will be interested in being a backup babysitter, but she'll probably need to find another part-time job. I'm hoping that since Kim is not a student she'll be more reliable. At least I won't have to worry about her schedule changing every semester.


Thom's back is mostly better. He still has to take it easy, but he went back to work on Monday and has been able to pick up Aaron since Saturday, which makes a big difference to me.