Conferences and Coughs

This week Daddy flew to New Orleans for a conference and Mommy and Aidan stayed with Grandma and Grandpa Ruane in Hopedale, MA. They were thrilled to see him, and Aidan loved playing with them. The highlight of the week was having lunch with Grandma and having Aidan sit in a high chair at the restaurant! We stuffed him in with coats and scarves, and he animatedly ate the menu and threw his rattles on the floor - we all loved it! (We'll have to add the pict later - it's on Grandpa's camera.) Mommy was also thrilled to go shopping! We got Aidan a new snowsuit (sized 18 months!) at Children's Orchard to replace his old one (12 months) which was getting tight. And Mommy got a bunch of new clothes, which made her week.

Unfortunately, Aidan came down with his first real cold and has had a runny nose and racking cough for most of the week - poor baby! We all feel terrible for him, and nobody has slept very well because of it. Despite this setback, Aidan and Daddy were overjoyed to see each other when Daddy returned from his conference on Friday, and we are all happy to be back at home with our little family together again.

Idiosyncrasies

Here are some snippits of information which we think are wonderfully endearing about Aidan right now:

- At bedtime, Mommy can avoid a sleepy meltdown while she is putting on his pajamas by singing "John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt" from a near-yell to a whisper
- When Daddy picks him up by his ankles and hangs him upside down, he laughs

- He is infatuated with plumbing: he will contort and do cartwheels to watch us turn the water on in the bath or sink, hyperventilates while reaching to try to grab water coming from any faucet, and could be entertained for ages by watching the water swirl down the drain

- He has a rebellious lower lip: he pushes it out when he is getting ready to be upset, when he's really there it trembles adorably, and he sucks on it like a teething toy every once in a while

- When he's going to sleep he sometimes talks to himself in a high, sing-song-like voice until he passes out

- He has a ton of different kinds of laughs. Here are a few:

*full-bellied laughs of happiness

*laughs in the midst of crying which happen despite himself when we blow kisses on his tummy at bedtime

*a short little "ha" with an almost-straight face when we are trying really hard to make him laugh and it's not really working but he seems to want to say "thanks for trying"

*an excited repeated laugh at anything that Daddy does that is remotely funny when he comes home from work, just to let him know how happy he is to see him

Six months old

On Monday, Aidan turned six months old and had his second round of shots. This time was not nearly as bad as the last time: he only cried for about 5 minutes, and then smiled for our friend Jeanie, who was also at the doctor's office, and even laughed for her husband, Dan! The after effects were worse, though: he had a low-grade fever on Tuesday and didn't feel great. However, fortunately that was over quickly.

During the rest of the week, he had a particularly hard time with teething, which he conveyed by chewing voraciously on everything he could get his hands on and crying inconsolably for a little while on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. Mommy felt so sorry for him! Aidan gets Tylenol when it's that bad, and he seems to like grape more than cherry flavor (Mommy agrees).

On Friday, Aidan tried sweet potatoes for the first time and turned his entire outfit a brilliant shade of orange! He ate his entire plate, with a similar reaction to poi (sour face, pull back away, and then open wide and lean forward for more). The next night he only had half the amount, and had a tough time with gas, so we gave him a break from sweet potatos on Sunday to let his system recover.

On Saturday Mommy and Daddy discovered that Aidan has enough hair to have "hat-head"! We took his winter hat off, and found a spikey, crinkley mop-top on our baby boy - Mommy thought it was hilarious. :P That night, we also tried out our new white noise machine, and Aidan slept for three 3-hour periods in a row while listening to "ocean" sounds in the background - the longest since we've gotten back from Hawaii! Mommy and Daddy are thrilled about Aidan's response and hope that this "baby nyquil" (what Mommy's friend Sara calls the white noise machine) continues to work its magic on our wakeful cutie pie.

Throughout this week Aidan has been working on sitting up, and it is amazing how fast he is getting better! Mommy and Daddy still have to watch out to make sure he doesn't fall, or have pillows there to catch him, but Aidan can sit pretty well for minutes at a time and can even catch himself from falling off balance some of the times! He is trying to crawl, but so far can *either* do a push-up and get his shoulders off the ground *or* get his bum into the air while doing a face-plant (a new skill which he showed off today!) - he can't quite make them both happen, at the same time.

New Year

This week we continued to celebrate the holidays while shifting back into work mode and reversing our 6 hour jet-lag. We flew into Newark airport at 5PM on New Year's Eve, after a set of flights where Aidan was a perfect angel (hooray!). We dropped off our bags at our apartment, and walked over to a New Year's party at our friend Christa's house (we know Christa from Mommy's new mom's group). The babies came to party too, and Grace (one of Aidan's friends) turned over for the first time, which everyone oohed and ahhed over! It was fun to celebrate the new year with other families, and it was wonderful to relax and kick back after the long plane trip!

The next day, Aidan celebrated new year's by rolling over from back to front for the first time! He then continued to roll and roll and roll for the rest of the week - very amazing! Mommy's friend Julia flew over from Los Angeles (for the second time!) to visit between Friday and Sunday, and Aidan showed off his new rolly-poly skills to her again and again!

Mommy and Julia went out to see Chicago on Broadway on Saturday, which was the first time Mommy had been away from Aidan for more than 3 hours. She was worried about it, but everything went great! The show was fantastic, and Aidan drank a 4 ounce bottle of formula (the most ever) and took a nap with Daddy (where he put *himself* to sleep in his swing after a minute of crying - the first time ever!), and enjoyed the first time by himself in the baby swings at the playground. The afternoon was a resounding success! On Sunday, Mommy, Daddy, Aidan and Julia all took the subway downtown on Sunday where we saw the Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center together (the second time for Mommy and Aidan) and ate delicious Thai food before Julia had to fly back to California. It was so nice to have the visit! Mommy is going to miss her, but was so happy she could come. It was a wonderful way to start off the New Year!

Holiday Highlights

We had a wonderful time visiting the Rosses in Kona, Hawaii! Most of the week, Mommy and Daddy would pass Aidan off to Grandma Ross in the early dawn and go happily back to bed, while Aidan would be thrilled to play with someone who was just as excited as he was to be awake and playing that early in the morning. Grandma would play with him for a couple of hours and then pass him back to Mommy for some breakfast and a nap. Then, after everyone was more rested, we would start our day! We cooked delicious food, played fooseball (Aidan was a lucky charm and helped whoever carried him increase their winning streaks), watched Christmas movies (Mommy and Daddy especially love "Elf" and "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" and "A Christmas Story"), went to beaches, and played with Aidan and introduced him to friends. It was great!

Grandma loved the early morning dates with Aidan, playing with the Christmas tree, introducing him to Triffid (our fluffy black cat), and exploring the gardens and house. Grandpa loved "gushelling" and kissing Aidan's tummy in the morning, which made him laugh and laugh. Aunt Frances had fun "flying" Aidan back and forth with Grandma, which elicited huge grins and chuckles from Aidan. Uncle Jon-Michael had fun standing Aidan up on his shoulders and giving him a tall person's view of the world. And just in general, everybody just enjoyed being with our cute little guy!

Here are some highlights from our week:
- We all helped make a delicious and beautiful gingerbread house, complete with Hersheys Hug icicles, a chocolate Santa Claus climbing down the chimney, and a Christmas tree and beauganvilia bushes in the yard
- Despite our best efforts, Aidan determinedly chowed down on sand at the beaches, which he seemed to think was delicious (it didn't seem to bother his system)
- We visited the Beljeans (Mommy's aunt and family) and Great Aunt Helen and Uncle Bill, Heather and Clarke enjoyed playing with Aidan
- On Christmas day, we fed Aidan poi! He jerked backward with a sour face each time we fed him a purple bite, but then leaned forward and opened up for more! Mommy brought six pounds of frozen poi back to NY with us afterward so Aidan could keep enjoying it!

We had a great time at Christmas, and can't wait to see the Rosses again! We'll miss you.

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