Language and leaves

The leaves are changing and are just past peak this week, making the hills in the Catskills beautiful quilts of scarlet, orange, purpley brown, and gold. This weekend we all drove up to the Catskills for a long weekend to get some much needed rest and relaxation and to visit Grandma and Grandpa Ruane. It was wonderful! We played at local playgrounds, ate at our favorite Pizza restaurant (Brios), cooked lots of delicious food (cilantro pesto, croutons, apple bread, and apple pies), played in the ankle-deep (up to knee-deep for Aidan!) rustly dry brown leaves, and enjoyed spending time with each other. On Friday night, Mommy and Daddy watched the fourth Indiana Jones movie (which we've been wanting to see for ages), and on Saturday we all celebrated the 21st birthday of Laura Jean and Vinny's son Johnny. Aidan was friendly and interested in all of the party guests, and was incredibly good, despite the high level of stimulation. He stayed up way past his bedtime, and finally passed out after 9PM, which allowed Mommy and Daddy to enjoy dinner and visiting with the hollow-folk. It was wonderful! On Saturday and Sunday mornings, Grandma and Grandpa played with Aidan and let Mommy and Daddy sleep in, and then Grandma cooked delicious breakfasts for us (french toast on Saturday and grits and omlettes with spinache, feta cheese and tomatoes on Sunday). On Saturday afternoon, Aidan hung out with Grandma and Grandpa while Mommy and Daddy went on a date: a beautiful 5-mile hike up to Overlook Mountain for views of the fall foliage and the Hudson River. Sunday night, we had a dinner that was almost completely from Grandma and Grandpa's garden: fresh apple-sauce, carrots, potatoes and salad, with pork roast. Yum! (Grandma is not interested in getting a pig to completely "live off the land" though.) We all get so spoiled when we visit!

Aidan has been doing a lot with language these last couple of weeks. We forgot to say last week, that we think he has said his first sentence! He was hanging out with Mommy in the kitchen when he pointed urgently at the spices and said "Wa Da!" - very clearly meaning: "I want that!". Mommy was so excited! He has repeated this at least once since then as well. He has also been pairing other words together. He regularly now says "mah, mama" (more, mommy), and on Saturday while he was in the bath, Daddy asked him to call Mommy so he could get out, and he said "mama! ah dah!" (mommy, all done!)! On Sunday, Mommy told Aidan to tell Daddy that it was bathtime, and he promptly walked over and said "Bah, Dadda!" (Bath, daddy!). His vocabulary is increasing as well, including many of his favorite foods and most of the part of his face (eyes, nose, mouth, tongue, chin, ears, hair, cheeks). This weekend Daddy said he heard him saying something that sounded like "Grandpa" and "Grandma", and on Sunday he pointed to Mommy's laptop computer and said "pew-der" (computer)! It is amazing.

He is also experimenting with sounds recently, and at the moment thinks that it is hilarious to make sounds in his throat that make it sound like he is spitting up flem - but it isn't because he is sick (although he does have a cold), because he does it over and over again, laughing each time! What a silly kid. :)

The highlight of the week this week was that Daddy was in charge of Thursday's playgroup with our friend Heidi. They decided to choose a "building" theme, and Daddy brought big cardboard blocks, small wooden blocks, and stacking blocks to share. The "2 & under" age-group rotated around different building stations and loved it so much that they skipped "story time" and didn't notice that Troy waited until the end of the morning to play his guitar. During song time, even the bigger (pre-school aged) kids wanted to play with the blocks! It was a huge success.