Dowey

We had a good week this week. Monday was Martin Luther King Day, and we continued enjoying our long weekend in the Catskills with Grandma and Grandpa Ruane. Aidan went sledding for the first time, and had a great time, until he fell flat on his face in the snow - but then he cried! We are sure he will want to go again, though. On our way back, we stopped by Ikea, and bought Aidan a new red table and chair set and a train set. During the rest of the week, Mommy and Daddy have had a blast playing with the trains! Aidan prefers to take apart the tracks, and we have to keep reminding ourselves that the trains are supposed to be a toy for *his* entertainment – but Mommy forgot how much she used to love playing with trains!

This weekend was wonderful. On Friday, Daddy stayed home with Aidan so that Mommy could go to her first flying trapeze class with her friend Jenn. Aidan wasn’t thrilled to not have Mommy around, but Mommy had a blast! (Check out the video.) On Saturday, we all met up with Jenn again and visited the New York Fire Museum downtown, where Aidan was thrilled to check out all of the gorgeous fire trucks dating from the 1800s on. On Sunday, Mommy and Daddy and Aidan visited the Bronx Zoo for the first time. Aidan loved the tigers (we saw two of them, and one was sleeping right next to the glass by the visitor’s viewing area!) and the sea lions (they put on a performance of jumps, flips, and twists in front of us, and one even jumped out of the pool directly in front of Aidan and stared at him for a few minutes!). We also saw lemurs, which are Aidan’s cousin Miya’s favorite animals, and some monkeys.

The main highlight of the week is that Aidan now has a “baby”! Before we drove up to the Catskills last weekend, Mommy asked Aidan if he wanted to bring one of his cool “Ugly Dolls” up with us, and he picked the blue one. Daddy asked Aidan what his name was, and Aidan said “Doh!” and Daddy asked “Dowey?”; Aidan said “uh huh!”, so that stuck. We started treating Dowey like a member of the family: talking with him, having him wave, nursing with him, and playing with him. And now Aidan gives him hugs and kisses, calls him his baby and asks for him “behbeh? behbeh?”), and while being babysat refused to let go of him! Mommy has been wanting to give Aidan something to comfort him when she is not around (currently, Mommy’s hair is Aidan’s security blanket), so she is thrilled!

In other exciting news, Aidan has officially differentiated names for his grandparents! Before having a skype date with Grandma and Grandpa Ross, he asked about “Nana” and “Pop-pop”! So, Grandma and Grandpa Ross now have official names from Aidan. (Aidan calls Grandpa and Grandma Ruane “Boppa” and “Bomma.”) It’s so cute to hear his names for us!

A week with Mommy and then vacation

This week, Mommy and Aidan hung out together while Daddy was at his conference, and Aidan really missed Daddy! He asked about him every day, lots of times a day, kissed his picture "goodnight" each night, and had a harder time being without him than ever before. Fortunately, Aidan's babysitter Laurie filled in on Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday, and we stayed busy with art projects (finger paints and markers), music, playdates and an excursion to the Children's Museum. On Friday morning, when Aidan woke up and saw Daddy, he was so excited that he did backbends, clapped, spun around in circles, wriggled, laughed, smiled, squeaked, and generally expressed incredible jubilation! Mommy was happy he was back too. :)

Aidan has started saying new words this week. The most prevalent ones are "diy deah!" (right THERE!). He usually uses this to tell you exactly where he wants you to be, and then repeats it insistently until you follow his instructions! Mommy thought he was being a bit of a control freak when he first started doing it, but then she decided that Aidan doesn't have control over most things in his life, so she could understand why he would want to be able to decide at least a few things. (!) Aidan has also started saying "yucky" ("eyeckah!"), "gross" ("kreh!"), and "treasure" ("tlesah") (Mommy calls the piles of food that end up in his lap after mealtimes treasure: "wow, look at all that treasure!").

Aidan has started doing new things this week too. He now points to himself when you ask him where Aidan is ("diy deah!" / "right there!"). He loves playing "knock knock" games (he likes knocking on the bathroom door when he is outside, especially when Mommy says "knock, knock! who's there?" and opens the door so he can point and say "Mama!" and have Mommy say "and Aidan!"). He started screwing and unscrewing lids (milk carton and sippy cup). And this weekend he made his first effort to jump in the air (only one foot at a time)!

We celebrated having Daddy home by driving up to the Catskills and hanging out with Grandma and Grandpa Ruane for the cold long weekend. Aidan was thrilled to hang out with Daddy AND Mommy AND Grandma and Grandpa, and had a blast being silly with Grandpa all weekend. While we were up here, Aidan even threw his first snowball! Mommy and Daddy enjoyed chilling out together, and went skiiing on Sunday afternoon in fresh snow, which was wonderful. We are happy that we could spend such a nice long weekend catching up before the workweek starts up again.

One and a half years old

We have had some crazy nights this week. Last Friday, in an effort to get Aidan over his jet-lag and back to New York time, Mommy gave up her night weaning policy (which we had started before Christmas and managed to maintain even while being in California), and nursed Aidan back to sleep every hour, managing to keep him asleep between 7PM and 7AM. On Saturday, he went to sleep later, slept better, but still nursed back to sleep. Then, we started to have some really tough nights. One night Aidan woke up at 3AM and stayed awake till 5AM, and another night he was awake between 1AM and 3AM! Mommy and Daddy were less than thrilled, but finally realized that Aidan's upper incisor teeth were beginning to poke through, in addition to his getting over jetlag, so at least there was an explanation. Unfortunately, night weaning has now gone completely out the window, so we are back to square one on that. :(

During the day time, Aidan is being extremely cute right now. He is extremely polite, and animatedly signs "you're welcome" ("da!") every time we say "thank you" for something. On Friday, after being with our babysitter Laurie, he also put on a complete performance for us! He walked backwards back and forth on our living room rug, kind of like Michael Jackson's moon dance, spun round in circles, and repeated the whole thing over and over for Mommy. And when Daddy got home, he grabbed a basketball and threw it at least 3 or 4 feet to him, grabbed a football and did the same, and then did the same again with a plastic toy ball! Mommy thinks he is getting into a stage where he is beginning to show off: when his friend Jack was over for a playdate this week, he played with all of his toys (even the ones that he ignores) with such gusto and energy that Mommy felt exhausted trying to keep up with him!

On Friday night, while Aidan was jumping excitedly around on the couch with Mommy, he dove headfirst into the arm of the couch, and managed to split open his eyelid! He only cried for a couple of minutes, but he quickly developed an absolutely beautiful black eye - his first so far! We are sad that he hurt himself, but are happy that it wasn't worse.

On Saturday, Daddy flew to Phoenix to attend a conference, where he will be till late Thursday night. Mommy and Aidan stayed behind at home, and our babysitter Laurie will be filling in more than usual this week while Daddy is gone. Mommy told Aidan that Daddy was going on a "big adventure" on an airplane, and that we wouldn't see him for a few days, and Aidan proceded to ask hundreds of times on Saturday and Sunday: "Mama, Dada?" It has turned into a conversation that goes like this:


Aidan: "Dada?"
Mommy: "Bye, bye, Dada"
Aidan: "Mama?"
Mommy: "Mama's right here!"
repeat x 500+


We hope Daddy has a good trip, but are looking forward to seeing him on Thursday or Friday!

Happy New Year!

This week we have been transitioning back into our regular lives. We stayed with Uncle Chris and Aunt Lauren Ross until Monday, and then flew back from San Francisco to New York on Monday night. (Here are some more photos of the end of our time with the Rosses!) Our flight was delayed by 6 hours (from ~1PM to ~7PM), but Aunt Lauren toured us around the city while Daddy got work done on his laptop at the airport, so it ended up working out okay.

Wednesday night was New Year's eve, and we all went over to our friend Christa, Mark and Johnny's house to celebrate. Christa and Mark hosted New Year's for us all last year too, and it was amazing to see the difference within the last year! Last new year's eve Grace rolled over for the first time. This new year's eve, all of the kids were climbing through coffee tables and up couches, and racing around the apartment! Last year they were all babies, but now they really are kids! We had a great time with everyone.

Saturday, Grandma and Grandpa Ruane drove down to the city to visit. We all exchanged our Christmas presents (we didn't see them over Christmas), and trained down to Grand Central Station to see New York Transit Museum annex. Aidan was entranced by the various kinds of trains smoking around a New York City set. It has been quiet this week without all of our various family members around, so Aidan was particularly happy to see Grandma and Grandpa!

Throughout the week, we have been slowly recovering from our California jet lag. Mommy thinks that this time seems like it has been the most difficult time to recover yet! On Tuesday and Wednesday, Aidan didn't go to sleep until around 11PM. On Thursday, he went to sleep at 8PM but then woke up and stayed awake between 9PM and 1AM. And on Friday, he went to sleep at 7PM but then woke up every hour all night long! (Mommy was just happy that he at least went back to sleep each time!) Saturday night was last night and he finally passed out at 9PM, but then had a good long night's sleep, so hopefully we are getting back to a more normal schedule!

This week Aidan has also been doing a ton with language. Mommy hasn't started listing off all of his words and signs, yet, but there are a lot! He has started using his adapted "please" sign and saying "more" when he wants something/ someone, and has been asking for more of his grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins! He misses you all already.