Aidan & Kiana: 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: