Of wolves and woods

Aidan has continued to amaze us with his language this week. He using a lot of prepositions and relational words. He tells Mommy when he wants to turn the vacuum cleaner "on!" and "off!" and he wants "mah moah!" (some more) of it or "no moah!" (no more), or if we should put it "away!" (almost everything happens in exclamation marks, although he does also whisper sometimes, which is cute). He tells us if he wants us to "day!" (stay) or "go!" or stop (he uses a sign, hand up, for stop), if he wants to go "up! up!" or "dow!" (down), and "in!" or "out!". And he loves eating and playing with "wash" (rice) (he likes scooping out cups of rice from our 20lb bag into a bowl). On Sunday, he even said his name for the first time ("A-den")! He is also doing new things, physically. This week, he took off his (velcro) shoes all by himself!



Here is the most amazing story from this week. On Thursday, he watched a Wonderpets episode where Linny, Tuck, and Ming Ming save the Three Little Pigs from the Big Bad Wolf. Afterward, Aidan had a hard time going down for a nap! The story was too scary for him. He kept saying "woof!" (wolf), with a worried expression. So, Mommy talked with him about it. She said, "We say, "No, no, no!" to the wolf: no eating those little pigs! That's not nice. But did the Wonderpets save the little pigs? Did the wolf go away? Did it go home?" Aidan continued to be very concerned. "No, no, no, woof!" he said. "Go (a)WAY, woof! Go (H)OME! Go!" Finally, once Mommy told him that the pigs were safe in their brick houses, and that we lived in a brick house and were safe too, and (again) that the wolf had gone away, gone hom, he finally took a deep shuddery breath, and calmed down enough to go to sleep. No more Three Little Pigs stories for Aidan for a while!!!


In other news, Aidan had a better week at daycare this week. Tia Nina (his daycare provider) put away his stroller except for nap time this week, and that worked out really well. Before this week, he would often refuse to get out of the stroller (his safe space), and he seemed to think that because it was there, Mommy and Daddy could come back to pick him up at any moment. However, because it was not there this week, Aidan realized that he was stuck there, and actually got more involved in playing with the toys and kids computer games there. When Mommy picked him up on Wednesday, he had a blast "jumping" on the trampoline (he still doesn't get both feet off of the ground, but he now has one foot all the way off and only his toes of the other foot on). And when he was taking turns on the trampoline with his friend Cira, he actually held up his hands and wanted to be held by Tia Nina in between turns! She was so happy about this, that she told Mommy that he officially "graduated"!


This weekend, we all drove up to the Catkills to celebrate Grandma Ruane's 60th birthday. We enjoyed our usual haunts: taking nice walks through the woods, visiting Marguerite & Nadir's chickens, eating delicious food (Mommy even made the Ross family Christmas Streudal sweet bread for part of Sunday's brunch), and playing. Aidan particularly loved throwing hundreds of stones into the stream. While we were throwing stones, he learned to say "two" (Daddy would ask him, "Do you want to have one, or two?"), and he got good at saying his name (Daddy would ask him, "who is this stone for? Is it for Daddy? or Mommy? or Aidan?" and he would say "AIDEN!" - unless it was really, really, big, when he would sometimes say "dada" or "mama".) Grandma enjoyed being with loved ones to celebrate, and we all had a good time.

Let's go on the bus!

This week, Aidan is continuing to amaze us with his leaps in language. On Saturday, he told Mommy, "Yeh GO bus on!" (Let's go, on (the) bus!)! He is now regularly saying things like "Yeh GO, dada!" "Yeh GO, mama!" "Yeh GO pob-dah" (Let's go Dada/Mama/pasta). It's amazing! He is also now using "beep! beep!" as "excuse me" and will go purposefully around the house (pushing strollers or trucks, carrying toys, or just going by himself), saying "beep, BEEP! mama" or "beep, BEEP! dada" when we get in his way. :) He is rediculously cute.


It was great to have a week to decompress after the stressful last few weeks. We started to get caught up on laundry and sleep, and Mommy started to feel human again. On Thursday, Aidan started coming down with a bug, and was incredibly grouchy all day long, so we were not surprised when he got a low fever and cold on Friday and Saturday. It seemed to be something just going around the neighborhood, and we are glad it wasn't anything too serious.


On Sunday, Aidan let us all sleep in, woke up bright and cheery-eyed, and proceeded to be a phenomenally happy, patient, wonderful toddler all day long. This was a huge relief, because we ended up getting stranded at Costco, and the extra patience was especially helpful! Our car died, wouldn't restart with jumper cables, and then needed to get towed to a dealer; but the tow-truck wouldn't drive with a baby onboard, so we managed to get a hold of one of Mommy's friends, who picked up Mommy and Aidan, while Daddy drove with the tow-truck driver to drop off the car at the dealer. Amazingly, Aidan was just sunshiney and wonderful the whole time! It helped that an amazing tractor with both backhoe and frontloader attachments was in the Costco parking lot - that kept him fascinated for maybe an hour in total! (His current favorite bath toys are his trucks, and he is still wonderstruck when Mommy tells him that Pop-pop used to drive a big bulldozer, and that Grandpa drives a little bulldozer.) We were happy when we all finally got home!

Yay us!

Well, we finally made it! We all survived our crazy last five weeks, and our incredibly crazy last two weeks. Yay!

This week, Grandpa Ruane spent his spring break with us to help us manage while Mommy finished her second and final week attending the UN's Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) meetings, and Daddy worked to meet a World Bank consulting job deadline. It was hugely helpful to all of us! Mommy took full advantage of the opportunity to attend CSW, Daddy was able to get significant work done, and Aidan was thrilled to hang out with Grandpa. He still went to "work" (daycare) on Tuesday and Wednesday as normal, because Mommy and Daddy want him to keep getting used to that routine, but Grandpa picked him up early those days. The rest of the week, they went on walks, visited playgrounds, played in the sink, and were silly together. On Thursday, they visited the Natural History Museum. On Friday, Grandma came over in the mid-afternoon, and Aidan immediately grabbed her hand and started showing her all over the house. Grandma and Grandpa left Saturday morning, but not until they spent some time with Aidan watching trains in the subway, and letting Aidan "drive" their car (he loves steering with the steering wheel, and turning on and off the radio, windshield wipers, and lights).


Daddy has had to catch up on work in the office this weekend, but Mommy has missed Aidan, and has been happy to have the chance to catch up with him a bit. We have been chilling out, making yummy food, taking walks, playing in the sink, and taking naps. Mommy is still exhausted from the last few weeks, and is happy she can afford to take it easy this weekend.


Here are some updates on Aidan at the moment:
- In addition to dealing with a crazy schedule recently, Aidan has also had what Mommy thinks are his last four teeth break through! He has been remarkably calm about it. We are glad these aren't as bad as the molars!
- Aidan loves the noisy animal book from Grandma Ruane, and can do "hiss" sounds for the snake, snuffling sounds for the racoon, "ahowwwwwwwwwwww" sounds for the fox, and "gub dub dub dub" sounds for the turkey
- Aidan surprises Mommy by trying to say at least two new words each day (that she recognizes at least). At bathtime tonight he tried to say "whirlpool" (it sounded like "wihpoo"), pointing to the water going down the drain!
- For unknown reason, which drives Mommy crazy, Aidan has decided that he wants the moon in his Goodnight Moon book to be in the OTHER window (there are two), not the one that it is painted in. He regularly points to the window without a moon and notes that it is all gone, and repeats this even when Mommy points out that, THERE it is in the other window. Tonight before bedtime, when we started having this conversation, Mommy finally told Aidan that there was only ONE MOON, and it was in the OTHER WINDOW, so it couldn't be in the window that he wanted it to be in. He responded immediately by pointing to the moon in the offending window and signing "stop", and the pointing to the other window, and saying "go!". Mommy responded, do you want the moon to stop being in that window, and go to the other window? And he said "uh, huh!!!!" Mommy had to laugh, but was amazed to think that Aidan is doing such relatively advanced logic at only 20 months old!

One week down, one to go

This week has been an intense one for everyone. Mommy started attending the 53rd session of the United Nations' Commission on the Status of Women, which lasts two weeks (March 1-13th), and has been gone from 7AM to at least 7PM most of the week. Daddy has also been working hard on a handbook for mayors addressing the implications of climate change for urban food security (a World Bank consulting project). So, Aidan has not seen a lot of either of this week. He attended his second week of daycare for full days on Tuesday and Wednesday, and our babysitter Laurie took care of him full days on Monday, Thursday and Friday. This is the first time he has ever spent a full "work" week away from both parents, so it was tough.

However, despite the big transitions, Aidan has been a trooper. We have completely stopped nursing to sleep, and he is now cuddling to sleep with Laurie, Daddy, and Mommy (when she is around). And at daycare, he sits in his stroller and falls asleep while "Tia Nina" (the daycare providor) reads him books. So, his falling-asleep process is transforming radically! Mommy and Daddy are really happy that this is happening: we want Aidan to be able to be okay, whether or not we are around, and this is a big step in doing that. Aidan has also missed us a lot (he cries when Mommy says goodbye to him, even if he is staying with Daddy or Laurie!), but he hasn't kept too much of a grudge for our leaving. He is always thrilled to see Mommy in the mornings, or play with Mommy or Daddy when we are around. Mommy has missed Aidan this week, but she is glad that things are working out as well as they are.

This weekend, we had a great time playing all together, catching up a bit from the long week. On Saturday, we all went out to brunch with a college friend who we recently discovered had just moved down the street from us. Then we spent the rest of the day playing on playgrounds, watching buses, running down sidewalks, and generally glorying in the beautiful warm weather, which was a record 69 degrees (up from a high in the 20s early this week)! On Sunday, we caught up on some housework and did some more playing outside. Aidan has learned three (capital) letters of the alphabet because of our fridge letter game and Wild Animal Baby magazine, and is now pointing out "A", "O" and "B" on sale signs at neighborhood grociery stores! It makes our walks even more fun.

We have one more week of crazy schedules, but Mommy thinks we are over the worst of the two weeks. Tonight, Grandpa Ruane is coming over on the train to spend his spring break babysitting Aidan. Aidan will have a couple of days of daycare, but will spend the rest of the time with Grandpa, who he adores. So, hopefully this week will be a little bit easier!