I'm the master!

We had a roller coaster week this week. One morning, Aidan would be in a bright and sunshiney mood, perfectly happy with the world, ready for anything, and then the next day one thing would set him off, and our morning (or day) would be one long series of shouting and tears. You would think that somebody in our house was two years old!!! :p For the most part, it was routine-related: if we kept an exact routine, things went well, and if we changed anything, there was drama. But it also didn't help that he is fighing bedtime and naptime, and so has been more tired than usual.


Aidan's new quote of the week this week is: "I'm the master!" He has started saying that instead of "**I** want to do it!" So, now he is "master" of washing dishes, turning on the microwave, putting on his clothes, throwing balls, and more. We think he must have gotten the phrase from playschool, somewhere, although there is a Wonderpets episode where Turtle Tuck's cousin buck sings, "When it comes to building things, I'm the master!" -- so that could be it, too.

Despite more fireworks over getting dressed, we still had a pretty good weekend. On Saturday, we were productive: Daddy got our TV cable fixed, we did a Costco run, and we visited our local library and borrowed a couple of cool new books (The Little Red Lighthouse and the Great Gray Bridge and Puff the Magic Dragon). Aidan refused to nap, but we had an easy night because of it, and Mommy and Daddy had fun watching Twilight (catching up on a cultural phenomenon we are way behind on! - not in the same league as Avatar, but still entertaining). On Sunday, we all went on a train adventure to Chinatown and Little Italy, where went on some new trains (N & R) and old ones (A & D). Aidan had a long nap, and then a tough time going to bed. However, overall, we had a nice weekend, despite the terrible twos!

Here are some photos of Aidan at playschool (with Miss Olga Jr. and Miss Candy), and a movie of him preparing for the upcoming olympics ("U.S.A!").

C'mon!

On Saturday morning this week, Aidan climbed into bed with Mommy and Daddy to snuggle while we all took our time waking up. He reached over for the reassurance of my hair, saying "I [want] your hair, Mommy". Apparently, he didn't quite get enough of it in his fist the first time, so he tried again, but got frustrated again. This time he responded loudly, "C'mon, Mommy! Give me your hair!" (Daddy and I couldn't help but laugh.)

We had a pretty decent week this week, but Aidan really missed Daddy while he was at his conference in Atlanta (Saturday-Thursday). Fortunately, Daddy was able to surprise us by getting home a few hours early on Thursday night, in time to see Aidan before bedtime! It was a wonderful surprise.


On Friday, we took Aidan out of daycare early (after lunch), and all drove up to the Catskills for a weekend together with Grandma and Grandpa Ruane. We had a great time! It was wonderful to all be together again, and Mommy had just sent of a draft of her dissertation conclusion chapter, so she was in fantastic mood. While we were up there, we made yummy Laurenza pasta sauce (Daddy's family's special recipe for meat sauce and pepper sauce), visited the chickens, had tea with Marguerite & Nadir, and got to play with Sebastian (a 7 year old boy who Aidan was thrilled to hang out with). It was nice! We came home at naptime on Sunday in time to watch the football game with our friends on the 6th floor (Aidan played with Jakob while Daddy watched the game and Mommy hung out with friends), and caught Nana and Pop-pop Ross before dinner & bed routine. We are all so happy when we can all enjoy each other, all together. :)

Stars

Aidan gave Mommy and Daddy some great compliments this week.

Early in the week, Daddy put up glowing star stickers on Aidan's bedroom ceiling (the Big Dipper with the North Star, the Southern Cross, and Orion). Afterwards, Aidan said, "You're a star, Daddy!"

Later in the week, while Mama was cuddling with Aidan to put him to bed, he told me, "Mommy, you are my favorite little boy!" He followed this up with "Goodnight, my beautiful Mommy! Sweet dreams!"


He is also focusing a lot this week on how different members of our family are related to each other. As part of this, he came up with a new song: "Mommy and Daddy love their Mommy and Daddy! I love my Mommy and Daddy! I love my Mommy and Daddy!" (repeat). Of course, this week was also the first time he told Mommy, "I don't love you!" with the dramatic pouty face he's picked up in playschool! I told him I would always love him anyway, and he couldn't get around it. (He tried to argue his way out of that one but didn't get very far.)


Aidan is also getting to be more of a big boy every day. Since the Christmas holiday, he is now only drinking out of big boy cups during the day, and only drinks from his "sikky cup" (sippy cup) at bedtime. And at playschool, his teachers told us that he has started to read!!! He has been learning the sounds of the letters (m, p, t, c, a, o) at playschool (his Montessori school does the sounds of small letters, rather than the names of capitals), and his teachers said that this week he put some of them together and read "mop"!!! Mommy and Daddy haven't seen him do this yet, but we are amazed!!!


Despite all of this, he isn't all grown up. We have been playing a running game before bathtime recently, where Aidan runs down the hallway, has Daddy surprise him with a "boo!" or something from the living room, and then runs back into Mommy's arms. (We then rotate positions among everyone.) And a couple of times during this game this week, he has told Mommy (about Daddy "getting" him), "Mommy! He got your little boy!"

This weekend, we all had adventures. Daddy flew to a conference in Atlanta on Saturday (he will be there until Thursday night), and Mommy and Aidan drove up to the Catskills to see Grandma and Grandpa Ruane for the rest of the long weekend. Aidan was thrilled to see them, and we all had fun relaxing, playing in the snow, and having bubble baths (even Aidan)!

No kisses today!

We had a pretty good week this week, but Aidan spent a lot of it wishing we were still on vacation in San Francisco. He repeatedly said things like, "After playschool, fly to see Uncle Gabe!" or "I want our house to be next to Uncle Gabe's house!" or "No Monday! More vacation!" Mommy and Daddy sympathized!

This weekend, Daddy took Aidan to the Central Park Zoo, where they saw a red panda (cousin Miya's favorite) which actually moved around and didn't just sleep in its tree, a polar bear who woke up a bigger polar bear, and some sea lions who were eating lunch. Aidan loved it!


Here are some highlights of cute things Aidan has been saying this week:
- "No kisses toDAY!" (This is happening at least once a day, though he usually follows it up by, "yes, hugs" and a hug.)
- "The question is: yes cookies!" or "The question is: no bath!" (This is because Mama keeps trying to give him options that she is okay with - like bath before or after jumping on the bed? - but he would rather think outside of the box!)
- (To Mama, first thing in the morning during cuddling time): "Don't leave. Stay!" (He is my snugglebug!)

Happy New Year!

We had a wonderful rest of our vacation in San Francisco with Uncle Gabe, Aunt Karen, and Cousin Miya this week. Miya continued to be wonderful with Aidan, and they were incredibly cute together!Aidan loved playing "hide and seek" with Daddy and Miya (it was more of a tickle game, and Aidan only let Daddy hide under the covers of the bed) and playing tickle games and following Uncle Gabe around. Mommy and Daddy had fun playing Rummikub with Gabe and Karen after the kids went to sleep at night (we are sold on it!), we all continued to eat and sleep well and have fun visiting parks (playing ball, rollerskating), playing games (Aidan loved Pictureka and pretending to be a baby horse), and just chilling out. By the end of the week, Aunt Karen commented that Aidan was a Wonderpet, because he lived his life in opera (he does sing a lot!)!


On Wednesday, Mommy and Daddy and Aidan drove into San Francisco to have lunch with Mommy's Aunt Rachel and Tami, Aunt Beth, and Cousins Maia and Elwyn. Mommy loved catching up with them, and Aidan loved opening even more presents! Afterward we visited Mitchell's Ice Cream store, which has possibly the best ice cream in the world (Mommy had Buko and Macapuno - young and sweet coconut - yum!).



On Friday(New Year's Day), we visited the California Academy of Sciences, where Aidan loved running around on the green roof, and we got to explore the rainforest exhibit. After naps that afternoon, we packed, had dinner, and went back to the airport for a red-eye flight home. Aidan was sad to say goodbye, but was more hopeful with the promise of being reunited with his trains.


Our flight was decent: Aidan slept for about 3 hours, and then was distracted into waking up and watching TV for the last 2 hours. However we all survived back to New York, and once we got home, we all took a 5 or 6 hour nap to make up for our short night, so it worked out. Amazingly enough, Aidan still was able to sleep all night long on Saturday as well, so that was great!


On Sunday, Daddy took Aidan on a train ride, and he was thrilled to ride the A train and 1 train again (he loves them!). In the afternoon, we had some friends over for a "post-holiday party": Daddy made his special nachos which everyone raved over, and Aidan shared his toys cheerfully with all of his friends (Cira, Johnny & Oliver, Jack, and Jake). We all had a great time catching up! We are happy that we've been able to have a weekend to transition back to New York time and life before starting up another busy work week.


Happy New Year!