A Very Busy Friday

Mommy and I went to my 9 month well-baby check up yesterday. I got off easy because I didn't need any shots! The doctor said my immunizations are up to date until I'm 12 months old. I only had a quick prick on my big toe so that the nurse could check my iron levels, which were just fine. Here are my current stats: weight- 20 lbs., 7 oz., length- 27 1/4 inches. Compared to other 9-month-old boys, I am 50th percentile for weight and 25th for length, so I have been steadily catching up. My head has done extremely well at growing... It's 75th percentile! I need lots of head to hold all of my intelligence and curiousity!

(Mommy and I were told that compared to boys born around my originally predicted due date, my length is around the 50th percentile, so I'm even bigger than I thought!)

In less ebullient medical news, as she was listening to my chest, the doctor asked if anyone had mentioned hearing a heart murmur before. Mommy and I were surprised and dismayed to hear that term. The doctor said that I probably didn't have it when I was younger since if I had it would have been caught during my 33-day hospital stay after I was born. She said that it is most likely an "innocent murmur," and that many children have these since the blood vessels in the heart are very small at my age. While we still don't like the term "heart murmur," we were comforted by her explanation.

Mommy and I also went to our second "Music Together" class yesterday. There are about 12 other babies and mommies in my class, ranging in age from 3 months to my age (the babies that is. I think the mommies are a few months older.) The mommies sing songs to us and pat out the beat on our bodies. They also dance with us and play musical instruments with us. My favorite is the big, communal drum where up to 4 babies can sit around it and bang. I march to the beat of my own drum, so sometimes I can get a little overstimulated when all of the mommies sing a high note together. When this happens, I get teary for a moment. Then again, maybe its just the heartfelt singing that makes me misty. I love music though. My mommy sings to me a lot and, at home, I rock and bounce to music. I started doing this at my class yesterday too, and the other mommies were impressed.

After class, all of the mommies and babies went to lunch at The Cantina in Walnut Creek. It was quite a production, as you can imagine, but all of the mommies were on their best behavior. We babies were very proud of them!

After we came home, I spent much of the evening standing around, which is my favorite thing to do. I like to stand up and lean on the couch or any other object that I can get some leverage on: people, boxes, toys, etc. While they tell me most babies "pull up," I just use my arms for balance and do most of the work with my strong legs pushing me up. I love the view from atop my feet!

Dinner Time

My Mommy and Daddy seem to have evolved a new routine around dinner. We all eat together as a family. Well, almost. First, Mommy and Daddy eat while I watch from my highchair, then I get to eat seated near the table while they watch. It's fascinating to watch how dextrous they are at eating. Also, I noticed that they seem to use things other than spoons when they eat---I wonder why? Anyway, this new arrangement seems to work for everybody. It used to be that I'd feel left out during dinner, but not any more.

Guinea Pig

I'm absolutely fascinated by Licorice, my pet guinea pig. Licorice lives in a cage over in the kitchen. With some effort, I can crawl over and visit her. I like to play with her big red exercise ball, pushing it and rolling it toward her. I also like to play with Licorice. Sometimes I pet her, sometimes I put my fingers in her mouth to see what that is like. Sometimes, I use her cage to pull myself upright, so I can get a better view. The frustrating thing is that every time I settle down to make friends with Licorice, my parents pull me away and force me to make the long trek back to her cage all over again. I've expressed my feeling that this is *not* what I want to do whenever they move me away, but apparently they haven't gotten the message yet.

Yet more pictures

While I've been really busy with crawling around and exploring so that I have not had time to add stuff to my weblog, my parents have been busy clicking away on their cameras. Here's the latest batch of photos. As you can see, I'm wearing my little engineer outfit. Check out the new pictures here or at my website.

Picture Time

My Daddy thought you might like to see some pictures of me crawling around in my backyard. Daddy always puts out a big blanket for me to crawl on. For a while, I was happy to stay on the blanket, but no more. I want to explore everywhere! As a special treat, Daddy finally figured out how to set the camera to take pictures at the highest possible resolution. This is great if you want to make giant poster-sized prints of me (and why wouldn't you). The downside is that Daddy always grouses about the ridiculous amount of time it takes to upload these photos. You can find the pictures here as well as on my website under the album "Aidan Crawling in the Backyard." Enjoy!

Here's another little tidbit for you. Daddy is transcribing the latest two hour video of me and my exploits. My grandmothers (and maybe some others) can expect this in the mail soon. Everyone else will have to bug them to see a copy.

Saturday in the park

Today is another day with Daddy. Mommy is going to again take time out for herself. I don't really mind, Daddy is fun n his own way and we always end up spending much more time outside wandering around than we do with Mommy. Yesterday, I learned a new way to eat---Asian soup bowl style. My Daddy was feeding me in the usual way last night, so I reached out to grab the bowl of oatmeal from his hands. I like to hang onto things. Pretty soon I thought it would be a good idea to suck on the rim of the bowl. Then Daddy had an insight: if he tipped the bowl back a little bit, I would be sucking on oatmeal instead of sucking on plastic. It tasted pretty good that way. He kept tipping and I kept inhaling. I ended up going through two bowls that way. Now, back to the reference earlier. Mommy thought this was a pretty goofy way for me to learn how to eat, but Daddy pointed out that by learning this style, I'll fit right in when we all go out as a family to a Japanese restaurant and I enjoy a bowl of miso soup. No spoons for soup in Japan.

Three squares

My eating habits are changing. Whereas I used to like to "graze" throughout the day, lately I've taken to eating (somewhat) more, but less often. There's so much to see and explore that it seems better to spend less time on eating (pleasant though that is) and more on exploring. So far, Mommy and Daddy are confused by this change. They keep setting me down to try to eat and fretting when I tell them, in no uncertain terms, that I'm not interested.

Don't Fence Me In

Grrrr. I discovered yesterday what all the mysterious noises were the night before. Mommy and Daddy have put up a fence in the house to make it more difficult for me to get to all the treasures. Just on the other side of the fence are such alluring items as shoes with delicious rubbery soles, FedEx boxes filled with objects in yummy shrink -wrapped plastic, and other such delights. Instead, I'm stuck in the family room. I have discovered some new and interesting things here though. Behind the big entertanment center is a whole surge protector full of wires. It's fun to yank at these. Also, I've found a new way to use my ultra-saucer: I climb underneath it an sit in the "bowl" that forms the base of the saucer. This is a nice cozy spot except for two problems. First, I keep forgetting that the saucer has a top and bumping my head on the "ceiling" of my little house. Second, though I can easily get in, I haven't figured out how to get out. My current solution when I want to leave is to cry inconsolably until someone helps me out.

Thwarted

There's a lot more frustration in my life than there was a few weeks ago. It seems that every time I go near anything interesting, my Mommy or Daddy take it away from me. Case in point, yesterday I went exploring and encountered many amusing things--a pile of FedEx boxes, my Daddy's shoes, a box containing a power drill and a hacksaw (among other treasures), some expensive china, lint, a piece of string, and an advertising circular. All of these were taken away from me almost as soon as I discovered them. I get very angry when the item I'm interested in gets taken away from me. Also, how come Mommy and Daddy have all these cool toys and all I have is Mr. Smiley?

Hunger Strike

One of the big problems with colds is that your nose gets stuffy. Now, for lots of other people, this is not too much of a problem, but since I get most of my food by sucking, it's a big problem. Not being able to breathe out of my nose makes the whole eating process a big chore for me and, as a consequence, I dont' want to do it too much. Yesterday, I only ate about 20oz, which is not a lot of food at all by my standards. My parents tried to give me solid food to make up for my difficulties, but I still find eating with a spoon incredibly tedious and annoying. After a hard day struggling with my cold, I did sleep peacefully through the night.

A Hard Day's Night

Last night was one of my unhappiest nights in a long while. After my Mommy and Daddy took me to the kidsfaire all during the day, I somehow ended up not wanting to eat very much. Now, when there's a lot of activity and I'm outside on a bright and sunny day, not eating is not unusual for me. Typically, though, I recover my appetite in the evening. Well, this particular evening, I still wasn't hungry. I've got a cold and the stuffiness and the little cough have me out of sorts, which may account for some of this.

In addition to not eating, I was not in the mood to go to bed. Eventually, I got t sleep but was up at 1am. By this time, I was hungry. I then went back to sleep, but I was up again at 4am, tired and irritable. My parents thought I was hungry again, but they were wrong. I was just feeling grumpy and miserable from the combination of my cold, my new teeth coming in, and generally being sleep deprived. I finally fell asleep in my swing at 5am.

This morning I'm in much better spirits. Oddly, my Daddy is at home taking care of me today. Mommy is taking what Daddy calls a "mental health day." It's hard to believe that there could be anything more fun than spending time with me and taking care of me 24/7, but apparently even Mommy needs a change every once in awhile. Hanging out with Daddy is lots of fun. He likes to bounce and toss me around much more than Mommy does. He also seems more willing to indulge my curiosity. Mommy says that he indulges my curiosity too much. She doesn't want to see anything happen to me, and she's more cautious than Daddy is. The other fun thing about Daddy is that he loves to take me outside to play. This morning I was exploring around outside and I discovered a nice rock. I was about to taste it to see what it was like, but Daddy took the rock away from me. I thought that was mean and cried a little. The backyard is a big place with lots of room to explore.

Attachments

I find myself more attached to people than ever before. When Mommy goes out of the room and leave me by myself, I feel lonely and want her to be with me. The best way to fix this problem, I've found, is to whine. Bottom line: whining works. It also gets me into exciting places that I might not otherwise visit. for instance, yesterday, Mommy was working in the kitchen. Now normally the kitchen is off limits. But it really seems like a paradise with all those great cabinets to open and shiny things like knives to suck on. Well, once again, whining works!

Well, I'm getting better at crawling all the time.
My Mommy has been busily securing all of the  entertainment unit sections
so that I don't pull them down. Scarily, this involves a lot of use of power
drills and screwdrivers, which I find incredibly frightening. I take refuge
in my own room until all the noises are over. My new teeth are also bothering
me a bit. I find a lot of comfort in chewing on a variety of cold toys that
Mommy keeps in the refrigerator. 

Evil Quilt

I had something really scary happen to me yesterday. As I was rolling around on the floor of the family room, I picked up the corner of a quilt my Mommy keeps on the floor for me to play on. In the course or rolling around and around, the quilt somehow decided to roll around with me. After a little time, the quilt had trapped me inside it and I couldn't get out. It was really scary and I cried very loudly so that someone would come and help me. Thanksfully, Mommy came to the rescue and managed to extract me from the mean old quilt. Bad quilt.

Wine Country Pictures

I've posted several new pictures to my photo album. There are from our trip to wine country. We visited the towns of Napa and Yountville as well as visiting the Mondavi and Domaine Chandon wineries. I got to enjoy tiny tastes of a lovely Mondavi zinfandel and a Chandon Rose Brut champagne. The champagne was especially good.

Anyway, you can find the photos by clicking here or visiting my homepage and clicking the Wine Country link in my photo albums section.

Wine Country

Today, the whole family is going up to wine country to taste some wines. Since all I've ever had was a little drop of champagne to celebrate my baptism, I'm really looking forward to it. Last night, I completely fooled by grandmother. While my parents were out at some fancy restaurant (why didn't they take me?) I was at home with her. As evening wore on, she tried and tried to get me to eat and I wouldn't eat. I was just not interested. When my parents came back home, she gave them the bad news---I had gone to bed and she had not managed to get me to eat. After conferring with Mommy for awhile, they came to a novel conclusion---I had not wanted to eat becuase I wasn't hungry. It turned out I had eaten a lot during the day andsimply didn't need much in the evening. Just to prove them right, I happily slept through the night without having any cravings for a midnight snack.

More toys

Lately, it seems that nearly every day is Christmas for me. Happily my Mommy and my Mommy's Mommy share the same taste as me for how to spend their days. I like to go to Gymboree, they like to go to Gymboree. I like to go to Baby Gap, they like to go to Baby Gap. I like getting lots of gifts and new outfits every day, they like to give me lots of outfits and gifts.

Yesterday, a big box and a little box from a place called Amazon.com arrived yesterday. The little box had only boring stuff in it (a wireless router for my Daddy), but the big box had lots more great stuff for me in it. I am now the proud owner of super-deluxe stacking cups---the kind that even make electronic noises when I successfully stack them. I think the box contained other goodies for me, but Mommy says I have to wait until I'm older to get them. I'll be older tomorrow, so maybe I'll get them then. My Daddy says that if you put together the number of toys and outfits I have, it exceeds the number of cells I have. Happily, I'm growing lots of new cells every day.

Labor Day Pictures

I've posted a bunch of new pictures of the rest of my family and me on Labor Day. They are here. I have not yet added the post to my photo album on my website though.

Photo Albums
By popular demand, I've reorganized the photo albums on my web site to provide links to all of the various albums. You can find this new organization here.

More Visitors

My grandmother Timek is here visiting me. We all went to get her at the airport on Sunday and she sat in back with me during the ride back. I immediately recognized her when she started to greet me with her trademark phrase: "And...the...dish ran away with the spoon." After she did this several times, I was giggling uncontrollably. She would also ask me the same question over and over again. "What? ...What? ...What?" each time more insistent. This is, if anything, even funnier than the dish running away with the spoon.

Yesterday, we celebrated Labor Day in the backyard. Since my Mommy was in labor in the process of my being born, this is one of the most important holidays for me. Since it was a hot day, Daddy filled up the pool and we all splashed around inside it. Then I got to hang around on a towel for the remainder of the afternoon. During dinner, I was in for a special treat---open air swinging. My Mommy got out my big swing and set it oon the patio so I could swing happily while everyone ate.

I've lately discovered the joys of my "Air Gym" a toy my Nain gave to me. When I first got it I was about three months old and it was really scary. Since that time, I've become braver and now I delight in it. It plays songs and has a ball inside a tube that goes round and round. I was so hypnotized by it that I fell asleep with my head on one of the buttons, so my parents did not realize that I had stopped "playing."

Yet More Pictures

I"ve added a few really nice photos of myself to my photo album. Because my Daddy read a review that said ofoto was better than shutterfly, the pictures are located there. The bad news is that this means if you want to see them, you'll have to sign up for an ofoto account. The good news is that if you decide to buy any pictures of me from them (and how could you resist), you'll get free shipping on your order. Enjoy!