Friday, January 31, 2003

Anniversary

My Nannie correctly notes that today is my one year anniversary in coming home from the hospital. Hard to believe I've been out that long!
Changing Tastes

My tastes are changing from the time that I was younger. While I used to really enjoy a good game of "chase the baby", I'm less interested in it being played the way it used to be. In the earlier version of the game, I would crawl away from my Daddy and he would catch my leg and pull me back to him on my tummy. I liked being caught so much that sometimes I'd make only a few crawl steps away and then stop and hold my leg out. I don't really do that anymore. If Daddy is going to chase me, then it's going to be a real chase. To make it even harder, I like to crawl behind stuff, like my big stuffed horsie, and hide from him so he cannot see me. Sometimes he spots me anyway and looks at me from a funny angle. That's great fun.

Thursday, January 30, 2003

Toughness

My daddy is not so rugged and durable as I am these days. In the past several days, we were roughhousing in various ways, and he ended up being totaly shut down by my physicality. In one case, we were in a long crawling race on our hardwood (laminate) floors. Daddy's knees are apparently not as tough as mine for crawling on this surface at high speed and he ended up stopping. Yesterday, we were roughhousing by my horsey and I head butted him in the nose. He didn't seem to like that too much. Of course, I don't want to hurt Daddy, but I love to bounce around.
Tipping Points

One of the great things about many of my new toys is that they're eminently tippable. For instance, the Air-tivity table is fun to play with when standing on its legs, but even more fun--it makes a great crashing noise--when inverted. I've taken to tipping over other things---my gear toy is great to invert, the diaper genie is much more interesting (and much more rollable) when on its side. My big stuffed horse is also more interesting when on its side too.

Monday, January 27, 2003

On My Own Two Feet


Today I was waving at my mommy and her friend Cheryl, who were on the other side of the baby gate, and I was so involved in waving to them with both hands that I didn't notice that I was standing on my own. This was my longest time standing unsupported ever. It only happens when I'm concentrating on clapping or waving. Later this afternoon, I was in the living room with Mommy, Cheryl, and Cheryl's baby, Clara, and decided that I really wanted to get to the coffee table to taste and explore the candles. I had my hands on Mommy's while she was sitting in the floor, and I was so impatient to get to the table that when she let go I took three unsupported steps toward the table and got there on my own! Now I still don't quite believe that this happened, but Mommy has witnesses.

Socializing

I had a very busy weekend of socializing. On Saturday night, I got to attend my first Rabbie Burns night, a celebration in honor of the birthday of the great Scottish poet Robert Burns. From the look of it though, I think it's more an occasion for the adults to drink Scotch to excess. In any event, I was introduced to everyone, and there was a large contingent of guests at the party from the British Isles. Whereas normally my name is considered unusual and causes some people trouble in pronouncing, in this crowd I fit right in. No one even bothered to comment on the uniqueness of my name. In fact, there was an adult there who had the same name as me and congratulated my parents for spelling it correctly-- "Aidan." It seems he recently saw it spelled "Ayden" and was quite dismayed.

I'm still at home in social situations, but perhaps a bit more tentative than I was. Lots of people wanted to hold me and sometimes that was all right. But other times I preferred to be held by my Mommy and Daddy. Two of my best friends at the party were girls who live next door, Georgina and Madeleine Partridge. They are 9 and 7 years old and absolutely loved to hang out with me. They would run off and find more and more toys for me to play with. Naturally, I loved the attention and all the toys.

The following day, we all went to a Super Bowl party. This was my second time watching the Super Bowl, but my first Super Bowl party. Last year, they let me out of the hospital just in time to watch the Super Bowl with my Daddy in my sports-themed footies. This year, I wore jeans and my football sweater and sampled some quesadillas. (After mushing them up well in my mouth, I sucked off the cheese and then disgarded the remaining pieces of tortilla on my sweater. Too bad there isn't a more efficient delivery system for melted cheese!) My Daddy tells me that I experienced a very authentic Super Bowl this year. True to form, the game was a lot more boring than the ads. I did enjoy the halftime show though. I danced to Shania Twain and No Doubt. Why doesn't Mommy wear outfits like Shania's or Gwen Stefani's? Daddy suggested that she should, but it didn't really seem like she was going to take him up on that.

Friday, January 24, 2003

Cousin

I recently learned that I have a new first cousin, Emma Clare Morgan, who was born on January 21st in Orlando. She weighed 6 pounds, 12 oz. at birth---considerably more than I did. Not being as impetuous as I am, she decided to wait until she was full-term to be born. While the downside of this is that she didn't get to experience the joys of the big old world as quickly as me, the upside is that she seems to have some additional skills, like knowing how to eat and breathe at the same time, that I didn't have. As you know, I have many nicknames---Mister Baby, A-train, and so on. I thought it would be good if my new cousin had a nickname too. Mommy came up with a good one: E. Clare (a pun on the delightful dessert treat).

Wednesday, January 22, 2003

Insomnia

I find my sleeping patterns are changing. For a long while I took two naps per day, one in the morning and one in the early afternoon. Then I migrated to one nap in the early afternoon. Unfortunately for my parents, my sleep schedule seems to have shifted again. Now I prefer to nap from about 3:00 until 5:00 pm. I've been doing this for about a week, and I've been having trouble sleeping at night. I'm happy enough to go to bed around 8-8:30 (my usual bedtime), but I find myself waking up and not being happy about it during the last few nights. Worse yet, it's hard for me to fall back to sleep once I'm up. While this hasn't had much effect on my usual sunny demeanor during the day, Mommy says it's killing her. Daddy says something about my "circadian rhythms" being off. I don't know what that is, but it doesn't sound like a good thing.

Tuesday, January 21, 2003

Stacking Cups

Normally my idea of fun is to fling things around hither and thither. I"m not really keen on organization. But Mommy and Daddy think that sometimes play should involve a bit more discipline and last night was one of those times. Daddy lined up my stacking cups from smallest to largest and then instructed me on how to put a smaller cup into a bigger one. Eventually I got the hang of this. It was very different having a purpose for the stacking cups other than for banging and putting in my mouth. By the end, I was able to stck 5 cups inside one another. They make a satisfying noise when shaken this way.

By the way, while Daddy was convinced this was a new discovery, Mommy quickly disabused him of that notion.

Monday, January 20, 2003

ights

By the way, I'm figuring out the letter "L". Now, about half the time I refer to lights as "lights" instead of my usual "ights". The "L" sound is supposed to be a hard one to pick up, so this is a big breakthrough for me.
Bon Appetit

I have not been out to somewhat fancy restaurants in a while. Happily, I got to go out this past Friday to a restaurant called Il Fornaio. Il Fornaio means "the bakery" in Italian, which can only mean one thing---homemade bread. They say bread is the staff of life. That's not really true for me (milk is the "staff" of life), but of all the foods I've tried, bread is one of my absolute favorites. When we went to the restaurant, I got to sit in a nice, tall highchair which permitted a great view of the interesting things around me. On the ceiling were long strands of "ights" and at the end of the room was a roaring fireplace, another kind of "ight". They quickly delivered a big basket of bread and I settled in to really enjoy myself. The bread and some other goodies (Mommy gave me a piece of her rabbit-stuffed pasta, but without the rabbit) kept me well entertained throughout the entire dinner. My Daddy pronounced the evening a big success.

Friday, January 17, 2003

Giddy up

Yesterday, my Mommy built a great toy---a pony given to me by my Uncle Jack for my birthday. It's a grat pony, very spirited. The pony is suspended by four very thick rubber bands which makes it quite bouncy. It also whinnies and makes clip-clop noises as I bounce along. When Daddy came home, he gave me a very spirited pony ride. We were bouncing so much I was bouncing out of the saddle at the top of each bounce. I laughed and roared with delight. Mommy thought this was a bit much bouncing and asked Daddy to slow the pace of the pony from a gallop to a canter.

Thursday, January 16, 2003

Food for Thought

After several months of having me try different foods, most of which I was not interested in, my Mommy has finally come up with a food that's an absolute winner---chocolate cake with chocolate icing. As I mentioned earlier, for the group one year old birthday thing, my Mommy baked many cupcakes. I didn't eat any of them at the party (owing to it being kind of messy), but Mommy did save me a cupcake to eat at home. I finally got to enjoy it last night. Let me tell you it was fabulous.

Here's how I like to eat cupcakes: First, I lick all the icing off the top of the cupcake. Icing is truly delicious stuff plus it gives me a delightful chocolate "beard". Next, I try to shove the entire cupcake into my mouth. It doesn't actually fit, but it does cause lots of cake crumbs to break off and go into my mouth. Mommy's cupcakes are so heavenly that they literally melt in my mouth (so I don't gag as is the case with other, lesser foods.) Then I pick up the crumbs on the table and keep eating until there's no more cupcake. Delicious.

I've never eaten so much solid food in my life. I hope there's another cupcake for tomorrow.

Wednesday, January 15, 2003

For Whom the Bell Tolls

One of the best parts of my Scoot About is its bell. I've never had a bell before, and I really like this one. It requres that I pull back a flexible plastic trigger. On releasing the trigger, it returns to its original position and causes the bell to ring. Anyway, that's how my Daddy explained it. To me, it means you push on the plastic thingy and get a nice noise out. I love it!

Yesterday, I went to a Gymboree preview---sort of an attempt to get all the Mommies to sign up for Gymboree. Currently I'm enrolled in a rival course called Kindergym. Well, the Gymboree stuff was pretty impressive. Mommy thought it was much more deluxe than Kindergym. So it looks like next "semester" I may be a Gymboree kid.

Tuesday, January 14, 2003

Wheels

I love wheels. The bigger the better. When I was in the airport waiting for our luggage, there was a big wheeled cart used to heft around stuff by redcaps. I really enjoyed investigating those wheels. In fact, Daddy had to pul me away before I started licking one of the wheels.

Finally, I have some wheels of my own. My Daddy assembled yet another of my birthday gifts, a Radio Flyer Little Red Scoot About. This was a gift from my Grandma Dorothy though she had no hand in building it (Daddy told me to stress that building this item was not a trivial matter.) Anyway, one of the best things about this toy is that it has wheels on it---fairly big ones too. While I think you're supposed to ride it somehow, I prefer to just sit beside it and play with the wheels, moving them back and forth. Maybe I'll taste them soon. Oooooh, wheels.

Monday, January 13, 2003

Happy Birthday...again

Yesterday I took my parents to a group one-year-old birthday party held by one of the social groups to which I belong. My Mommy was in chrge of baking cupcakes for all the babies and all the Mommies and Daddies at the party. She baked a LOT of cupcakes. I had a great time at the party since there were lots of wheeled vehicles to push around. A plastic motorcycle that I could sit on took my fancy. While I sat on it for a while as my Daddy pushed me around, I preferred to ride the toy dismounted, pushing it around the house as kind of a portable support for my walking. As usual, everyone thought I was cute an adorable.

After a time, my Mommy put a bunch of candles on the cupcakes and all the Mommies and Daddies sang happy birthday to us. I tried to blow out the candles on the cupcakes, but didn't quite get what I was supposed to do. After that, we all had cupcakes and ice cream. Except that a lot of the other people opted out---while Mommy had carefully ensured that everyone would have a cupcake, at party's end there were still LOTS of cupcakes left. Mommy did not seem too happy about that.

We were so busy later in the day that I still haven't had MY cupcake. Maybe tonight.

Sunday, January 12, 2003

Labs

I got the results from my lab tests back on Friday. After initially diagnosing me as anemic, the fuller set of labs showed that this was not the case. I've got a clean bill of health. Yay for Mr. Baby!

Friday, January 10, 2003

Yet More Words

I'm making great progress in making words. Yesterday, my Daddy was reading me a book that had lots of pictures of animals on it. (Actually, he didn't seem to be reading the words in the book at all. He was just pointing to the animals and saying their names over and over.) Anyway, he came to one of my favorite animals, a cat. Now I've never seen a live cat, but they sure are nice in books. [Note: the previous sentence seems to be a hallucination by my Daddy, who helps me write this. I have seen and enjoyed many cates live and in the flesh.] After he said cat about a zillion times, he paused...and I said..."caaaaaat." I'm always careful to pronounce the "t" at the end. He was stunned. He tried again. Another zillion cats, to which I replied "caaaat".

But this was not my only feat of vobabulary valor. Later that morning my Mommy was showing me flashcards of various fruits that I might like to eat---apple, pear, orange, banana. She would say the names of the fruits while holding up the card. After a couple of rounds of this, I snatched the banana card from her and said, "banana". Now this is a big, hard word for such a little guy as me, but I said it. Daddy was in the room when I did, so I have a witness.

Thursday, January 09, 2003

Christmas Photos

My first batch of Christmas photos are now posted. You can find them here. Mommy tells me that Shutterfly is running a special right now, so it's a great time to pick up more cute pictures of me. You can also find a link at my website.
Words

My vocabulary is expanding. My favorite word is still "dat", which I use to describe all interesting objects. This displaced my previous favoriate, "mama", which I used to describe everything. I also now use the word "ight" whenever I see a light. When I see a tree, I often say "tee", and when I see my piggy, I say "peegeegee". I'm also standing up on my own now more and more. I can't stay up for long and it's often by accident, but I'm feeling more confident in this.

Today I visit the doctor's office for follow-up to see if I've been exposed to tuberculosis as well as to find out about some other lab tests that were run. Mommy promises that there will be no more shots this visit, so at least it will be a bit better than the last one. I'm getting to like these trips less and less.

While I was back east, I learned how to clap. I like clapping, but what I like even better is getting others to participate in clapping with me. One of my favorite games right now is to grab the hands of my Mommy or Daddy and clap them together. They have bigger hands than mine, so theirs make a more satisfying noise when I clap them together than do my littler hands.

Wednesday, January 08, 2003

My Checkup

I got to do one of my least favorite things yesterday---go to the doctor. He weighed and measured me. My Mommy thinks my statistics are funny in this regard: I'm in the 10th percentile in height, the 50th in weight, and the 97th (!!) in head size. Were it not for my massive head, I'd be even shorter I suppose. The doctor then expressed disapproval at Mommy and I for not eating more solid foods. (Actually, Mommy is pretty good at eating solid food, I'm not.) Now for the torturous part. I had a whole bunch of shots and had blood drawn. This was bad enough, but then I learned that I had to go to another lab to have *more* blood drawn.

Mommy drove me to the next lab, but, because I'm such a wriggly guy, they couldn't to the tests because there was only one attendant on duty. (It takes at least three people to hold me down because of my strength and agility.) so it was off to another lab and more unpleasantness. With all the blood they took from me today, I'm surprised I have any left.

Anyway, on the way home a woman in a big SUV rammed into the back of our vehicle. Since I sit facing rear, I saw the SUV close in. Everyone was scared and on edge, but it doesn't look like much harm was done.

What a day.

Tuesday, January 07, 2003

My Favorite Word

Lately, I've really enjoyed saying the word "dat" whenever I see anything interesting. During the car ride home from the airport, there were so many interesting lights all around me that I said "dat" more or less the whole trip. A whole 45 minutes worth of "dats". My Mommy and Daddy are amused at how carefully I pronounce the "t" at the end of "dat".
Earned my wings

Well, I flew back west successfully. For most of the trip I was reasnably happy although I had no interest in getting back into the car seat after our layover in O'Hare. While I was waiting in O'Hare, I met a 16 month old by named Finley. He's really good at walking. I showed him that I'm good at cruising by pushing my stroller (while Daddy held on and made sure I didn't go too fact) all around the airport. He seemed quite impressed. Finley was flying off to North Carolina, so we said good bye to one another. We both waved at each other. At the end of the flight to Oakland, the captain of the aircraft thought I was so cute that he gave me a set of United pilot wings. I think this means I'm now qualified to fly large jet aircraft.

The bad news is that I brought back another present from the east with me---a cold. I'm sneezing and coughing and pretty miserable. To top it all off, I'm going to see the doctor today. What a day---I might have to have shots AND antibiotics. What could be worse?

The bad news is that