Abba

Yesterday I went to my cousin Emma's baptism. I find it very hard to sit still in church and this time was no exception. Shortly after the baptism was completed, I decided I had had enough. Daddy took my into the vestibule to play with my (Emma's) toy wheeled bead maze. Evenutally, one of the ushers took pity on Daddy and told him about a mecca of toys located not far away. Daddy took me for the "hajj" to the mecca of toys and I soon became quite interested. There were other nice ladies there to take care of me and the other kids who were playing. Eventually, I noticed that niether Mommy nor Daddy were around. At times this distressed me and I called for Mommy. "Ab-baa" I said. "ab-baa!". The women who were taking care of me looked at me quizzically. I soon got interested in other toys, but then would stop occasionally to call out "Ab-baa!"

When Daddy and Mommy came to pick me up, the women asked what language I spoke. Daddy, in his funny way, said I spoke "Aidan-ese" which didn't seem to hep them to sort out the mystery. They asked directly what "abba" means and they said that I kept saying this. How silly of them. Of course, "abba" is my word for my favorite person---Mommy.

The Electric Slide

Lately, I've rediscovered the joys of the small sliding board in my backyard. As those of you who've visited know, my "clubhouse" is full of fun stuff. There are a series of indentations that I use to climb up. At the top is my clubhouse which has a great clock in it. "Tick tock". Then, to come down from the clubhouse, there's the convenient sliding board. The round trip up and down is always something to celebrate, so I've taken to doing the "happy sliding dance" at the end of each trip down from the slide. To do the dance, you have to bend your knees slightly and then bounce up and down while waving your arms and going, "Whee!". Then, when you're all finished, you give yourself a round of applause. I taught Mommy and Daddy the sliding board dance, and they're getting pretty good at it. But still, I am the lord of the dance, when it comes to sliding board celebrations.

I attended a playgroup this afternoon where I got to slide with abandon on a somewhat taller sliding board than the one I use regularly. This was very exciting and I went up the steps and down the slide many. many times, exclaiming, "Whee!" each time.

Music Together

The fall session of my Music Together class begain on Tuesday. I particularly liked banging the rhythm sticks on the floor and using the shakers (like maracas). I also enjoyed seeing my teacher, Rowena, some of my old friends, as well as lots of new kids. After class, we went to lunch at Skipolini's Pizza with 4 other toddlers and mommies. Skipolini's has some play structures in the courtyard that we enjoyed playing on. Mommy was a little concerned since I would climb deep into the big play structures through tubes and then it was sometimes hard to get me to come back out! I had fun although I had an accident just before we left. I was crouching on a platform about 3 feet off the ground and got distracted by another child and fell backward onto the ground and bumped my head. Happily, the floor was rubberized, so although I cried and Mommy was very worried at first, I was just fine soon after my fall. I enjoyed holding the ice pack Mommy gave me.

Google

As some of you may know, I'm the most popular Aidan Morgan on Google. If you type in the search term "Aidan Morgan" and click the "I feel lucky" button it will take you right to my website. Well, I recently discovered that I achieved a new Internet milestone: I'm now the most popular Aidan weblog on Google. Typing the search term "Aidan's Weblog" in Google and clicking I feel lucky takes you right here---to this very web page.

Last night Daddy and I took turns pushing my toy bus along the floor. Neither of us are very good bus drivers since each dirve would typically result in the bus plowing into a wall or some other object. Occasionally the bus would flip over in our zeal to "drive" it. I liked to cheer the bus on by making vroom noises and saying "us, us" to it. "Us" is how I like to say bus (following one of the standard rules for my language which is to drop the initial consonant of most words, e.g., Daddy = "Addy").

Picture Time

The complete set of pictures from Auntie Max's visit are now up. You can see them here. Note that because of the randomness of Shutterfly, the old link posted a couple of days ago probably won't work.

I've also posted these same pictures at Ofoto. You can see them here. While Ofoto is annoying in that you have to sign in to see the pictures, it actually did a better job with this batch of pictures than did Shutterfly. Specifically, Shutterfly automatically cropped the pictures uploaded to it in such a way as to harm the composition. Don't believe me--compare IMG_2976 and IMG_2987 at both sites. The Ofoto site displays the image correctly as my Daddy composed it while Shutterfly does not.

A visit to Chloe and her New Baby Brother

On Friday, while Aunti Max was taking a Greyline bus tour of San Francisco, Mommy and I visited my friend, Chloe, her Mommy and her new baby brother, Cameron. It had been several weeks since I saw Chloe last, and I was excited to go visit her. Before we left, Mommy told me we were going to play with Chloe and I said, "O-ee" in response. At Chloe's house, Mommy pointed to Chloe and asked, "Who's that?" and I answered, "O-ee." I don't know why Mommy needed me to remind her of Chloe's name! Anyway, Chloe is the 4th individual person whom I've called by name. (As you can see in a blog published earlier today, Aunti Max is the 5th.)

I was very excited to play with Chloe's toys. I enjoyed playing in the sandbox with her "ovels" and pushing her mower outside. Inside was the best though. I absolutely loved Chloe's easel with a tray chock full of crayons. While I did draw some lines with them, the crayons were best for burying my hands in-- causing them to make noise as they first knocked against the sides of the tray and then were flung to the floor. Best of all though was Chloe's toddler-size stroller. Oh what a wonderful thing it was! It had wheels and was just the right size for me to push. I think that it was even better than the strollers I ride in!

I was very affectionate with everyone at Chloe's house. I kissed the new baby (born August 15) several times. He was very tiny, cute and calm and I liked him. (Babies are nicer when they aren't invading my home turf!) I also gave several wet kisses to Mommy, Chloe's mom and Chloe's aunt. I tried to give Chloe a big, friendly hug as we were leaving, unfortunately, I was a little too enthusiastic and knocked Chloe down. She hit her head on the hard, tile floor and cried and cried. I felt bad and was scared by all of her crying, so I cried too and hid behind a chair. We both calmed down eventually and then Mommy and I said, "Bye-Bye."

Food Update

By the way, I ate part of a Valencia orange for the first time at Chloe's house. It was delicious! I also ate part of one today. I also decided to indulge in some scrambled egg and ketchup today (for the first time in weeks). Bananas and raisins are also finally back on my list of acceptable foods.

Auntie Max

I got to say goodbye to my Auntie Max tonight. She's taken good care of me and seems to really like me. I like her too. Indeed, I like her so much that I even sort of figured out her name. I call her "Ant". One of the things we both love to do is play with my big bead maze. I drag it to her in every room and encourage her to play with me by making little whining noises. She always seems so excited. She says, "Oh Aidan, you've brought my favorite game." Of course, then she immediately tries to point out something else for me to do. Fortunately, I'm good at staying focused and "on task" as they say, so I make sure she doesn't forget about the fun we're going to have playing with the bead maze. It's too bad she's leaving, she's lots of fun to have around.

Comments Update

Some of you are probably wondering about the comments on my page. Unfortunately, the server where my comments are is broken. They had to buy a new server (probably because it was inundated with all the comments from my weblog). It will be up next Monday.

Earthquake

Yesterday, my Aunt Maxine made us all dinner. I didn't actually eat what she made since it consisted of a salad with nuts (no nuts until I'm 3) and beef Wellington (I've embraced the Cali lifestyle and am mostly vegetarian). While she was cooking we got to experience a reasonably large earthquake. Here's a site with details. Mommy actually submitted a report about it though it didn't actually do anything other than shake us a little bit. Auntie Max thought that a large truck must have just passed by. Some friends in Lafayette, a few miles closer to the center of of quake, said it felt as though a truck had run right into their house. No damage though. Daddy thought it was Maxine's first earthquake, but Mommy told him that in fact, she had already experienced one in Pennsylvania-- link here. Auntie Max remembered only mine subsidences.

I've decided that Auntie Max is worthy of her own special goodbye before I go to sleep. As Mommy was taking me off to my room to sing to me before sleepytime last night, I ran back to the kitchen to make sure I got a special goodbye from her as well as a kiss. I like her.

Auntie Max

My Aunt Maxine came to visit me in California for the first time ever. I found it especially hilarious when she would kick at the little pool I was wading in causing the water to splash. Daddy took several pictures of her first day in California and posted them here. More to come!

Wheelbarrow

One fun thing that Daddy does (and which seems to horrify Mommy) is to let me do wheelbarrow rides. Daddy will pick up my legs while I use my arms to propel myself along the ground. It's not the fastest way to get around, but it is a lot of fun. Plus, seeing the world upside down makes everything seem new and different.

Picture Time

I posted up some pictures of out Labor Day celebration. The little girl is Bianca (mentioned in the previous Blog entry) and the bearded person is Ernesto. You can enjoy the pictures here.

Labor Day

We had a Labor Day celebration yesterday, but it wasn't much fun. Daddy had the nerve to invite over a rival, a 10 month old named Bianca. I felt sure that Bianca was intended as a replacement for me, and I didn't like it one bit. Now, there are two paths that I could take in this situation: (A) I could be maximially cute and fun and convince Mommy and Daddy that Bianca was a not a good substitute for me. Or (B) I could be miserable so that Mommy and Daddy would soon realize their mistake and ask Bianca to leave. I went with (B). Unfortunately, it didn't work. Bianca stayed for several hours and was generally cute and well-behaved. This plan did not work out at all well for me.

The other thing that made Labor Day bad was that Daddy had a nasty choking episode. Daddy and Mommy and our guests (but not Bianca) were enjoying some lovely steaks that Mommy cooked on the grill. I guess Daddy was enjoying his a bit too much as part of it becamse lodged in his throat. He went in the kitchen sort of gasping for breath and Mommy and one of our guests, Laura, attempted to perform the Heimlich maneuver on him but without success. As they were asking whether to call 9-1-1 for him, he managed to dislodge enough stuff that he could breath again, albeit with some difficulty. He eventually was able to get all better. Mommy seemed really scared and upset by this. I was busy eating yummy corn on the cob, so I didn't really get too concerned. The oddest part was that Daddy felt very bad for spoiling the time the other guests were having through his inconsiderate choking episode.

By the way, you may be wondering where the comments part of my weblog went. It turns out that the server used to make the comments go has been down since last Thursday. They expect to fix it in the next day or so.