Bye Bye Bottle and Hello Words!

I have switched to a sippy instead of a bottle before bed with no fuss, so, "Bye Bye, Bottles!"

I am also picking up more and more words. New today were "orange juice" and "love you." "All done" is another very useful phrase I like to use. "Yes" and "No" are in heavy usage now. I can also say, "I-did-it" and "I-want-those," but haven't put these phrases into heavy rotation yet. I like to say them really fast as one word. I also can say, "please" when prompted, and tell Mommy that I want a "waffle." In addition, I can also say "golf" and name an obscure part of a golf club, called a hosel, thanks to Daddy.

Two of my favorite names are "Elmo" and "Ernie." I often wake up in my crib exclaiming, "Elmo!" or "Ernie!" to tell my lazy parents to wake up so I can watch Sesame Street. (Elmo used to be called "Melmo" (see earlier post) but has informed me that he has dropped the "M" from the beginning of his name.) I also enjoy calling Grammy and Nainnie. I started saying both of their names last month when I visited them, and they seem delighted when I call them by name on the phone. (I can also say my cousin Emma's name and the names of several friends, but we aren't old enough to have many solo phone privileges.)

I am especially fond of my Tickle Me Elmo these days. (Grammy helped him find his way here several months ago.) I feel that I must always be vigilant as to Elmo's whereabouts since it is a hard, cold world and I must protect him. Mommy and Daddy always help me to locate him. Yesterday, Elmo accompanied me to the park and swung on a swing alongside me and went down two sliding boards. I also took him on a walk in my Elmo-sized (and doll-sized) stroller. My Elmo-sized stroller and at least one friend come along in the car almost every time we go out.

Today was a bit of a difficult day for me. I went to Music Together (Fun!), but at the end of class I got my finger pinched VERY HARD in an accordian-style baby gate at the entrance to the music room. It hurt LOTS! Mommy says that it also looked very, very sore. Luckily, Mommy had an ice pack in her bag, and she held it on my finger until I started to feel a little better. My finger was a little swollen tonight, but I am making a good recovery.

Then, tonight, Mommy and I were on our front lawn on the way into the house in the half-darkness when a light-colored dog appeared with her owner (off her leash). I was very excited to see her, but she was a bit too excited to see me and knocked me over. Then she picked up my Elmo by the tummy and shook him. Then she knocked me down again and got stuck in the straps of Mommy's backpack (on the ground) before her owner finally got control of her. I was SCARED! I love to see doggies, but I'm not used to full body contact. (The dog was a partially-grown puppy of what looked like a retriever breed.) Mommy explained that the doggie was too excited about wanting to play with me and the dog's owner apologized profusely. I said "Woof" and waved goodbye to the doggie through my tears as we went into the house. I am resilient though and I cheered up quickly once inside and had a nice evening.

By the way, Mommy found me next to Licorice's cage today with a big Tupperware container of guinea pig food that I had taken out of the cabinet where it is kept and hauled over to Licorice. I thought that Licorice looked hungry and wanted to feed her! I am the kind of guy who likes to take initiative!

Visits

Yesterday was a great day for socializing. As usual, Daddy had me out on many walks and we met all sorts of people on them. First, we met a 5 year old girl named Michelle near "ball heaven". Ball heaven is the front of a neighbor's yard that has a basketball net and tons of basketballs all around. I picked up a basketball and was bouncing it (sometimes I try to dribble it like the big kids do, but I never remember to let go of the ball). Michelle showed me how to pitch the basketball underhand to try to make baskets. While she did this twice, I couldn't manage to heave the basketball up high enough.

Then we ran across a couple of kids riding bikes. I like watching bike riding in that the bikes have some terrific wheels attached to them. Plus they go pretty fast, and I like the motion too. Anyway, the Mommy and Daddy of these kids were also around in their garage. They got out a basketball for me to play with and I happily played catch with their Mommy. She would roll the basketball to me. I'd catch it (I'm quite good at this now), and then I'd bounce-pass it back to her. She said I took her back to the time her little boy was about my age.

Finally, we went back to the park and ran across our next-door neighbors (the Partridge's) playing soccer and football in the park. I loved the soccer ball and ran toward it to get it. The two older Partridge sisters, Georgina and Madeline, then played with me in the park. We went on the swings, down the slide, and on some other stuff but, best of all, the soccer ball got to participate too. It went down the slide. I swung on the swing. It was great.

Then it came time to go home. We followed the Partridges back to their house and, seeing an open door, I went zooming inside. Everyone was happy to see me and I got to play a bit more.

It was a great day!

A message from Addy

Normally this space is given over to my life, but tonight, I'm letting Daddy write about his life for a change.

It's a sad night. The Red Sox managed to lose in spectacularly heartbreaking fashion. After holding a 3 run lead going into the 8th inning, the Yankees managed to rally in the 8th to tie it up, and then went on to win it in the 11th on a walk-off home run by Aaron Boone. These are the kinds of games where you cannot help but second-guess the manager's moves. Why did Grady Little stick with Pedro so long in the 8th. The Boston bullpen, which had proved so dependable in the post-season, was not called upon until it was too late for them to rescue the situation. Why couldn't the Red Sox have managed to squeeze out one more run off of Clemens or the many Yankee relievers to come after him. This is one of the saddest times I can ever remember in being a Red Sox fan. I really wish that they could have won. I also can't help but think what a wonderful opportunity was presented to them had they won this game. The Florida Marlins would seem to be a team the Red Sox could reasonably hope to beat in the World Series. Was this their best shot to win it all in my lifetime? It might well have been. Will they ever win a World Series? Will they ever even get there?

Sigh.

Ivory Towers

I'm getting a very steady hand when it comes to building things. Last night, I got out my Bento Box of shapes. This consists of 3 dimensional squares, cylinders, and triangles, each coming in three different sizes. What I like to do is to invert the Bento Box so that the shapes all fall out and then set it on the floor on its reverse side. This is the platform for the tower. Then I stack each of the shapes one on top of the other. The triangles in particular are very tricky to stack correctly. When I was done, I had created a tower that was as tall as I was (in a sitting position).

Speaking of which, how tall am I going to be? Mommy found a number of terrific growth estimation tools to figure out how tall I'll be when I grow up. Right now I"m 2' 9", but I hope to grow some more. According to this site, I'll be about 5'10", which is okay I guess. The problem is not with Mommy, it's with Daddy. If Daddy would suddenly have a growth spurt and grow to be 6' tall, then I'd sky up to 6' 1". If Daddy would really have a growth spurt and shoot up to 7' tall, then I'd be in a fine position for a career in the NBA at 6'7". Unfortunately, Daddy tells me that it's not likely that he will grow.

The variability inherent in height predictions should be noted, however, since the site says that Mommy's genetic potential for height should have been 5' 6 1/2", however, she exceeded her "potential" and grew to be 5'9". Variability can go the other way too, unfortunately, but I'm hoping that exceeding such predictions is also in my genes heightwise.

In other news, I'm learning lots of new words. A current favorite word is "Melmo". Melmo is the name of my favorite Sesame Street character as well as a convenient shorthand for indicating my desire to watch Sesame Street.

Hop, skip, and jump

I've been testing out a whole bunch of new skills recently. Yesterday, my Daddy finally felt better (he had been sick) and we spent most of the day in the yard and in the park. Daddy was, as usual, hitting golf balls. One thing that I really liked to do was to get the golf balls and set them on the tee for Daddy. Then he would zing them across the park. Sometimes, I would take a turn hitting too. I have a little golf set that I use. Daddy helps me by stading behind me and positioning my hands appropriately. Then we take a big swing together and I get to zing a ball across the park. This is absolutely great.

When we were walking home from the park, I decided to try some new running skills. While I now like to run straight ahead, lowering my head slightly, and going "eeeeee", I've also taken to sort of galloping. It's not exactly galloping, but it's kind of like that motion. Daddy would gallop a few paces in front of me. It's hilarious to see him run like that. I would try to imitate. Daddy can also do something called skipping, which seems unfathomably hard.

One I was home, I decided to practice my jumping. I'm not very good at it so far (mostly I just try to lift my legs into the air and then "sit" to attain a jump), but I'm getting better. One thing I've learned already---never jump when there are blocks underfoot. The corners of the blocks are not pleasant to land on.

Little Tiger

This weekend was quite a busy one for me. On Saturday, I went to the Dorothy the Dinosaur show. She's my favorite character on the Wiggles. While it would have been enough to just have Dorothy there, in fact, Captain Feathersword, Henry the Octopus, and Wags the Dog were also there. Looked like the Captain gained some weight since the TV show. I enjoyed the singing and dancing. I also enjoyed the lights and colors of the Paramount Theater, which is the really nice place that the show was put on. Daddy says to check out the online tour.

Also over the weekend, Daddy introduced me to two new sports. He got out a tee-ball set that had been living in the garage for the past several months. Hooray. I'm finally big enough to play tee-ball. I really enjoyed the big softballs and I especially liked placing them on the tee; however swinging the bat to hit them was elusive. I preferred to give Daddy the bat so he could hit the balls. Daddy tried to teach me to swing, which I sort of liked, but Mommy said he was trying to teach me to swing left-handed when, in her view, it seemed more natural for me to swing right-handed.

The other sport we did a lot of this weekend was golf. Daddy recently got a set of clubs and Mommy got me a set of small plastic clubs as well. We went out together on Sunday morning to hit some golf wiffle balls in the park. I was carrying my driver slung over my shoulder and Daddy had his 6 iron. Again, I found the balls themselves to be the most fascinating part of the process. Daddy said I was excellent at "shagging" golf balls. He would hit them and they would go soaring through the air. Then I would chase them across the park, bring them back and set them on the golf tee for Daddy. This was lots of fun.

Happy Birthday Abba

Today is my Abba's birthday. I'm not sure how old she is but compared to me she's old. I'm celebrating by doing some original artwork on a card that Addy bought for me. I've also been on my best behavior---sweet as can be---on her special day. Best of all, maybe there will be cake some time this weekend. I like cake (even if it is sort of messy).

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.