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Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Trip to Oregon

We are back from our trip to Oregon. I'll try to post pictures soon. Aidan is such an amazing traveler. She did a great job with only one meltdown on the way out and none on the way back. And really, with 9+ hours of traveling, who wouldn't have a meltdown? She walked in the airport and stayed with us. She listened and followed directions most of the time. She did kick the passanger in front of her in the head on the way back, but, really, he was asking for it. What person sees that a small child is sitting behind him, in a car seat so she is up high, and then decides to lean his seat all the way back, jam his head into the crack between the seat and the side of the plane, and then gets upset that a little foot finds its way up to the deliciously lime green pillow sticking out? And mommy, who was trying to watch and prevent such things, dropped off to sleep for a brief moment after being kept up all night by a screaming child. Oh well. He was really rather nasty about the whole thing and quite passive-aggressive. I have to confess that, as he walked off the plane complaining about Aidan's behavior (and, really, compared to most 2 year olds I've seen on planes, she was very well behaved), I wished that he will one day fly his own two year old and that child will have ADD. Not nice, but I was tired.

The down side of our trip was that Christianne was sick the entire time, I caught a cold, and Aidan woke up screaming the night before we left with something hurting and I had no tylenol to give her. No es bueno. But Aidan loves flying and loves riding the bus and she had a great time. DVDs help too.

We spent our trip visiting our friends Pam (Gomma) and Bruce and my mother (Grandma). Gomma threw a little birthday party for Aidan and invited Nana Penny and Grampy Ted, which was wonderful. Aidan's still singing happy birthday to herself. The trip was marked by multiple, multiple, multiple trips to the park - often twice in one day - and several scoops of ice cream. One day, early in the trip, Pam and I took Aidan to the park and then decided to get "ice cream first" before going home. The next day, Christianne and I had Aidan at the park and then went to get lunch. As we were going back to the car, Aidan veered off and started walking back to the mall saying, "Ice cream first, ok, please" over and over until she found the ice cream shop. We were on vacation, so we ate a lot of ice cream first.

The parks we went to had two things in common: sand and running water. Aidan had a blast! Most days it was warm enough to strip her down to her pull-up and just let her run. She got very sandy. She dug and ran and climbed and slid. We started to see some of the same kids and parents at the park and Aidan made some friends with whom to play. It is so sweet to watch her try to initiate connections with other kids. She has two approaches. One is to just follow them around and do whatever they do. The other one she used was to pull up her sleeves and show them her tatoos (when we travel we put tatoos on Aidan's arms that have our cell phone numbers on them just in case she gets lost). It was so cute. We worked on sharing her toys. It is funny. If you ask Aidan to share, her first response is almost always, "No." But then, she'll think about it for a minute or two and then come back and share. She just needs to control of deciding to do it herself.

She is more and more interactive and verbal with her environment everyday. She's even learning to talk on the phone a little bit (with coaching about what to say). And, her new phrase is "Little bit" complete with gesture of putting her thumb and forefinger together, holding it up by her head, and squinting her eyes. She's done very well transitioning back to home and school and routine. I am glad of that.

Today is school picture day. I hope we get some good ones.

I'll try to get pictures up soon.

Thursday, September 11, 2008

Darned laws of physics

Poor Aidan keeps bumping up against laws of physics that thwart her heart's desires. This morning, it was the fact that it is impossible to teleport the bite of waffle she desperately wanted to share with Christianne from the backseat of my car into Christianne's car that was just in front of us.

Aidan and followed Christianne most of the way to Aidan's school this morning. Periodically, Aidan would tear off a piece of her waffle, stretch out her arm as far as it could go given the straps of her car seat, and yell, "Mama! Waffle!" She was most disappointed that she could not reach Mama and there was nothing I could do to facilitate the transfer between solid objects. I suppose that I could have tossed the waffle bite through two open windows when we briefly stopped next to each other, but frankly that was just more than this can't-drink-coffee-since-going-through-two-pregnancies-mommy was up for prior to 8 in the morning. We contented ourselves with waving and yelling "love you!" through open windows. Requires less hand-eye coordination.

Other cute things that Aidan is up to. She now knows the name of the street she lives on. If you listen really carefully, you can hear it quite clearly. I won't describe it here in case some malicious person has found the blog. If you are a malicious person: GO AWAY! We are now working on the house number. This is proving a little more difficult.

Aidan is obsessed with the "Wiggles." We watch a portion of it every day. You haven't lived until you have seen Aidan do the "hiccuping chicken dance" and the "bop de doodle dance." We should video tape them. She is way cute!

She is also obsessed with flossing her teeth since her visit to the dentist. Her technique needs some work, but she's devoted to the activity. She even lets me do 3 or 4 each night. We use flossing as a reward for letting us brush her teeth. I'm not sure our child is "normal."

Aidan seems to be adjusting to her new school. The teachers comment on her vocabulary on a regular basis and she is learning new things each day. Today was show and tell with something starting with a "C." I suppose I should have let Aidan pick it out, but I packed some toy cups for her last night after she was in bed. When she's in formal preschool she can choose her own show and tell objects. She's coming home rather wound up, however. I don't know if this is a function of needing more physical exercise than they are giving them, the amount of time she is asked to listen and follow directions, that they serve dessert at lunch, or she's just so stimulated and excited at school that it is carrying over at home. But, boy, is she independent at home! And, she constantly wants to eat something. The other day, over the course the day, she ate 2.5 oranges and 2 bananas. You'd think we starve the child. We really don't!

Aidan is showing little interest in potty training, although we have had two instances of pooping in the potty. Very exciting. We need to find a better incentive for her as stickers seem to have lost their appeal. Maybe we should try dental floss. We are trying training pants that turn cold when wet. We'll see how that goes.

Friday, September 5, 2008

2 year stats

Well, Aidan's growing like a weed.

Height: 36.5 inches (95th %ile)

Weight: 28.4 pounds (75th %ile)

Head: 19 inches (70th %ile)

Her weight percentile jumped significantly, making the doctor inquire about this, but he said as long as her height is ahead of her weight, we are good. Maybe she doesn't need 1.5 avocados on a regular basis. But doctor said she looks good and is healthy and doing well developmentally. An A+ visit.

Aidan also got an A from the dentist. She had her first tooth cleaning, fluoride application, and exam. Everything but the exam went fairly easily, but overall, she did great! The dentist did say to plan for braces because her mouth is so small. Oh joy. :-)

A picture is worth a 1,000 words

Ready, set, go!

Tuesday, September 2, 2008

Doctor?



The picture doesn't relate to the post, but I know you all really read the blog for pictures.

As you may recall, we have had a rash of leprosy in the household. Fortunately, it only affects stuffed mice. Tonight as we were driving home, Aidan was lamenting Steve's owie. I was commiserating with her and out of the blue Aidan says, "Doctor." I asked if Steve needed to go to the doctor for his owie and Aidan said, "Yes." I told her that it was very fortunately that we were going to see Dr. Denison tomorrow and we would bring Steve to see if Dr. Denison had any special mouse medicine.

Poor Dr. Denison has no idea what he is in for.

Problem solving at its finest

Aidan and I were at the Little Gym on Saturday. One of the activities was for the kids to lie on their tummies over a big bolster, which we then rolled down an incline so the kids did a forward roll as a result. We did this activity and then the teacher moved on to something else. Aidan decided this was fun, so during free play time, she found another bolster, pushed it out from where it was (wedged between 2 mats), rolled it over to the incline area, and started to push it up into the starting position. It was really amazing to watch her discover her own thought, look around the environment and find the tools she needed, acquire the tools, and plunge again with her plan.

Our little fish

Aidan has decided that swimming is the best. Two weeks ago, when Christianne took her to swim class, Aidan started putting her face in the water and reaching down to get dive toys off a submerged table. Saturday, when I took her to class, she immediately started putting her face in the water and went off to look for dive toys she could go after. She is actually trying to swim down to them rather than just bend her knees to get them.

Last night at Kathryn and Susie's house, Aidan decided that she needed to jump off the diving board. Yes, you read that right. Jump off the diving board. Now, it was a low, home swimming pool sort of diving board, but still. The first time, she climbed up there all by herself and jumped off without any assistance. She still has trouble knowing to jump out and away from things and was a little close to the board. She didn't hit her head, but we were concerned that she might. But this little girl stood at the end of the board and jumped (or stepped) to Christianne. After that, one of us helped her jump so we could make sure she got out far enough. The other was on catch and retrieval duty. Aidan went quite a way under water and wasn't the least bit scared. She begged to do it over and over and over and over until she was so tired that her legs were jelly and we were breathing hard as well. We finally had to cut her off.

We are thrilled to have a child who embraces adventure and trusts herself and us so much. We are terrified (well, I'm terrified, Christianne is concerned) that this strength could also get her into trouble some day. I will never teach her to be afraid, but a health dose of measured thought might be nice. Until then, we'll watch her like a hawk and hope others will too.

Ready?

We are starting to work on potty training. As part of this, we flush the poop in the potty. (The handout from the doctor's office said this helps children learn that poop goes in the potty...we'll see.) Sunday we were at a party at a friend's house. Aidan needed her diaper changed. As she reached across to flush the toilet, I hear this little voice say:

Ready, poop?

And away it went...