Ch-ch-ch-changes

Aaron, Adriane & Rocky

Well folks, it's official.  The three of us little fishies (plus dog) are moving out of Washington.  We will miss it here.  I will particularly miss the green, the water, the mountains, the clean, the living GREEN, the temperature, the 24 hour supermarkets, the huge seagulls, the sea otters, the ferries, Pike's Market, the farmer's markets, the shopping, the metropolitan yet small city feel, hearing the boats and trains from my condo. I'll miss most of it in fact.

But we're trading it in for other things.  Things that we feel like we need.  Things to help keep us SANE.  Mostly, it's a change we hope will do us some good.


So we just got back from a trip to California to see my family and came back with an apartment leased and waiting for us at the end of this month.  I'm busy with all the details and will have to pack and hope Aaron doesn't pull everything right back out of the box!  

But during our trip Aaron had fun with his grandparents and his tia (aunt) Eva.  For the first day after we go back he went around the house saying "TIA!  Where are you?".  So cute!  He likes his tia's little backyard because it has grass and flowers and cement for chalk and a hose!  


Eva and I took Aaron to South Land Park to see if he'd actually let us put him on the pony rides and he did!  And his pony was named Rocky!  It must have been fate.  (Rocky - Adriane, get it?)  He also went to Funderland which has a bunch of small rides for little kids.  He went on the CHOO-CHOO train and the cars.  He was kind of small for everything else.  The one other ride he could have gone on was a solo ride and he wasn't up for that just yet!  


He's talking so much more now and says new words everyday.  He can count to 10 in both English and Spanish now and he can almost count to 20 in English.  He loves to sing!  He sings to himself all the time.  He also loves to point out buses.  If you're in the car and he sees one he yells at the top of his lungs "BUS! BUS! BUS! BUS! BUS! BUUUUUSSSS!" and doesn't quit!  Somehow he's learned to dance like he's at a hoedown.  I blame that Dance-a-lot Robot on the Disney Channel!  


He still loves to eat but has become a little more picky than he used to be.  Well actually, he used to eat pretty much anything!  Now it changes from day to day, but I can always count on diary and carbs!  If it has bread, pasta or cheese he's gonna eat it!  


He changes and grows everyday.  I still look at him and see part baby, but now it's becoming more little boy.  I love my boy.  


So now on to a new chapter in our lives!  Next time I post it will be from Cali.


Hello Sunshine!


 

I'm hungry and tired but I'm doing this post, dammit.

So we finally took Aaron to the Woodland Park Zoo.  We had been talking about it and talking about it and we finally found a sunny, warm day with nothing else planned to visit the zoo.  Aaron loved it and he was in total awe of both the giraffe and the elephant but the elephant was definitely his favorite.  He cried when we left the elephants to visit another animal!  And yes, he can now say elephant. :)  We want to visit the aquarium next.


It seems since I posted that last entry with his vocabulary it's grown almost double!  It's like one day they knew a handful of words and the next day there babbling away!  A lot of new animal words and sounds and definitely more compression in general.  I just did a video yesterday but I'm to lazy to upload it here so you can see my YouTube channel and see it there.  


Recently, Aaron's taken to "playing" with the dog Ulrich, though I'm not sure Ulrich has any idea what's going on.  Aaron runs around chasing him and Ulrich just runs around in circles trying to get away from him!  If Aaron catches up to him, he kind of lightly grabs his back or smacks him gently and then laughs and laughs and runs away!  It's pretty adorable and so far there has been no negative reaction from Sir Ulrich!  

I'm also trying to teach Aaron his first chore!!  (Haha!!  It's really more for the dog and Aaron to build a relationship).  When Ulrich's food bowl is empty, I'll say "Oh-uh!  The doggie's food is all gone!  Do you want to feed the doggie more food?" and Aaron will usually answer "YES!".  So I ask him to get the bowl for me and he picks it up, brings it to me where I'm waiting by the bag of dog food, I fill it up and give it back to Aaron.  I taught Aaron to grab it with both hands and he does, then walks it over to the placemat on the floor, squats and places it in the floor.  Then I tell him what a great job he did and I call the dog over and we both show Ulrich his full food bowl.  So far it's working out well.  I figure this will teach both Aaron and Ulrich a few things.  Now if only I could teach Aaron how to vacuum!  Haha!


Now if you'll excuse me, I've got about 20 minutes of nap time I'm guessing so I'm going to make good use of it!  

Aaron should totally model

Aaron's Zoolander!  (Thanks for the idea, Maya!)                                                                             

Brought to you by your future graffiti artist

Today it was hot in the Northwest.  Like, 95 degrees in some spots.  And for those of you who say that 95 isn't that bad -- Seattleites do not have air conditioning so SHUT IT!  Moving on.....

Since I knew this week was going to be warm I had been thinking of activities Aaron and I could do outside - even if it was on our little "stoop".  I had been actually thinking of sidewalk chalk for awhile and yesterday I went to Safeway and lo and behold -- there was sidewalk chalk for sale right in the front of the store in a summer display.  So today I swept our stairs and little entrance area, put the baby gate up at the end of the stairs and introduced Aaron to sidewalk chalk!  Hooray!!!  

Aaron loved it.  Ulrich loved keeping Aaron company.  And I loved being outside for a change without having to restrain Aaron in one way or another (hand holding, stroller, babe in arms).  He spent a little over an hour outside coloring on the walls and ground.  It's like he's a baby Picasso.  I sent a photo to my mom's phone and she said "He is going to become a graffiti person now!".  Yeah, I'm pretty sure sidewalk chalk does not lead to a life of crime, but I guess you never know.  Of course she thought it was totally adorable anyway.

Recently Aaron, Josh and I went to The Hi-Life (for their awesome $5 breakfast) and Aaron dropped his cup on the floor when a nice woman who was waiting for a table picked it up for him.  I said thank you to the lady and Aaron turned around and looked at her and said "thank you!" and the woman just started cracking up.  She thought it was the cutest thing.  And it was.  Score one for teaching baby good manners!

We're also trying to get Aaron to say "help" when he needs it instead of screaming (loudly) in frustration.  When Aaron can't get a toy out of his toy box he screams.  When he's sitting on something and doesn't realize it and can't pull it out from under him, he screams.  When he traps himself behind a piece of furniture and the wall, he screams.  So we tell him that it's inappropriate to scream and then we ask him to ask for help.  So far he still yells at first mostly, but when I look at him and say "Aaron, what do we say when we need help?" he says "heeelp".  On rare occasion he uses it all on his own.  Like when he's screaming his head off because I'm changing his diaper and he hates it and is trying to roll over and yelling "HEEEELLP" at the same time.  Yeah.  Awesome.  I'm just picturing having to change his diaper in public when he starts that up.  Score one for baby on this one.  (sigh)  You win one, you lose one I guess.

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go stick my head in the refrigerator.  And if you happen to see some sidewalk chalk tags in your neighborhood, I swear -- it's not my boy!

18 months - My baby is a toddler!

My Aaronito is 18 months old! Today we had his 18 month check up with the doctor and he's doing great. Aaron weighs 30 lbs exactly and is 32 inches long. We went over diet & nutrition and development.

Aaron pretty much eats everything we eat and now that I've cleared it with doctor that includes shellfish, raw fish and smoked fish/meats. AWESOME! Today we tried real sushi -- he's had a cucumber roll before and he loved it! -- but he wasn't too keen on the texture of the raw fish I think. But then again, it takes most adults awhile to get used to sushi!

He does a lot of baby babble and even likes to sit and "read" his books out loud to himself but he does have a small vocabulary. Aarons' current words are:

Truck (sounds like cock)
Car (Caa -think Boston)
Yes (yesssss)
No (NO no no no no; nonono!; nnno and other various forms)
Mama (usually Mmaaama!)
Dada (DaDa!)
Gaga (we have no idea where he got this word. He uses it for binkie. WE say binkie and he knows what we're referring to, but he says gaga.)
Nina (Neena! -She does the Goodnight Show on the Sprout Network)
Hot (ot - like the H is silent)
Chicka (Caca! -- A bird that does birthdays of the day for The Sprout Network)
Juice (jewwwz)
Cracker (cacker)
Agua (wawa or a-wah. Agua=water en espanol)
Block (again, cock)
Ball (ba-al)
All done or All gone (aah gah)
Elmo (emmo)
Banana (nanana)
Apple (app)

There are a ton of other phrases Aaron uses that Josh and I can understand but aren't really clear to others and has other words that he's just starting to say. Today he said "house" just once while I was reading him a book! His vocabulary is picking up more and more. I really want to get him some flashcards!

We also let him walk a lot more on his own (he hates being in the stroller anyway of course) and today we took him in the stroller from our house to Sam's Sushi which is about 7 blocks away and on the way back he walked the entire way home!

He's definitely developing quickly now. I can't believe he'll be 2 in December! Crazy! :)

Crazy good.

What IS that that I'm feeling???

This is the box. The box full of bottles that is sitting in my living room ready to go to storage. The transition of moving from 3 bottles to 2 went just fine. He never asked for a bottle and I was still giving him the one before he went to bed (mostly to make me feel better). I was planning on continuing the bedtime bottle for awhile longer when I packed this box. But then.......

PEE-PEEEEEEEEEEE. Wet sheets, wet pajamas, wet baby at 3 am. For 2 days in a row he peed through his diaper for his naps and bedtime. I washed sheets 4 times in 48 hours. (And if you know my washer/dryer machine combo, you know how insane that is). So I went to the store and bought the night time diapers. On the 3rd night for bedtime, he still peed through his pajamas. And that is when I decided to stop the bottles all together. Tonight he went to bed without a bottle and tomorrow morning I will know if that was the issue. If the kid is dry tomorrow, ALL the bottles are going into that box and into storage.

My only real concern with ending all the bottles is that he's not getting enough milk. He won't really drink milk out of a sippy cup yet. I give him yogurt and cheese but I'm worried that's not enough. Hopefully, if I keep trying with the milk in the sippy cup he'll get used to it.



Meanwhile in Mommyland......... Something strange is going on. I don't know how to explain it. I mean, the other day we all went out to breakfast for Josh's birthday and we walked past a pet supply store and they had some cats there for adoption and I stopped to show Aaron the cat (Aaron, look! A cat! What does a cat say?) and I saw it's long white fur and big blue eyes and I couldn't stop staring. We went inside and I looked around a bit at the dog stuff but really I was just headed towards the back to look at that cat. And I read the card .... it's an older cat - seriously, like 12 or something - and it's missing teeth so you have to feed it soft food only and I just keep thinking Why would someone abandon a cat that is so old?. And then... I stuck my fingers in the cage and I Touched The Cat. ME. Um, hello! Dog person here! Cats are strange creatures that are better viewed from a distance. Just ask my allergies. My lungs appreciate that I am definitely a dog person. But I petted it, and felt sorry for it and almost wanted to take it home. If you could it's seen it's blue eyes...... But we left empty handed and for the next 24 hours I thought about that cat.

Then there's the desperate feeling I have to purge. Get all of this junk out of here! We need more room! Why? What's different now?

The other night I had a dream that my mom was pregnant and giving birth. But the baby was mine. Strange. All dreams are I suppose. But still.....

A few days ago I was looking on Craigslist for a new place to move into (mostly) and after a short while I realized I was really looking through the pets section for dogs. WTH?!

Something is going on here. Something. But I can't explain it. All I can say is that I think my brain is getting ready for something but my body has got a long way to go before it catches up with that silly, little brain of mine.

Stay tuned..................

The Beginning of the End of BOTTLES

So, yeah ... Aaron still drinks 3 bottles a day. Don't get me wrong - he has his full 3 meals, but he has a morning bottle, one in the late afternoon and another before bedtime. I know what you're thinking. Oh yes... if you're of an older generation you're thinking So what? I didn't take my babies off their bottles until they were 2 years old. And if you're of a younger generation you're thinking Seriously? He's still on the bottle?

But as I had been feeling for months like I should be weaning him off the bottle, and the fact that he no longer really finishes one (instead he turns it upside down so it can drip all over my carpet, tile, couch), and I found the hand out the pediatrician gave us at his one year check up which said to start weaning him off back then, I decided to start today.

I actually kind of did it all gung-ho like and wasn't going to give him any bottles, anymore, period. He didn't have his morning bottle or afternoon bottle. But I did end up giving him one before bedtime. He never asked for it but anything I can do to make bedtime easier, I'm all for it. I'll probably only do it for a few more weeks until he gets used to drinking cold milk with out of a sippy with meals.

And that is the beginning of the end of bottles. At least for this kid. Hooray for future cupboard space!