O Christmas Tree

We went Christmas tree shopping today. In years past this would have involved bundling up, driving 30-35 minutes south of here and cutting down our own tree. This year it consisted of driving 10 minutes and picking out a pre-cut tree. It kind of kills the Christmas buzz, but with a sick baby who still can't nap for more than ten minutes at a time without hacking up a lung, I decided not to push the issue. At least it snowed overnight and was in the 20's so I could get in the holiday spirit. Some of you may be thinking "Really? You're getting a Christmas tree with a mobile baby in the house?" The answer is yes. I will not be putting any breakable ornaments on the tree this year and it has short, soft needles. (maybe a balsam fir???) We'll see how it goes. I decorated the living room today and Aidan is in love with the fiber optic snowman and elf village. Neither seems overly fragile and the cords are out of his far reaching grasp. They kept him occupied for the better part of this afternoon which is more than I could have hoped for.

Shop 'Til You Drop

I did my part on Black Friday and contributed to the economy. After Aidan woke up from his morning nap we ran up to Michaels and spent a whopping $17. :) It's hard to pass up their 25% off entire purchase coupon that only comes on Black Friday. I bought materials to make a crafty Christmas present which will remain a secret since the recipient reads this blog. I also did some online shopping from home, only buying things if 1) they were on sale and 2) I could find some sort of promo code to use to make the purchase even cheaper. I used RetailMeNot.com where you type in the website you want to buy from (ie: leapfrog.com) and it comes up with a bunch of promo codes that you can use on your purchase. I had luck at LL Bean (free shipping) and Leap Frog (on sale and $5 off promo code). Aidan's first Christmas present is going to be the Leap Frog Learn and Groove Musical Table. He can stand at it or the top removes and he can sit and play with it. I'm pretty sure he's going to love it.


Aidan came down with a cold Thanksgiving morning and by Friday he was miserable. Snot running down his face, coughing until he gags...it's not a pretty sight. From noon until 6pm yesterday he only wanted to be held, but still whined the entire time. Last night he woke up at 3am coughing and could only go back to sleep on my chest and since then has only napped for about an hour total today. Kyle has his first varsity hockey game tonight so I will be all alone with a sick, tired baby. Oh the joys of parenthood...

Thanksgiving

We had a truly wonderful Thanksgiving at Aunt Marsha's house. There was an abundance of food and five pies for twelve people. Life is good.

On Wednesday night we went up to the Holiday Lighting. The local elementary and high school kids school sang some Christmas carols, there was free apple cider and cookies, and Aidan said hello to Santa and Mrs. Claus. After the entertainment they flipped the switch and all the holiday lights came on in the city. Very pretty. All in all it lasted about half an hour.

Bundled up to go see the Holiday Lighting
(I bought the snowsuit too big so he can grow into it)

Ugh, I can't believe you want to take more pictures of me, I'm trying to eat.

Okay, I'll smile

Grandma and Aidan at the end of the evening.

Happy Thanksgiving from the Finns

Propping Up "The Girls"

I went bra shopping yesterday for the first time in several years. Pregnancy has a way of changing things, and after reading that 8 out of 10 women wear the wrong size bra, I decided I would go in for a fitting. (free) I bundled Aidan up and we headed out to Macy's. I am proud to say that I am in the minority and have been wearing the correct bra size...they are just so old they aren't doing the job anymore. Macy's had most of their brands buy 2 get 1 free so I now have 3 new bras. At dinner Kyle asked me if he even wanted to know how much new bras cost, and why couldn't I buy them at Target, wouldn't that have been cheaper? Men...

We're gearing up for Thanksgiving tomorrow. I'm making seven layer salad and a pumpkin pie. The salad needs to be made tonight and I'll make the pie tomorrow morning. Kyle has hockey practice at 9:10am tomorrow morning. **crossing my fingers that Aidan cooperates with my pie making tomorrow***

If Aidan is in a fairly good mood this evening I'm going to take him up to the city's Holiday Lighting. Free refreshments, a visit from Santa and Mrs. Claus, and the big tree gets lit at 6pm. Sounds like a good time to me.

Issue Updates

At the risk of jinxing my good fortune, Aidan is again taking morning naps and the Huggies Overnights seem to be doing the trick. Yes!

I broke out the video camera several times this weekend to record Aidan's new moves. He is sitting on his own, army crawling, and standing holding onto furniture. All of these milestones occurred in the month of November. Aidan was a busy guy, no wonder he didn't want to sleep.

On The Hunt

Aidan has been sleeping 11-12 hours at night for the last week or so. I love it. However, when he wakes up in the morning he is wet from head to toe, soaked in pee. Not so cute. So I did some research online yesterday and people recommended Huggies Overnights, Pampers Baby Dry, and White Cloud Overnights (only found at Walmart). Being cheap, I decided to go to Walmart to try the White Cloud brand. Our Walmart is ghetto and they didn't have the overnights and only had the Huggies in size 5, so I ended up getting the Pampers Baby Dry. No luck with them. Aidan still woke up wet from head to toe this morning. If anyone has any suggestions please let me know. I'm getting sick of washing his bedding every day. :)

During our morning play session today Aidan crawled to the steps downstairs, gave them one look, and started to crawl up them. I kid you not, he figured out how to crawl up the stairs within 10 seconds of seeing them. This kid is going to keep me on my toes.

Computer Generated Aidan

According to RoutanBabymaker 3000 this is what Aidan should have looked like. This picture popped up right as I was answering the phone and I couldn't stop laughing when I tried to say hello to my friend Krista. I'm surprised she didn't ask me if I'd been drinking. While this computer generated baby has some of Aidan's characteristics, my real life baby is WAY cuter.


In other news, Aidan and I went to baby storytime at the library this morning and loved it. It's what I'd imagined our ECFE class was going to be...reading stories, finger plays, singing songs. We will definitely be going back. I think they have them two or three times a month.

Why Sleep When I Can Play?

We've hit a roadblock. Aidan has been refusing to go down for his morning nap. It's not that he doesn't need it, he is TIRED. Rubbing eyes, yawning, cranky...but standing in the crib or crawling around on the floor just provides too much temptation for a busy baby. This morning I tried to let him cry it out. (per Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child) No luck, he was in there for the hour maximum and was still awake. He's so tired in the afternoons now that he'll sleep for over three hours. Everyone at our ECFE group assured me their babies did the same thing and that eventually they go back to napping. One mom said it felt like forever, but was really only about a week of no morning naps. I know it could be worse, he could fight sleep in the morning, afternoon, and night. It's just that I liked our old routine so much. I hope he starts taking his morning nap again.

Mixed Messages

Notice the contradiction? Vikings sweatsuit, Bears socks? Aidan was rooting for his two favorite teams today, only to be disappointed by both of them. (the Bears more so since they were slaughtered by the Packers, plain embarrassing)

New dance move? Nope, just caught in the act of toppling over

You Can't Keep Me Down

That seems to be the message Aidan is sending me. I'll put him down in the middle of the floor with nothing in sight to pull up on and lots of fun toys to play with. Within seconds he will have army crawled his way to a piece of furniture, pulled himself up, and will be standing there looking over his shoulder at me with a grin that says "See that Mommy? You'd better drop what you're doing because I'm going to let go any second and I'm going to fall and crack my head open."

He's even waking me up early in the morning to show me his standing skills. This morning at 5:30am he was howling. (he usually isn't up until 7am at the earliest) I went in to see if he just needed his pacifier put back in, only to find him peering over the crib railing at me. I couldn't help myself, I laughed. Thank goodness I've been putting the side up. I knew he would try standing in his crib one of these days. Today was the day.

I've always chuckled at those parents who've said they need to buy a helmet for their baby. I would think to myself, "babies fall down and get bumps and bruises, that's just what they do." Now I'm thinking Aidan needs a helmet.

OMG!!! I'm standing!! What do I do now?!?!

The mischievous, self-satisfied grin

Stop taking pictures and get me out of this crib

Mr. Handy

I have a nemesis and it's name is the garbage disposal. We go round and round. Sometimes I come out on top, sometimes (every couple of months) it clogs up for no apparent reason and Kyle lectures me about what can and cannot go in the garbage disposal. Score one for you, garbage disposal. On Tuesday night I was making sweet potato fries and peeled two SMALL sweet potatoes in the sink. I'd done the same thing just a couple weeks ago and everything was fine. Well, this time the drain got clogged and I got "the lecture".

Kyle took the pipes apart and started cleaning them out while I gave Aidan a bath. He came in a few minutes later and showed me the elbow joint, which had basically disintegrated in his hands from rust. I would like to think that by clogging the pipes I saved us a flooded cabinet because that pipe was not long for this world. Score one for me (even if the pipes were clogged).

More Needles

Aidan got his first of two flu shots last night. The earliest they could get us in was 5:45pm. Why in the world would they only do shot clinics in the evening??? Lots of babies go to bed between 6 and 7pm. He took it like a champ and only let out a yelp. He looked up at me when it was over, I said "all done" and he didn't even cry. Our nurse must have been a pro. We go back in 30 days for the second dose. No ill side effects so far.

My friend Nikki sent me this picture of Aidan and her son, Eli, playing when we saw them in September. Eli was 13 months old and Aidan was 5 months old. I love the size difference and the fact that they are both making the exact same hand gesture.

Our Other "Baby"

Aidan has his playtime every week with other babies. Kyle and I get to go out with friends every once in a while. What does Roxie, our dog "baby" get? Some walks around the neighborhood. Seems unfair. Until now, that is. I signed up for a puggle play group and we had our first meet-up this morning at the local Petco. Aidan and I loved it. Roxie was scared out of her mind.

We walked into the room and were greeted by a herd of puggles (pug/beagle mix). Roxie started snapping immediately, and as soon as I sat down she jumped up in my lap. She was content to let other dogs sniff her as long as she was in my lap, but she refused to get down and play with the other dogs. Perhaps we should have started socializing her before now. (she's 3 years old)

The meet-up lasted an hour, during which time Roxie either sat in my lap or between my feet. She ventured out once or twice only to scurry back as soon a dog came near her. We will definitely be attending more puggle play dates so Roxie can get some doggie socialization.

Things I Know...

(According to Aidan, age 7 months)

I know...

• how to army crawl wherever I want to go
• that I like books with different textures or flaps I can lift up
• that I like rice cereal, oatmeal cereal, green beans, sweet potatoes, squash, carrots, peaches, pears, blueberries, bananas, puffs, wagon wheels, and biter biscuits
  
• that I do NOT like avocados
• how to open the bottom drawer of the new entertainment center
• I like to play with cords, but mommy always takes them away
• how to sit up on my own for as long as I want
• that I can almost pull myself up on low ledges
• how to turn the pages of my board books
• how to feed myself finger foods (I pick them up in my fist and shove them in my mouth)
• that I get very angry (a new emotion) when mommy leaves me in my jumperoo to do housework
• Roxie will run away from me when I touch her, which always makes me giggle
• that a cute smile will get me lots of attention from any person around to see it
  

We Have Some Green

After almost 3 1/2 years, we finally have a (mostly) green backyard. I cannot even recall how many times we have seeded, only to watch the grass grow and then die. Kyle and I are both hoping that the grass comes back in the spring. :) ***Knock on wood*** Roxie hasn't been doing any digging since the grass came in and we haven't let her run around for extended periods of time on the grass. Will it be enough???

BEFORE

AFTER

Here, You try it!

Aidan has figured out not only how to put his pacifier back in his own mouth, but he has realized that mommy has a mouth that it can go in too! He was playing with his pacifier the other day while I was holding him, and all of the sudden he was trying to shove it in my mouth and giggling. So smart!

I bought Aidan some finger foods today and tried them out at lunch time. What a mess! I got the Gerber Graduates cookies and pinwheels. By the time he was halfway through the cookie he was covered in a slimy goo. Then Roxie jumped up an ate the rest of the cookie, taking care of that problem. (arghhh....) So I thought I would try the pinwheel. (basically a half-dollar sized pinwheel shaped rice cripsy) It was slightly less messy but Aidan still only ate half of it. Not sure if he's ready for finger foods, but we'll try them out once a day so he can get the hang of feeding himself.

Aidan is getting the first of his two flu shots next Monday. I'm not really looking forward to it since I know they hurt and make your arm sore for several days.

7 Months Old On Halloween...SCARY!

Peas are good, right? I'll try it.

Hmm, kind of fuzzy

Yuck!

Aidan turned the ripe old age of 7 months yesterday while Grandpa Finn turned the ripe old age of 61. Happy Birthday to both of them. :)

We had a super-busy day that started at the YMCA and ended with a little birthday celebration at Grandpa Finn's house. In between we went to a Halloween party, trick-or-treated at the neighbors, and passed out candy to little princesses and monsters.

Aidan truly enjoyed all of the festivities, probably because everyone paid so much attention to him. He was a cute little guy in his pea pod costume which no one seemed to get was a pea pod. He got called everything from a green bean to the Jolly Green Giant. He wore his costume for 3 hours and never once tried to take it off.

Little Orphan Annie (aka Charlotte)

Aidan getting a little touchy-feely

Happy Halloween from the Finns