ohio goofin'

Thanks for all the fun that makes driving over 20 hours there and back worth it ;)
We miss our Ohio goofing, but we'll be back soon (next time on the plane!)

Ohio Goofin' from LB on Vimeo.

ohio santa

We visited the Ohio Santa so Aiden could let him know that he should deliver his toys to Ohio this year. Aiden rode the Santa Express first which got a double thumbs up.  Then we waited in line for Santa where Despicable Me (and the tripping string attaching it to the floor - dangerous!) kept Aiden company.  The Ohio Santa told Aiden that he was very good friends with his Gran and Pop so he would be sure to have the toys delivered there.  Then he sang him the Santa is Coming to Town song and told him to be a good boy.  As we were leaving, the bell ringer for the Salvation Army gave Aiden a chance to help ring and earn some money for charity.

Santa Express from LB on Vimeo.

big and little

We have big and little Brennan BROTHERS!  That's right, another bundle of boy is on the way!  J noticed the flash between the knees before the tech even stopped waving her wand.  She measured a little, and then settled in with a clear shot between the legs.  Aiden had already declared he thought it was a brother earlier and the tech said "It looks like Big Brother is definitely right!"  I am beyond ecstatic, and so happy we had a perfect healthy baby looking back at us.

Aiden watched intently and then asked what his name was.  We asked him what he thought we should name his brother and he immediately replied with Scary!  Scary Brennan it is.  For the past few he's been stuck on Baby Ellen... and when I'd ask what about if it is a boy (which is what he thought it was) he would say, "Alsooo, baby Elllen!" as if it was the silliest question.  It would be nice if Ellen wasn't considered a gender specific name.  J's given me naming rights (while he reserves complete veto power) which means there may not be a name for the baby by the time we leave the hospital (only kidding, sorta).

"Sometimes being a brother is even better than being a superhero." Marc Brown...the author of Author books, the famous aardvark.  I think Aiden really does think that being a big brother is right up there with being a super hero.  When the doctor said she bets he will be a good brother, he replied that he is going to help the baby learn to stand.  I'm betting that he's going to teach him even more... add in some shakes and scoots for dancing!

We waited to tell our families until we arrived in Ohio with our chocolate dipped oreos with blue frosting injected in them.  So they bit into the treat to find either blue or pink (thank goodness I didn't have to cringe at pink!).  Aiden was very excited about this every time a new person showed up.  It was pretty fun for Aiden to give everyone their cookie, so I'm glad that we had perfect timing with the sonogram right before the holiday (they only had to wait a tiny bit past when we found out).  Thanks for humoring us and being patient ;)

thanksgiving ham

We didn't actually eat any ham at Thanksgiving, but Aiden was definitely a ham!

Ham at Thanksgiving? from LB on Vimeo.

thanksgiving

Thanksgiving day kicked off with some parade watching (and hiding from PopPop's camera) with robes and slippers.  Then there was lotsa cooking and frosting and even a little shopping (J made out like a bandit with tons of new clothes).  Thanks for a delicious (yes, vegan mashed potatoes are good!) and fulfilling day!

 

thankful

Happy Thanksgiving!

What are you thankful for??

Here is Aiden's 2010 thankful tree with original, unprompted answers.  

My favorites include acrobats, this thankful tree, and me Aiden!  

(Note: Baby Ellen is the name Aiden thinks is nongender specific and was stuck on before he started calling the baby Scary Brennan. Also, I'm surprised he is thankful for naps, since he doesn't usually take them anymore - boo!)

art by aiden

It's been awhile since the last edition of art by Aiden.  Here is one of his favorite birthday presents in action, a paint your own car kit.  They all eventually become that lovely greenish brown sludge color don't they?

Aiden carefully collected these leaves on our walk to the library from his school, brought the home to dry (he didn't want to press them so they would be "scrunchy"), and then glued them on as a tail for his turkey handprint.

His pinch pot from school, which makes a cute ring holder (when the pinch pot maker doesn't swipe the rings out of it).

Cow mask from the patty party.  Aiden called his the two eyed, two dotted nice cow, and Daddy's was the Cyclops monster one eyed cow.

Assorted stamping, punching, painting that shows up in his bookbag.

Aiden told me this is the view out the window at his school.

Aiden helped me cut (and gave careful directions on the tricky parts), decorate (aka scribble on), and tape down the pieces.  He has also since become a wicked good tape bubble maker.

daddy went to australia

Guest Post by Dad:

Ms. Healey asked me to speak to Aiden's class about my experiences in Australia.  I'm not sure the kids would have been much enriched by hearing about my visit to the Research School of the Social Sciences at Australian National University.  So, in lieu of relating my actual experiences in Australia ("Goodin made an objection, relying upon Condorcet's Jury Theorem, to my main argument, but I pointed out that he was overlooking systematic error and the problem of statistical dependence...")  So, I decided to talk about animals instead.  Kids like animals, right?

After I asked the kids to identify Australia on a map (these kids are geography whizzes), I showed them a boomerang and a coin.  I explained that boomerangs are for throwing, though not for throwing indoors.  Coins are not for throwing indoors, either.  I also brought Aiden's stuffed platypus, kangaroo, and koala along.  Had Ms. Healey been less attentive, the kangaroo and koala might have found new homes today.

I told them that Australia is unusual, because most of its mammals are marsupials.  Marsupials carry their babies in pouches on their bellies.  I gave each kid her own paper marsupial, complete with a paper pouch.  One-by-one, the kids withdrew from their pouches a picture of an Australian animal.  I showed them pictures and told them facts about each animal.  For instance, they learned that platypuses lay eggs, even though they're mammals, and that Tasmanian devils smell bad and make nasty screeches.  I told them bats eat bugs and fruit, and then asked them if any of them eat bugs.  None did, though a few were fond of fruit.

After we went over each animals, I pulled out cards with pictures of animal habitats.  I then asked the class to match each animal to its home.  They did a great job, remembering that wombats live in burrows, sea lions sleep on the beach, and koalas live in eucalyptus trees.  

Most of them insisted that their daddies had also recently been to Australia.  I suspect that's not true.  Aiden mentioned that when he used to live in Tasmania, he saw many stinky Tasmanian devils.  I'm quite sure that's not true.  Three-year-olds are apparently unreliable about their pasts.  

We ended with questions and answers.  Milo wanted to know why Tasmanian devils smell bad. (Mostly to communicate with one another, but they also release an odor when threatened.)  Ms. Healey asked me what Australians eat.  (Same stuff Americans eat.  However, I forgot to mention that they're fond of meat pies.)  Someone asked how long it took to get to Australia.  When I said "27 hours--more than a day of travel", they groaned sympathetically.  

Ms. Healey liked our matching game and wanted to turn it into a work.  (She's going to make more games of matching animals to their homes.)  However, I had already told the kids they could keep their marsupial pouch, and apparently she had them take them home.  

Aiden was beaming the entire time.  That enough would be reason to do it again.  That I managed to keep eight little kids engaged for half-an-hour is just gravy on the meat pie.

cow patty party

We had a great time at another neighborhood school fundraiser party. This one had a theme: Cows! Aiden was more than excited to play the games and especially to dance and chase the cow around.  He said his favorite part was the man dressed as a cow (he saw the cow take off his costume at one point and it blew his mind). We burned over 2 and a half hours there - a fun Sunday afternoon!

I caught some snippets before my camera died - I caught some of Aiden's serious grooves as he opened up the dance floor:

Cow Patty Party from LB on Vimeo.

The camera missed the fire alarm that brought real fire trucks (which turned out to be burnt popcorn and big excitement for Aiden), the huge bouncy house with slide attached (which I think Aiden did about 10 times), the cow mask construction (Aiden's had two eyes and two spots and Daddy's was a cyclops one-eyed cow), the cake walk (which we never seem to win), the udder ball game over a net (where Aiden would throw all his weight at this blown up pink glove ball), and the live cows in the yard you got to pet (which daddy convinced to moo for you).

santa video

Here is a video of Aiden's reaction to the juggler and his first visit with Santa (His look of disgust when the juggler was messing up and the trying-to-play-it-cool look at 0:29 when Santa first comes out cracks me up) - He plays shy a bit and really wanted to put his finger to his lips to pretend he was thinking about what he wanted, but by the second time he visited they were best buds (I was too busy trying to be sure their camera focused properly to film that time).

Santa's arrival! from LB on Vimeo.

santa's in town!

Santa was welcomed to the mall earlier today by Eggnog the Juggling Elf.  Aiden ooed and aahed at the juggling and bounced on daddy's shoulders.  When Santa came out he was pretty happy to see him.  This Santa was the most enthusiastic Santa you can imagine (I was surprised that the drunken Santa from the past few years isn't around anymore ;)  Aiden literally bounced as he waited for his turn.  He finally trotted right up to Santa with a big smile because, "He wants to be on the nice list!"  I may or may not be throwing out that he needs to do certain things he may not be interested in doing by pulling the santa card, so he has heard about the nice list ;)

He told Santa what he'd like which started with the notoriously large, overpriced, and ugly Dora Dollhouse.  Toys-r-us has this special display for this monstrosity and Aiden was sucked in by the seasons and daytime changer kitschy thing (that will eventually be ignored).  Can you tell I'm not excited about this toy idea? - I think now after some gentle "talking about ideas" he'd rather have Santa bring him Tolee's Treehouse.  I can't believe he's already old enough to have very specific preferences... and I'm already feeling guilty when I don't like his preferences....oh well.

We actually had two visits to Santa because our first picture was pretty blurry (see first photo on the right which looks ok teeny tiny, but if you click on it you'll see what I mean)... The retake was actually even more fun!  Aiden and Santa were like old buddies laughing it up in the fun picture.  I can hear the giggles when I look at this shot.  Santa gave him a coloring book, high five, and fist bumps and we were on our way.  It was a fun way to kick off the season.

weekend-palooza

I've felt uber productive lately getting things ready for the baby.  We have the baby room all cleared out and a great new dresser in there now.  I also cleared out my whole office to be ready for the new hire today.  Let the training begin...  So it was nice to sit back and relax this weekend.  A friend who runs this consulting business called Familytopia organized this fundraiser called Lollipop-a-palooza.  Local bakeries and candy shops volunteered to compete with something on a stick.  They were all delicious: brownies covered in chocolate, cookie dough pops, marshmallow snowman chocolate pops, double choc cookies dipped in choc, and choc sweet teeth with peanut butter chips.  They had Aiden's favorite Toe Jam Puppet Band there for the party to dance off some of the sugar.  The sugar high was only part of the fun, because laughing when J managed to get called up to stage was a definite highlight.  He was the robot with the trash can on his head and a foil tummy.  He made Aiden proud ;)

Lollipop-a-palooza from LB on Vimeo.
Then the next day we cruised over to Craftopia - lotsa -palooza and -topias this weekend, eh?  Aiden was excited to get some beads at the door and groove a bit to the xmas DJ, but not as excited to look at all the booths.  Once he started playing eye spy with daddy he was happy though.  We managed to pick up some more sweet treats and some gifts.

hey doc

Aiden had a giddy strut up to the doctor.  He was all excited playing with the germy kitchen/shop coming to collect money from us for our chocolate chip bubble gum pancakes.  Then the nurse called his name and he put his serious game face on.  He peed in a cup, had his blood pressure taken with a cuff, and even read the eye chart (He read all the letters while he was waiting for the nurse to get the picture cards out).  He's 38 inches tall and 34 pounds, which puts him somewhere in the 60-70 percentiles.  He got a shot but no tears just a whimper and an ouch.  Then he was fascinated by the woman squeezing blood from his finger prick - He wouldn't let her distract him with pictures of huge dogs.  He earned a sticker for his shirt and a sticker pop - two stickers on a tongue depressor.  He wore his sticker proudly all day.  Then after dad had to go to a workshop, we headed to get his hair cut at Snipits.  We waited a long time, and there was a diva princess party that put on a red carpet show for us in their glittery gowns.  Aiden was clapping for them ;)  Then we went to spend his gift card at Toys-r-us where he picked out Lincoln Logs (which he calls big legos).  Then it was mommy and me dinner at the Cozy Kitchen, which was a nice treat.  It's so nice that there is still a weekend coming up ;)

school photo

I was pleasantly surprised at how well Aiden's school photo turned out this year.  He looks so grown up to me, but doesn't every mom think that?!

It's been almost two years since Aiden had school photos taken, which is really hard to believe.
Here are the other two "winners" to flashback:

 

 There are actually two classmates from 2008 in his current class (the little boy green on the top second from the left is the same little boy top second from the right / the little girl in brown next to Aiden bottom on the far right is the same little girl on the top far right).

Milo (next to Aiden) gets the prize!

Amy Healey

Aiden, Milo, Ariana, Aidan, Alyssa

Sofiana, Mateo, and June

philosophy

Daddy's home from a trip to a conference and oh boy, we are glad he's home.  It started raining the day he left and rained for three days straight!  My philosophy was to keep my sense of humor no matter what... if that can be a philosophy at all - I think according to this funny clip from Martha Speaks it can be:

It was wet outside, and all our noses were wet on the inside.  I ended up with what I think was an ear infection, which is still lingering a bit.  One of our doors had a knob break and there was a big package blocking the other one from opening, so I was holding a big bag of trash locked in my house.  We ran out of cat food at one point and late at night I gave the whiny cats some rice krispies to hold them over until morning.  The cats just looked at me like I was nuts.  Aiden decided that he wasn't at all interested in shopping for cat food the next morning and tried out his new trick on me for the second time this week - run and giggle until mad mommy catches me.  Yep, I did manage to keep my sense of humor.  In between all the minor annoyances, we had lotsa fun playing card games (go fish and new addition old maid/skunk - where Aiden likes being the skunk), cars, trains, and marble race (which is not ideal with multiple marbles and an ear ache, but I blocked my ears).  I guess we were due for some down time after all the excitement lately, but our withdrawal period was a bit harsh. Yay for daddy being home!

winter

7:54am - Aiden headed out to school.

We woke up to a surprise winter wonderland with some slushy wet snow.  (It seems like we are true to the idea that we tend to get Cleveland's weather a few days after them.)  We pulled out the winter coats, hats, pants, and boots this morning for the first time this season.  Aiden was excited for his new gear.  I'd love to see the kids at school get ready for the playground today.

second at 15 weeks

Dear Second Baby Brennan,

Here I am seven doctor's appointments and ultrasounds later having only written one post about you total.  Be assured this isn't because of lack of excitement or that everything has been the same as it was with your brother (it most assuredly is not the same!) but this time around it has felt incredibly low key (despite a few jarring moments and bouts of sick).  The other keys in my life are playing a big fat symphony, including that full time job that I'm squeezing into psuedo part time hours for another two months and that very active brother of yours.

I'm hoping/dreaming/believing that you will be just as low key once you arrive.  Please?  I have heard from so many people that second babies are "easy," usually I'm skeptical that they are just trying to make me feel more relaxed.  All I ask is that you inherit my sleep genes.  Your dad and brother have a warped sleep gene that makes them the equivalent of a nocturnal monkey.

I found a midwife that I truly like which seems like a miracle.  She's the perfect blend of easy going and serious and partnered with a great group of doctors.  I am looking forward to taking a different path with your birth which will not include that ridiculous epidural detour I took with your brother.

I've already started feeling you bounce around in what your brother calls "the baby house."  During my last ultrasound we watched you kick off one side and hit your head on the other side, and I could distinctly feel it.  You're going to be a strong kicker I can already tell.  I love it, but thanks for being gentle.  I can't wait until your dad and brother can feel you too.  Enjoy all that space you have in your baby house right now.  I'm so lucky to have friends to send along their maternity gear this time since most of my stuff is summery.  (Thanks!)

My belly button started popping out like a broken turkey timer about a week ago, which I'm not thrilled about.   But you know what, I'll take it, in exchange for a nice low key sleeper.  Heck, you can permanently distort my belly button if you sleep through the night by let's say 2 months?  Deal?  It's definitely interesting going into this for the second time completely aware of the crazy sleep deprivation on its way.

We have a lot to be thankful for this Thanksgiving.  The next ultrasound is right around then, and I just can't wait to watch your acrobatics again.  Do me a favor and don't be shy, we'd like to get to know you more...and help your brother understand who to expect in April.

Time is flyin and I hope that continues until you are wrapped up in my arms.  You are loved, Mommy

leaves!

More fun photos from PopPop - Playing in the leaves!

octopus

Hot dogs are usually a fair food and reserved for special occasions - Sounds fancy, eh?  J saw this octopus hotdog idea somewhere and made some schnazzy all beef octopuses ;)  (with pumpkin seed eyes)  (These delicious smelling guys tempted mommy, but none for me and the baby brewing)

actual bday

Aiden asked J today, "I get *another* birthday?"  He actually slept in a bit this morning and when he woke me up (by throwing his animals down the stairs), I started singing Happy Birthday to him.  He said from the hall, "Whaat Mommy, myyy birthday?"  I hopped out of bed and made him some birthday mickey pancakes, which he insisted on eating while decked out in his leftover party hats.  He headed to school with a big batch of A cupcakes he'd helped make the day before.  They sang the birthday song about each year of his life (with photos from each year we sent in) and he came out to greet me at pickup with a big smudge face of frosting.  We went out to dinner and he smiled a big broad smile when they sang to him and delivered a sundae.  He already asked me when he gets to have his next birthday.  Just before Aiden headed up to bed, I went out with my mom friends for a second dinner at the Grist Mill.  It's hard to believe that it's been three quick years since I became a mom!