Dear Aiden,
Here is an interaction that sums up this month for me: You'd spent the day with your buddy Tyler and you just finished babbling about digging at the beach. Dada says, "Isn't it great that you are just a little baby and you have a friend?" You reply, "I'm not a baby, I'm little boy." Whaa, a little boy!? Where did you get this idea that you aren't a baby anymore?! You're my baby AB. The ladies at work say that you will always be my baby... Your reply is "are you kiddin me?" (in the funny british accent sing song voice you picked up someplace).
Somewhere this month you morphed your chicken babble into parrot talk - repeating everything! Although, you liked repeating things on your own accord. It is harder to get you to repeat things we ask, but you did catch on to "happy burthdaaa dada" aaannnd poppop! You wear your little green hooded towel and walk away from the bath like an independent boy instead of a bundle of towel now. You ran over to me the other day and said "I'm a green nonster" (instead of monster).
Your dad discovered that you were motivated when he would call something big. You were more likely to want to go in the big truck car to the big store. You would eat the last biiiig bite. Your dad also likes to tease you about what your toes smell like. You giggle every time he claims that your left foot smells like cookies and your right foot smells like cake. If your dada points at your foot and ask what it smells like you will tell us cookies or cake ;)
You've never looked back when it came to your idea to wean yourself. You do have a strange new transitional object this month though. You want to play with my hair as you wind down in the evening. You used to just casually pat it while we read stories, but now you literally will ask for mama's hair. It seems like it's a comfort for you, and if you're a little grumpy I know it because you will try to tug. I love when you say "Mama up" and you just want me to hold you and giggle at fishy lips or dance around. Those cuddle moments are my favorite parts of the day. When I go to leave for work in the morning and you are awake, you will usually say "bye Aiden bye Mama" and the same goes when you leave with Rebecca. You literally have cried a few times when it's time for Rebecca to go home in the evening. To me that is a good sign that you two have a good time together.
This month your hands were always full of little animals toys. You would try to take them with you everywhere. When you are quietly playing by yourself (especially in the car) we can hear you tell them they are upside down or on top... "rooooster on top of uurtle" You also began making letters and shapes out of your fingers, food, straws, you name it. Your favorite letter is A. Rebecca started showing you letter names and some of them have stuck! Your favorite is N says naaa.
I have really fond memories of having picnics with all my stuffed animal friends (although according to photos I was always dressed in a tutu for these picnic parties, so yours aren't quite as festive). You do seem to like throwing down a sheet and lining up all your animal friends. You will nicely pass out bowls for everyone and give them something fun to eat, but pretty soon after they are all settled and have made all the cute num num num noises.... you suddenly start your godzilla-destroy-everything-by-swinging-arms around like a crazy little boy. Reminds me that we aren't getting you any china tea sets any time soon.
If you ever get fussy or you just aren't that interested in coming back inside from playing I can usually get you motivated by asking if you want to go inside to help dad play the guitar. If I really need to motivate you I will start waddlin like a penguin and you will get your "happy feet" on and waddle right along with me.
You were into assigning sizes to things this month. "iiittle book, biiiig book" You were really excited to get small versions of your bigger stuffed friends. Your favorites were baby horsey, mama horsey, and dada horsey. You would even pretend to ride your animal friends and tuck the little baby penguin under the big penguin while they waddle around.
Towards the beginning of the month, you figured out how to unlatch the door and slide the door open. You are also lightening fast about it, so we got that door replace with one that latches. There will be no quick escapes to the car or the sand box. Instead we can stay inside and play some indoor teeball with your awesome blow up set from Nana and Grampa. This has been the best game for those sweltering humid days. You will play hit and catch for quite a while.
Your other favorite indoor game lately is trying to squirm up on the couch (which gives you some trouble sometimes) and then throw all the big pillows on the ground. Then you have a nice big pillow pile up to jump around in. You also like to play the hats game on skype especially. You will dig out all your hats and then prompt pop, gran, lizzy, and the whole cousin crew to wear a different hat (and you better believe gran has plenty of fun hats on reserve)
You've expanded your favorite book selections. The top request is Cat in the Hat lately. I feel like we've been reading Corduroy so often I do dream that little animals come alive and hide in our new renovated barn room (especially your favorite baby horse). You have a fondness for your Cactus Soup book, a more modern version of that good ol stone soup story, and you want to just say "cact-us oup" over and over again. Sometimes you have a fondness for books that can be pretty strange like this Caldecott award winning book called "When Sophie Gets Angry, Really, Really Angry" I guess it's teaching you how to deal with frustration by running into the woods and climbing trees (!), but I think you just like the part where you "roar a red, red roar" right along with Sophie.
Your favorite little foamy pudgy Elmo shaped book somehow made it into the car where you want me to read it to you over and over again. I think it's called What Makes Elmo Happy or something like that.... but your favorite part is the last page where it says, "Do you know what makes Elmo happiest of all?" "Yoooouuu do!" If we ask you, "What makes you happiest of all, Aiden?" You reply with "Youuu do" - It's a good pick me up for any one ;) You make us happiest of all and I can't wait for more celebrating this month (where your mom joins your dad in the land of thirty). xoxo, Mama
