Dear Aiden,
It seemed like you were constantly singing some sort of sing songy chatter this month. You started singing rock-a-bye baby when you wake up in the morning, while saying it's time to go back to sleep. Eventually, you come right up to my ear to say, "...the cradle will fall, and down will came MAMA, cradle and all." You're continuing with your Gymboree music class, where you loved trying to jig to the Irish music. I even turned on the Irish music on our new "tv from outerspace" (aka. a satellite tv) and you jumped around laughing at my attempts to jig. We also tried out a new music class called Music Pups, where you mostly liked staring at their colorful signs and humming. You also think it is funny to sing the "Girl, you really got me" song. You will have guitar song time with daddy sometimes before bed in place of story time.
You had a habit of asking us to tell you a story where you would fill in the sentences we start. Your favorite by far is hearing the Goldilocks and the Three Bears story. I found this great pop up book with the story that you love to read to us. You also liked have daddy tell you the spooky story of the cracken. You'd run over to me growling, "a KRAKEN is a biiiig octopus" and the whole story your dad made up was pretty spooky for your wimpy mom. Your other favorite you would want to dig out of the shelf a bunch this month was Tod and Copper. You liked the name Tod so much in fact, that all of your animals were renamed Tod.
Your speech and pronunciation explodes daily. The dining room still sounds like the diamond room, which sounds pretty swanky to me. You like telling us what the letters say and what things start with, like "I'm looking for eggs that start with A" (when you were looking for eggs with your name sticker on them). You get ultra enthusiastic to try to "pretend" to sound things out. You say "zebra says zeeeee." You think that part of the fun of swinging is to say weee over and over and over...until other moms are looking at me funny. I love how relaxed you look in the big chair swings made for big kids. I also like that it still makes you look small - unlike the baby swings you can barely fit in. You might just get stuck in one this summer.
You like to help zip once we get the zipper started for you and you're almost able to do it all on your own. You can almost give us a thumbs up, but sometimes you have to use the other hand to pull your fingers down. But you do wave that thumb around with enthusiasm. You can easily hold up one finger to say you're one, but two fingers is easiest as a thumb and a finger... or just a whole two hands when you want to be silly.
You are growing out of all your shoes and I have a feeling there is another growth spurt on the way. Your favorite little converse kickers you wore in Lizzie's wedding are "tooo tiiight" and your N shoes are getting there. You like to show me your muscles, shout aaargg, and declare that when you grow up you want to be a "pirate man!"
You're learning to ride your bike mostly from Rebecca and Tyler. You take your bike over to Tyler's house and watch him. Although that doggone incline at the end of his driveway kicked up your speed and you took a little tumble scraping up your helmet. Vote of confidence for the helmet, although you are not a fan of wearing it. You tell me that you have to "learn to balance, like in the science book" to ride your bike. Most of the time you'd rather do puzzles and books with mom, so I'm hoping Rebecca can keep encouraging you on the bike. You do know what is fun to do with certain people.
You love to ride in the car and yell out that "red light says stop, yellow says slllloooww down, and green means goo goo Go!" You will see a red light way up in the distance and insist that I stop. I have finally explained to you that you stop at the line or behind the other cars. You get pretty insistent on things but you will listen carefully to an explanation. Like when your dad started wearing shorts in the nice weather, you were insisting that he needed pants on to go outside. We eventually explained to you that shorts are just short pants and showed you some of your own that we were going to be wearing in Arizona.
Our trip to Arizona this month was your "faavorite" and you even insisted that you lived there when we tried to explain that this is where we used to live. You must have felt right at home just like us or it's just that little insistent phase you're going through ;) You thought all the new things were big adventures and when we would explain something new to you, you would chant "I thought so!" with excitement. You were making little friends in a bunch of places (usually older little girls or boys right around your age). You had a blast with your grandparents and opened right up to show them your little personality. Sorry about not getting enough sleep, but I think you thought it was worth it. Your favorite travel buddy was you dino "coloring pad" which prompted you to start drawing big faces of "giants" and lotsa mountains as we drove around town surrounded by the ranges.
Things I jotted down that I didn't want to forget this month:
- When you called croissants,"moon bread, because it's shaped like a cessent."
- Mr. Crab Claw stomping around with hand pinchers ready
- If an animal fell behind the couch, you would say "hey, mommy, I need tooooo the rescuuuuue."
- When we visited the Farmer's Market and I asked you to use your listening ears and you told me they were broken.
- Using your "quiet voice" in the library and reaching up to check out all the books I picked out - you would flip through, ask "what's this one about?" and say it's about "words!"
- How proud you were when we visited the doc and she asked you to pee in a cup - you did it and then marched right along with the nurse to give it to the lab (that day you measured in at 36.5 inches and 33 pounds)
- How much you enjoyed kicking...mostly balls but sometimes everything.
Spring definitely sprung this month! You were not only giddy to see the bunny - "He's my friend!" - but even more excited to be out in the neighborhood running around with the neighbors and seeing a real bunny in the yard. I have a feeling this month will include many more bunny sightings and hopefully the same giddiness will stick around.
Love, Mommy
First favorite travel toy - a mini magnadoodle he called his "coloring pad" - hours spent on giant and mountain drawings:
First Ben's Bells glazing:
First time bowling:
Yep, those are knee high (women's sized actually) bowling socks:
First live artist carving:
First visit to a place with never ending shadow dancing:
First view of cactus and other Dr. Suessy desert plants:
First up close view of baby hummingbirds:
First rock "mining" for fools gold:
First up close view of baby hummingbirds:
First rocky uphill hike:
First Nana's double chocolate cake:
First chance to get up close and touch some huge airplanes:
First independent swimming with some serious floaties:
