rainbow

Happy St. Patty's Day!

The day before St. Patty's Day I introduced Aiden to Roy G. Biv, who he quickly renamed the rainbow leprechaun. He loved watching this They Might Be Giants video about the "little itty bitty color leprechaun guy" and then continued watching all the band's kiddo videos (which are pretty darn good I think).

Then I told him that if we created a rainbow the leprechaun might visit our house to check it out! He was excited that the leprechaun could bring some treats - because of course when some strange creature/person is said to covertly visit your house they must leave presents, right?! - More on that later.

We collected random colored crafty things and he carefully sorted them by color. He drew a rainbow, pot of gold, and leprechaun and then I added a Roy G. Biv rainbow path for all the colored crafty bits. Then he had fun with these great glue sticks Gran had brought him. He slathered it on and added his colored stuff very carefully.

It's possible that his favorite rainbow activity was color mixing in water. He was so excited to see the food coloring swirl around and create "color clouds" in the water. Then he would mix them up and try to create his favorite version of teal, then more color for the perfect brown. He was so happy to open the food coloring caps himself, squeeze it out, and twist the cap back on carefully.

He also decided that he might want to try to trap the leprechaun so that he could meet him. There were youtube videos about hunting for leprechauns that tipped him off to this idea. So, we trucked down to the basement and found him a box for his trap. He started gluing paper on, put a violet and red rainbow on top, and asked me to help cut a door and a ladder for the leprechaun to climb. Then he started stuffing the box with "gold coins" which were yellow paper squares.  He's really hoping that the leprechaun will show up to "pick up his coins."

Counting his gold coins was another fun thing to do.  He kept turning back to the video stream on youtube and this video became a quick favorite:

rain play

Aiden had tons of wiggles to get out the other day, so we went out for some puddle splashing in the misty rain.  We were out longer than I expected, and splashed in each puddle at least twice.  

Then Francine the truck came out to roll around in the puddles, and Aiden declared that her favorite food is baseball bats ;)

 Then I flipped up the water soaked basketball hoop for some slippery baller action.

Here is my music video - Let it Rain, Eric Clapton:

Let it rain! from LB on Vimeo.

pi day

The Pi day celebrations around here included a more mature version of Super Pi, who has sprouted his very own mustache.  Super Pi greeted daddy at the door with a circle pow!  He was most excited by his pi mustache and surprisingly wanted to put it right on his lip.  Every time Aiden saw the pi symbol from then on, and he'd say "Hey, that's my mustache shape!"  I think we may have him thinking that pi is a specially shaped mustache - oops!  Another fail is that our pizza pie was a square shape instead of a circle ;)  So all the talk (and mixing up by mom) of diameter, radius, and circumference was not going to work with the pizza.  Then somehow dad told him what a google was, and now he thinks 3.14 is the same as 10 to the 100th power or some sort of crazy math mix up... I could barely keep it straight.  I think he was mostly excited that google was named by a famous mathematician's son.

 Check out last year's celebration of Pi Day.

"Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts." ~ A. Einstein

Happy Birthday to Einstein!

and it also happens to be Rebecca's birthday which Aiden thought was crazy because it was already Einstein's birthday - but it blew his mind that more than one person can be born on the same day.

33 weeks

33 weeks after quilting

33 weeks started off a bit rough.  Let's just say that I earned these beautiful flowers from my sweet husband.  We had our normal week of activity, but I was extra uncomfy especially while sitting.  I got checked by the doctor and long story short ended up with a polypectomy from this little colony of troublemakers on my cervix, which is just as unpleasant as it sounds.  Let's just say that when the doctor asked for the ring forceps from the nurse I got tense.  I won't dig into too much TMI, but it ended up working out (despite "no need" for numbing agents - ug).

She also checked my cervix and I was one centimeter dilated and the baby is "engaged" - slow down kid!  She joked that there was no question that he's head down.  So that just means he has long legs and really likes stretching out side to side.  I'm not looking forward to walking around dilated again, but she said it's common for second pregnancies to be dilated early (especially since I dilated early last time).  So, look forward to a little cone head baby Brennan again ;)

I have been paranoid this whole pregnancy of bed rest or anything that takes my freedom away.  A good side effect of this anxiety is that I make the most of every moment I feel good.  Seriously, I think there have been a few days where I've actually managed to tucker Aiden out.  I've also been pretty good at distracting myself with random things, like mundane things like organizing my retirement accounts or more fun things like quilting.

I had a chance to go to a quilting workshop to create what I consider my very first real quilt.  It has a pattern and strips!  The fabrics that I had were mostly from visiting a Kona fabric store on our honeymoon to Hawaii nearly seven years ago.  They are random hawaiian prints that I just squirreled away under our bed, moved across the country, and unearthed hoping they would coordinate together somehow in a quilt.  According to the quilt workshop coordinator they were "perfect" for this pattern because it's great with a random montage of color and pattern.  I owe J a huge thanks for taking Aiden to storytime and the playground while I gabbed with my quilting friends.  Also, thanks to him in the photo above my quilt has a cute new haircut and could run away at any moment ;)  - you can click the photos to see them larger.

pajama day

This week we had our observation in Aiden's classroom.  It was a treat to see him completing his works and he was definitely excited to have us there (despite trying his best to "pretend" we weren't there).

But the real excitement this week for Aiden was Pajama Day on Friday!  Above he is cheering as he leaves for school in his penguin jammies. He reminded me every time it was pa-ja-ma, not pa-jam-a.  Everyone wore jammies to school and all the classrooms had different activities.

I asked him what he liked about the day:
Aiden: I visited the dance room!
What dances did you do?
Aiden: I don't know, something like this [shows a little bounce]
Did they play good music?
Aiden: No, the loud ones are the good ones!  They just played regular ones. I also went to the game room!  We played the birthday game and the zoo balancing game...  Then the best Cat in the Hat movie for everyone!

good list

I think of the good list as a mini time capsule of our life.  A quick snapshot at the favorites right now.  The favorites around here are always changing, some come quickly and stick around, some creep in slowly and go away quickly...  But I like to remember what kid stuff is currently doing the trick for us:

Everything by Mo Willems.

Especially the Gerald and Piggie Dance Game:

http://www.pigeonpresents.com/DanceGame/

As I'm preparing the new baby room and figuring out how I'm going to leave behind Aiden's hippo room (painted by my great friend Erin what seems like ages ago - more thanks!), I happened upon the book that my friend had with her for inspiration at our library book sale. I was pretty excited when it caught my eye, and I'm glad to own it now.

Aiden got this book from J's aunt and uncle right after he was born.  It is a very artsy, elaborate pop up book, so I have to admit that I just squirreled it away thinking that my infant would destroy it with spit up and my toddler would maul it.   When we first brought it out for the more grown up version of our drooly destructo boy (he's not so bad) he was immediately excited about it.  Each page has a blue 2 hidden on it, and he now knows right where each one is, but still likes to search around each page and make the parts move.

This toy deserves all the awards it claims from Family Choice blah blah raa rahs.  Seriously, when we first got it Aiden and I played with it for just under two and a half hours straight.  I was amazed and after a while just really wanted to see how long he would play with it in one sitting.  There were endless combos with the just over 50 pieces in our set.  When dad got home he came up with even more cool creatures.  It's like tinker toys with bug pieces, bones, and joints that move in all directions.  We may need more sets since it looks like they have dragon and sea creature pieces too.

Aiden's teacher mentioned how Aiden seemed most interested in the math related works.  But I realized that we didn't have that many games or toys that involved math.  My mom suggested monopoly, which was always a hit in our family.  Serendipitously, the next week Aiden found this Shrek junior monopoly game at the store and asked if the easter bunny could bring it to him - I decided to give him a treat and buy it right then.  He loves it, and is figuring out how to pay for the properties by adding up his dollars.  I think we played nearly every day last week, sometimes twice.  We love it because the junior edition is perfectly simplified and takes a lot less time than the real edition.

The Ikea Landat Farm is like a combo playmat and playhouse.  Aiden likes to expand with other blankets and toys so that the roads lead to forests and other imaginary places.  I like it because it folds right up into a nice carry case deal.

These Discovery Place and Trace toys are a great combination.  You can trace them on the outside and the inside.  Then they are textured so you can rub them also.  Aiden likes to remind me that you can even trace the outside house shape...etc.

peek-a-boo

We had Peek-a-boo with us for the vacation week.  During pick up the Friday before the week began, Aiden nabbed him off the shelf while his teacher wasn't looking and trotted over to the door to bring him to me. Luckily he only spilled a little bit of the water, but it was the start of Peek-a-boo's adventures. He made it home in our car without any trouble. Once he was home Aiden wanted to record all his big adventures. He was initially using his little camera, but they somehow got mucked up when I tried to download them, so we had to retake them. Below is the story he ended up telling and sharing with his class.  Mrs. Healey said that she was happy to talk with them more about real versus imaginary stories.  It's still a mystery how the book got ripped a little, but Aiden calls it the "oh-well rip" so I guess he's ok with it (or it at least made for a good lesson).

The Big Adventures of

AIDEN and PEEK-A-BOO

Peek-a-boo was hiding in a city called Providence.

He even helped build the city with his tools.

Then he took a break for a nap and asked for Aiden’s slippers.

He woke up and read a little book. The book had lots of words, and

Peek-a-boo liked to read.

He took off his slippers and put on his thinking hat and ran to surprise his monkey friends.

He asked his monkey friends to play and they said yay!

He played the tambourine in the band with his monkey friends.

He tapped and tapped and tapped.

Then he played with a big ball. The monkeys got to bat and Peek-a-boo got to throw.

Then he told his friends goodbye and headed back to school for the 100 day party!

30/31/32 weeks

30 weeks after date day

At the very start of 30 weeks I was in for another ultrasound to get a decent measurement of this crazy cuddle bug.  Turns out that this belly measurement system they have is fairly archaic (where they take the centimeters from the top and bottom of your belly) and is not so easy to do if your kid insists on laying sideways and not taking up much real estate on the top of the uterus.  They were a little concerned that for over a month and half they hadn't been able to get a decent measurement and the measurement they did get was four weeks smaller than it should be... The two day wait for the ultrasound had me a little bit nervous.

Well, as it turns out this kid is in the 81st percentile for size and according to the pictures he is 8-14 days larger than expected at this point.  He's on track to be a big boy like his brother.  During the ultrasound, he was actually sitting head down but in an upside down L shape stretching out on both sides.  He just needs to stretch up a bit to give him (and me!) a little more room.  Their measurements also indicated that the uterus has plenty of space and lotsa fluid ready for him to continue to grow - He needs to use the real estate provided!  The ultrasound tech immediately exclaimed how active this little guy is and how wedged in there he manages to get his little face.  She gave us ridiculous attempts at photos of his face - There is one up his little nose and the other is a pretty blurry shot.

31 weeks heading to first photo class

We've been swimming at the Roger Williams University rec center (the university where J and I met, but they built this nice indoor pool a few years after we spent the summer there) during their open family swim.  It's awesome for the belly muscles to get some total relaxation. The instant relief I feel when I get in the water is offset by the shock when I get out and need to change in the noisy, cold locker room, but overall it is worth it. The only tricky part is that my "bathing dress" maternity suit is getting snugger each time. I was swearing it shrunk last time, but I don't think that's the real deal.

I was lucky to have a good paying photo gig back at Brown to cover a panel discussion.  I delivered 120 photos from the event, so I was pretty active the whole time.  I have to say I really try to be inconspicuous while taking photos, but I think despite being dressed in all black, a rounded pregnant lady waddling up and down the aisles was probably anything but inconspicuous.

I've been volunteering as a "pajama volunteer" (which means you don't have to go anywhere and can help out in your pajamas from home) for an organization called Drop In and Decorate.  Their goal is to distribute good cheer in the form of cookies to those that are receiving some sort of assistance.  I'm helping them research and develop an easy online system for information on the places that accept donations.

32 weeks before birth class

At 31 weeks, I kicked off my last RISD class.  I knew that this semester would include giving birth to my final project (which she is actually calling our thesis) and to this new baby.  I don't think I realized just how FAR along in this pregnancy I'd already be when it started.  It also turns out that she's upped the ante this term and we not only have a show at RISD, but a public show at the art association in Wickford.  This means that it needs to be work that I'm really proud to show, not just a class assignment. On top of this, she expects us to have our portfolios fine tuned and completely reviewed.  Phew, so I figure I have about six more good weeks to get this going before I complete it in total sleep deprivation mode.

At 32 weeks, everything fell into place for both J and I to attend the Women and Infants' Hospital Alternative Birth Center (ABC) all day birth class, thanks to our new babysitter.  Aiden loooves her, and was bouncing up and down with excitement as she arrived.  It was a good review of everything we already knew and some specific techniques and ideas for the natural birth process.  The ABC room itself is not all that much different from the regular rooms, but it does have a queen sized bed and a whirlpool in the room.  The hospital tour was the most valuable part since it has really changed a bunch since we were there last time three short years ago.  Luckily the construction is all cleared out, so we won't be serenaded by saws and a crying newborn during our stay.  I'm looking forward to a different experience in a somewhat familiar place.

hey rebecca

We had a nice little visit with Rebecca the other day for lunch.  It'd been a while since we'd seen her, but Aiden was happy to see her.