Things That Go Bump All the Time

Well, Aidan continues his struggle against the evil clutches of gravity, with limited success. He can stand pretty well, up to a few minutes at a time without holding on to anything. And he's getting better at taking steps-- I think his longest stroll thus far was 3 of them. But oh, what a terrible price it's exacting on his poor little body.

Lately, Aidan has been much more daring in his pursuit of walking, climbing, and getting places he shoudln't go. Which would be fine, except that he seems to have an unfortunate gravitiational field around his head. If he falls within about 3 feet of anything with a corner, his poor little noggin is drawn towards it like paparazzi to a wardrobe malfunction. And sadly, it's not just when he's walking. He hasn't figured out yet that his head extends further in the vertical than his eye level would indicate...and since crawling demands leading with one's head, he's constantly braining himself on things he tries to go under (or stand up under). As such, at any given minute he kind of looks like the walking wounded...bumps, lumps, and red marks all over his head.

But he doesn't always cry about it..if he's distracted enough by where he's going or what he's doing, he just plows ahead towards his destination. Other times, you can almost see him trying to figure out if it hurts bad enough to start the waterworks. And I know, I know, it shouldn't be funny, but when he bonks his head on something he wasn't expecting, he gets this look on his face that pretty much says: "What the...what just happened. Hey, my head kind of hurts...sonova...(turns head towards me) Dad, what the hell? WAAAAAAAAAH!" And it really takes a couple of seconds to sink in. Of course, I resist actually laughing because that's cruel, and I DO love him and feel kinda bad.

Hopefully, he shows me the same consideration when I'm old and trip over my own false teeth on the way to get my prune juice.

Well, We Made It

Well, Aidan is now officially one year old. He had his party last weekend, and as expected it was a ridiculous showering of gifts from all of our/his friends and relatives. He now has so many toys that we are literally converting what was the office into a hybrid playroom/computer work area. Even my mother was impressed--something that isn't easy to achieve, believe me--by the Fisher-Price/LittleTykes explosion of '06. She's remarked since that she isn't sure what to get him for Christmas, as most of Toys R Us now lives at our home....I have to agree with her, and I have a feeling we're going to get him things he needs rather than things to play with and put what we would have spent in his college fund. Which is so terribly responsible it makes me wonder when, exactly, I became my father.

But I digress. On Aidan's actual birthday, we took him to Build-A-Bear and, well, built a bear. He seemed to show interest in one bear over the others, so we showed him how it was stuffed, and let him pick out a heart for it, etc, etc. Of course, once we left the store he refused to look at it and hasn't touched it since, but at least he seemed interested at the time. We also got his Christmas ornament for the year, as well as laid down some holiday tradition groundwork to ensure that our collective insanity about the holidays will live on in the traditions he heaps upon his poor future spouse.

Following closely on the heels of his b-day was, of course, Thanksgiving. This isn't technically his first Poultry Holocaust (as I fondly refer to it) but last year he was only 4 days old, so that one really shouldn't count. He discovered that he absolutely LOVES his Grandfather's sweet potatoes (which, given that there is one billion percent more "sweet" than "potato" should have surprised no one) as well as giving hearty endorsement to Grandma's stuffing and chicken. He also got to try ice cream, and it was the first time he'd ever had something that cold. Naturally, he made all manner of hideous faces until he got used to the idea, at which time he returned to his "cutest lil' hobo begger in the world" act.

All in all, an eventful week....topped off by something that happened mere moments ago. Aidan loves the phone, as you'll recall, and we've been letting him play with it after we're done, assuming the probability that he would get a working phone number, or even the right number of digits (he picks up and hangs up constantly) was pretty low. Which is true. Kinda. There's a few rather interesting exceptions to this, one being 911. Turns out that's not so hard to dial. Also turns out that when you dial it and don't say anything before hanging up, it makes the nice policemen and women nervous. At which point they call your house and you are forced to explain rather abashedly, without sounding like the cheapest, most neglectful parent on the planet, how and why your one year old managed to dial the police. This is followed by a visit by said nice policemen (2 cars' worth, in fact) to ensure you have not in reality murdered the whole family that lives at that phone number and are just very mentally agile when faced with a crisis. I bumbled my way through that explanation, saying he must have hit the speed dial.

I'm not sure we even have the police on speed dial. But if we do, I guess that means we're not such horrible parents after all.

It's Birthday Week!

I can't believe it's been almost a year. Looking back, it went really fast...this time last year, I was anxiously awaiting the phone call that would send me careening down I-95 to the hospital. And our little guy waited for his due-date, on the weekend. Nice of him. Anyway, of course this means that we are having his party this weekend-- which, in turn, means presents presents presents.

The flood has actually already started-- last weekend , we visited Aidan's great grandmother and great aunt, neither of which will be around for the party. Of course, they gave lots of fun stuff. And we visited friends who can't come too, who gave him even more fun stuff. Add to that the gifts he'll get this weekend, and you have a toybox that has reached critical mass...we need to sort out som of his older toys and put them in his room or we are in danger of creating a rip in the space-time continuum in the living room.

A large part of this is self-inflicted, of course. I think we single-handedly funded the entire gift-wrap industry this year....and Christmas is only a month away. Anyway, during the wrapping frenzy we re-affirmed that we are bad parents. One of his gifts is so large that it would have taken careful oragami-esque manipulation of 2 whole rolls of paper to wrap. So, instead, we assembled it and plan to just drape one roll of paper over it. Let's face it, he won't care-- in fact, unlike most children, he has zero interest in unwrapping gifts OR playing with the paper afterwards. Which, in a way, is good-- at least now people will feel he appreciates the gifts more than the paper they came in.

Speaking of appreciating gifts, I really hope he likes the extra special present I'm getting him on Sunday-- a brand spanking new Nintendo Wii. Just for him. Of course, I'll have to conduct extensive testing on it before he can play with it.

Safety first, you know.

Well Lookie There....

This week's big development is a bit of a delicate subject. Years from now, when Aidan reads about his earliest childhood, I hope he forgives me for writing about this, and understands that I simply cannot pass it up-- for verily, here be comedy gold.

While bathing on Sunday, Aidan was splashing about happily, being his normal bath-loving self. Surrounded by his rubber duckie and some floating turtles, he was making waves and generally living it up the way only a naked baby can. While flailing about, he somehow made the discovery all little boys do, one which (although they don't know it at the time) will change thier lives forever--- yes, aidan found his peener.

Let me explain a little-- he's found it before. He definitly was aware that there was something down there, but I don't think he understood it was attached and not just some kind of misplaced food stuck to his body. This time was different. He grabbed it, and was very intently looking at it. Then he giggled. It wasn't his normal laugh, more of a "Heh. Heh heh. Cool." Then he resumed splashing....for about 5 seconds. And he grabbed it again. Same moments on intense scrutiny, same giggle but lasting a little longer. This went on for quite some time. Most of the time, I was beside myself with laughter, head down on the side of the tub with tears of mirth welling up in my eyes. There were a couple of times that made me wince though-- he pulled pretty hard, and I was tempted tell him that I know from experience that course of action does not result in a permanent length increase. I held my tongue though, fearing my wife might stage a similar encounter with my own bits that would be significaqntly less pleasant. So the rest of the bath sort of wnet splash splash, yank on peener, splash splash, yank on peener/mash nuts around, splash splash, yank on peener, giggle.

Another big thing happened yesterday-- twice Aidan pulled himself up and stood on his own, not holding on to anything, for 5 or 6 seconds each time. The second time he stood up, put on his best "so big" smile and held his arms up, then put them down and thumped over. He also began walking between myself and Mom by holding onto his hands-- he's done this before, but previously he relied on us to move him forward by his hands. This time, it was for guidance purposes only. I assume this means he'll start strolling about any day now-- something I both fear and am looking forward to. He's hard enough to catch sometimes as it is; I'm not sure how it's possible, but I think he can crawl faster than I can most of the time. It's not really fair though, as I have to move 6 times as much bluk around. And in the end, I win, because I can step OVER the baby gates.

Usually. Sadly, I have bitten it once or twice.

A Rather Big Week

This past week has brought a whole host of fun stuff for Aidan. First, the subject of the post: he has definitly developed a sense of "playing" and "games". Right now, it eseems his favorite one is hide and seek. He will crawl away from me in the living room, around the chair and on to the treadmill, little legs churning like mad. I, in turn, will crawl the other way, around the front of the same chair and wait until I hear him give a little giggle. I'll slowly creep around the side of the chair, and he'll start really giggling-- sometimes he'll try to get away, but usually he just rocks on his knees screaming happily until I grab him and make him tackle me. Kid's pretty good at it, he doesn't even fall for the head fake I throw in every once in a while, and he really wraps me up-- no half-assed knee tackles. Anyway, we repeat this until he gets too anxious and won't wait for me-- at that point, he'll climb up the base of the treadmill and peer over the chair. When he sees that I see him, he'll screech with joy again amd go back into hiding. That's really the only place he hides, but to give him credit there really sin't anywhere else he could hide-- at least not until he can walk.

A modified version of this involves me trying to do something (like, oh, say going to the bathroom). He thinks I'm hiding, and will take off in the direction of whatever noise I'm making until he either a)finds me or b) runs into the bathroom door. I'm a pretty liberal parent, but I'm really not comfotrable with leaving the door open while I pee-- not because I don't want him to see (because I'm pretty sure that's how little boys learn to do it eventually) but more because I don't want him getting in the line of fire, as it were. And I'm sure he would, becaus he loves it when we pour water in front of him in the tub. I really don't want to explain to his mother why her son is completely covered in pee. Ever.

Moving on: we had his pictures taken last weekend, and he was a champ. I had to help gget him to smile, but he stayed put pretty well. I chalk this up mainly to the fact that the kid is a born celebrity-- if he sees a camera, he mugs like crazy. He usually doesn't even try to crawl over and grab it, he just throws the "cute as hell" switch and goes with it. So once he realized what the photographer was doing, he was cool. One of the pictures is a little funny, because you can see his top two teeth a little bit-- and because there are no other ones up there yet to squish them together, he kind of looks like Cletus after a good jug of the ol' moonshine.

Lastly, we took him out trick-or-treating on Halloween. Whcih, admittedly, was kind of pointless because he's too young for candy and he won't remember it anyway. Now, that doesn't mean I didn't have a pillowsack with me to collect-- daddy's gotta eat-- or that he didn't have fun. He loves people, so even though he was tired (again, curse you Ben Franklin) he managed to smile at everyone.

Which worked out well, because smiles = candy. Boo-yah.