Aedan: Week 25
Tuesday was a typical day of preschool and hanging out with Aedan. We had one errand to run, getting Roscoe his bordatella shot so that we could board him over the coming weekend. However, it's always difficult going anywhere after dropping Samantha off at preschool because Aedan is usually very ready for his morning nap. I was able to get him down for a good nap once we got back home, and I was able to get a shower in before having to go pick up Samantha. Tuesday mornings are tricky with getting everyone ready in the morning. I always set my alarm so that I can get up and get in the shower before the kids wake up, but it always happens that Aedan wakes up either before or around that time, making it so that I can't shower. Oh well, I guess one day a week without a shower is okay. :)
Aedan has been rolling over for about a week now, but he had always done it at times when I am not around or too fast for me to capture it on video. However, Tuesday when we got home from preschool, I laid Aedan on the floor gym, and he immediately started rolling over. Samantha and I were very excited!
Samantha was acting SO tired, that I was glad she let herself take a nap that day. It's especially important on ballet days. She had a few meltdowns between lunch time and nap time, clearly showing that she needed a nap. We ended up having to wake her up so that we could get her ready for ballet and get there on time.
Aedan was still sleeping when it was time for ballet, so Daddy took her again. While they were gone, Aedan was playing on the floor gym, I went into the kitchen for a minute, came back into the living room, and guess what he was doing? He had knocked down the floor gym, rolled over close to the entertainment center, and was sucking on the wood! We are going to have to keep our eyes on this boy a lot more now! He can roll over and then rotate himself around so that he can look a different direction or get at something that interested him. So far, I haven't seen him roll from his stomach to his back, just from his back to his stomach. And it seems like he prefers to roll to the left right now.
Since we had to wake Samantha up to get to ballet, she didn't have a chance to watch a show before she left. We convinced her to wait until after dinner so that way she could watch for a little longer. As Ben and I were cleaning up from dinner, we walked out into the living room and saw this, as you can see in the picture below. It looks like she's naked, but really, she has underwear on. It's normal for a three year old to sit in underwear and a crown while watching a princess movie, right?
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| This is the lobby of the resort. |
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| This is called The Big Blue Pool, and is one of the biggest pools in all the resorts. Apparently they actually play music that you can hear as you swim underwater. |
The resort is based on four films: Finding Nemo, The Little Mermaid, Cars, and The Lion King. They have bigger than life statues and decorations outside the various buildings that have rooms with themes from each movie.
Wednesday morning was Bible study again, and Aedan was so tired afterwards that he fell asleep in his car seat on the way home. I just had to get a couple pictures of him before Samantha helped me wake him up with a big hug and a kiss.
Aedan and Samantha both had good naps that afternoon, and we had a fun dinner together. It's always nice when both kids are happy and well-rested, makes for a much better evening. :)
Like I said earlier, Aedan is rolling over a lot now. In fact, he will roll over and kick the bars on his floor gym, knocking it down on himself. As we were getting ready for preschool on Thursday morning, Samantha called me out to the living room to help Aedan, and this is what I saw. I decided to take some pictures before rescuing him from being trapped.
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| He wasn't too upset. I got a smile out of him! |
Thursdays can sometimes be just as crazy as Tuesdays. It seems like no matter how on top of things I am, we just don't have enough time in the morning to get everything done. This Thursday was one of those days, and we actually ended up being late for preschool. I hope that next semester Ben doesn't have 8:00 classes, especially on Tuesdays and Thursdays. It just makes it challenging for me to get both kids ready, and try to get ready myself and even take a shower, if possible. We'll have to see what his schedule is like. Unfortunately, when you are the new guy, the visiting professor, you get stuck with the classes and times no one else want to teach, like an 8:00 or a 4:00-5:20.
Aedan and I did our grocery shopping that morning, and I got him down for a morning nap before going to pick up Samantha from preschool. We had a good lunch together. Aedan was sitting in the Bumbo seat on the table, and I went to get him out and hold him once I was done eating, just to discover that he had a HUGE blow out. It had come straight up his pants and required an immediate diaper change. So I left Samantha to finish eating her lunch while I took Aedan upstairs to change his diaper and his clothes. However, once I got upstairs, I realized it was more of a mess than I realized. Just using wipes was not going to be good enough. I decided he needed a bath. It was one of those situations where I thought, "How do I even get your clothes off of you?" It was the worst diaper of his that I ever changed. After I turned on the water and was getting Aedan in the bath, Samantha came upstairs to see what I was doing. She could hear the bath water running from downstairs and wanted to see what was going on. Now, it was a bath day for Aedan, but he wasn't exactly the happiest with getting put in the bath and rubbed down when really he just wanted to nurse and take a nap. Nap time usually happens later on preschool days anyways due to getting back later and then still having to eat lunch. Throwing a bath in the mix made things take even longer. All the hullabaloo made it difficult for Samantha to settle down, and she ended up not napping that afternoon, but that's okay.
I am part of a mom's group on Facebook, with other Oxford moms with young children. They plan a mom's night out once a month, and I haven't been able to go yet, but made it a point to plan on going to the one that happened on Thursday. We planned to meet at a local Mexican restaurant, and Ben was fine with hanging out with the kids and putting them to bed while I was out. Aedan already had a bath after the pooping fiasco right before nap time. Ben gave Samantha a bath right after dinner so that way that was taken care of before I left for the evening. I was very excited to get some time away from the kids, but most importantly, to get some time with other women who are in the trenches of raising kids, just like me. Since Samantha didn't nap on Thursday, it was early bed time for both kids, which was nice for Ben. However, when he tried to give Aedan a bottle before bed, it was not working. Ben thought it was an issue with needing faster flowing nipples for the bottles that we have. We still have the number one nipples in, rather than the number two nipples that come with the Dr. Brown bottles. He said Aedan just kept getting angry, like he was trying to eat and wasn't getting enough. He didn't know where the other nipples were, so he improvised. He put the milk into a little sippy cup we have, but Aedan didn't know how to drink out of a cup like that yet. So then Ben took the stopper out of the sippy cup and just tipped a little milk into Aedan's mouth, let him swallow it, and then continued tipping more in until Aedan seemed content and full. He then fell right to sleep, but it took a lot of crying while Ben tried to figure out what to use to feed him, and also with a break in the middle to put Samantha to bed.
I felt really bad that I left him there with no way to adequately feed Aedan. If I would have known Aedan would have had this much trouble taking his bottle, I never would have gone out for the night. I am so thankful for a calm and supportive husband. Many husbands would have just texted their wife, telling them to come home and feed the baby. Ben, however, let me enjoy my time out with other moms, trying to minimize what was going on so that I wouldn't worry and, instead, enjoy myself. In fact, there were several moms at the restaurant whose husbands were just hanging out with their kids until the mom got back from mom's night out and could put the kids to bed themselves. I am so grateful for Ben and all he does to love me and support me. I definitely wouldn't be able to do this without him.
Here are a couple videos from their evening together.
Friday was a busy day, as we had plans to travel to Upland for the weekend. However, Ben had a meeting on campus, and I had a lunch date with two women from church that wanted to get to know me and my kids some more. We had a relaxed morning with pancakes for breakfast. And Samantha practiced spelling her name. It's something we've been working on lately, and she was so proud of herself when she got it right. She just wanted to spell it over and over again!
Also, now that Aedan is almost six months old, and especially since he has been showing so much interest in us when we eat, we decided to let him try rice cereal for the first time on Friday morning. When Samantha ate rice cereal for the first time, she was not a fan, she made a disgusted face and most of it didn't stay in her mouth. We kept trying it with her, and eventually she warmed up to it a little, but really, she never was too big of a fan of it. Aedan, on the other hand, LOVED his rice cereal. He was actually doing a pretty good job opening his mouth, keeping his tongue down, and actually swallowing a good majority of the food. I was really impressed! Samantha, of course, wanted to help us feed Aedan. She was so excited to see him eat and did a great job gently giving him spoonfuls. I think she's really going to like it when he starts to eat vegetable and fruit baby food as well. Not only will she like to be able to feed him it, but he will REALLY like to taste it!
The rest of the morning I spent packing and getting everything ready for our weekend away. It's amazing how much stuff you have to bring with you when you have two kids, especially when one of the kids is a baby. After Samantha, Aedan, and I got home from our lunch at church, we headed on to Upland. Aedan actually fell asleep on the way home from church, so we just picked up Daddy at home and kept driving. Samantha was pretty tired and fell asleep fairly quickly in the car, but unfortunately, Aedan woke up after only about a half an hour of sleep. I was driving, so Ben did his best to amuse Aedan with toys and his pacifier, trying to keep him quiet while Samantha continued to nap. Samantha slept about forty-five minutes, which isn't too bad. In comparison to no nap, we'll take forty-five minutes.
Once we arrive in Upland, Samantha got right to playing. Grandma found some of Aunt Jeni's old Barbies, and Samantha couldn't wait to play with them. Aedan was pretty hungry, so I nursed him and he fell asleep, so he was able to get another good nap in that evening. Then, an hour or so later, Aunt Jeni and Alaina arrived, and Samantha was SO excited to see her cousin. We all went outside, running around in the grass, and playing in the leaves.
Burying Grandpa with leaves was so much fun!
We had a good evening eating dinner together, playing, talking, and hanging out. Aedan was a bit fussier than normal for some reason, but as long as he was being held and had something to chew on, he was pretty happy.
He started doing something really strange with nursing lately. Even though he acts super hungry and it's been long enough since he's nursed last, I will try to nurse him, and he will act like he's not hungry. He will arch his back, push away from me, and cry. Sometimes I can change positions or wait a few seconds, then try to nurse him again and it will sometimes work, but not always. It's frustrating because he acts hungry but won't eat, and then awhile later he will start acting fussy and I don't know if it's because he didn't get enough to eat or if there is some other reason. He could be teething, he could be upset from a stuffy nose, he could be overstimulated by all the family around, he could be tired, he could be extending the length of time between when he needs to nurse. There are just so many possibilities, that it's hard to know what to do. I don't want to be constantly nursing him, offering just in case he's hungry, but I also don't want him to remain hungry or be acting fussy because I am not trying to feed him when he needs it, but rather according to our usual schedule. Babies are tricky to figure out sometimes.
He started doing something really strange with nursing lately. Even though he acts super hungry and it's been long enough since he's nursed last, I will try to nurse him, and he will act like he's not hungry. He will arch his back, push away from me, and cry. Sometimes I can change positions or wait a few seconds, then try to nurse him again and it will sometimes work, but not always. It's frustrating because he acts hungry but won't eat, and then awhile later he will start acting fussy and I don't know if it's because he didn't get enough to eat or if there is some other reason. He could be teething, he could be upset from a stuffy nose, he could be overstimulated by all the family around, he could be tired, he could be extending the length of time between when he needs to nurse. There are just so many possibilities, that it's hard to know what to do. I don't want to be constantly nursing him, offering just in case he's hungry, but I also don't want him to remain hungry or be acting fussy because I am not trying to feed him when he needs it, but rather according to our usual schedule. Babies are tricky to figure out sometimes.
We were a little worried about how Aedan would do since last time we traveled it seemed like he didn't really like sleeping in the pack and play. However, Aedan slept just fine, waking up in the middle of the night to nurse, and then going right back to sleep. Samantha, on the other hand, woke up at 6:20 a.m., WAY too early even for a normal day where she had a good sleep the night before. We tried to get her to go back to sleep, because we knew if she got up that early, she would be tired and crabby the rest of the morning, but she would not go back to sleep. Ben went downstairs to talk to her, but Grandpa beat him to it, so Ben came back up into the bedroom. About ten minutes later, when Samantha was still singing in her room, I could tell that Grandpa was going to handle her and play with her, so I turned the monitor off and Ben and I got to go back to sleep! We both fell back asleep until after 8:00! I don't even remember the last time we slept that late. Is that sad that 8:00 a.m. is considered sleeping in? I remember when we lived in our second apartment in Cedar Park, Texas, which was located right by some softball fields. Every Saturday morning they would have baseball games and would begin playing the national anthem just before 9:00 when the games would start. I remember Ben and I always getting upset when the music would start playing and wake us up. Imagine that! Being offended by being woken up at 9:00 a.m. on a Saturday morning! Anyways, I am very appreciative of Grandpa keeping Samantha occupied for us so that we could get a little extra shut eye.
Our morning was fairly relaxed, with lots of time for the cousins to play together. We even went to a local farm where we purchased apples and pumpkins. We had plans for the girls to decorate their pumpkins for Grandpa and Grandma to keep to decorate their house.
Alaina really loves Aedan. When he is around, she likes to be near him. She also likes to hold him, and she did a really good job supporting him and keeping him steady.
Samantha was so extremely tired after the little sleep she got on Friday night, so nap time was a must that Saturday afternoon. I got Aedan down and Ben got Samantha down. Once both kids were soundly asleep, we went on a trip to Muncie with Aunt Jeni to shop for kids' clothes at Once Upon a Child and get some coffee at Starbucks. It was fun to be able to ride in the car and have a conversation as adults, without kids demanding our attention. It also was much easier picking out clothes by ourselves without Samantha and Aedan along. We got 6-9 month and some 9 month stuff for Aedan. Especially with wearing cloth diapers (and the huge thighs he has), he needed bigger pants for the rest of fall and winter. Samantha also needed some more pants, long sleeve shirts, and some warmer pajamas that were size 4T. We hoped we could find some pants that would stay up on her waist. We have such a problem with pants always falling down on her, giving her a plumber's crack. The problem is that 3T pants may possibly fit her better around the waist, but they are too short. We spent more money than what we would have liked, but we were also buying for two kids. I always have to remind myself how much all those clothes would cost if we were buying them full price at a store. Once Upon a Child is such a good deal for kids' clothes. There's really no reason to shop anywhere else.
Once we got back to Upland, the girls were up from their naps and Aedan was still sleeping. Shortly after that, we decided to make our little dessert ghosts. We got the brownies cut up into little pieces, and then the girls were in charge of putting icing on top the brownies to hold the marshmallow in place, and then drizzling icing over the top of the marshmallow and adding black food coloring dots for the eyes and mouth, in order to make it look like a ghost. They had a really good time decorating them...
That evening, after having homemade pizza for dinner, the girls decorated their pumpkins for Grandpa and Grandma. Alaina drew all kinds of lines and squiggles on hers and even wrote her name on it. Samantha drew pictures of the family members on hers. Both girls spent quite awhile coloring on their pumpkins and were pretty proud of them when they were finished.
After decorating the pumpkins, it was time for all the kids to get baths and get ready for bed. Samantha and Alaina took a bath in the big Jacuzzi tub in Grandpa and Grandma's bathroom, and they thought that was pretty cool, although they didn't like the jets being turned on. We got all the kids in bed, and Aedan went down really well, but Samantha again had a hard time letting herself fall asleep. She wanted the night light on again, but we heard her in there playing and kicking, so we turned it off again. She was up even later Saturday night than Friday night. She's such an odd child with sleeping sometimes. It's hard for us to travel and be away from home because she sleeps so poorly, making it difficult for her to function normally and for us having to deal with a cranky, tired girl. She likes her normal routine so much, and she gets so wound up being around people, that it's hard for her to settle down when we are in new places. I know (or I hope) that this won't always be an issue with Samantha, but in the meantime, it makes it difficult to go out of town knowing that we will be struggling to get Samantha to sleep while we are gone.
Aedan had another good night, waking up once to nurse and then going right back to sleep. Samantha woke up early again on Sunday morning, and Ben went down to her room and was very stern with her, telling her that no one is up yet, no lights are on, and that she had to go back to sleep. Surprisingly, she actually did, and she ended up sleeping in for quite awhile. Ben and I were both so glad that she got extra sleep that morning, knowing it would make for a much better day for everyone involved.
We had plans to go out for lunch after church that day, and Aedan was ready for a nap pretty much right when church started, so I decided to put him in the Ergo and walk around the downstairs of the church with him, trying to get him to nap so that we could then make it through lunch. It actually worked, after covering up his head and walking around for about ten minutes, he fell right asleep. I thought about going back upstairs into the service, but I figured he would wake up if I did that. So I found a room that had a speaker playing the audio from the service, and I just walked around in that room while Aedan slept comfortably against my chest. I was able to listen to the sermon, and he was able to get a good nap in, a win-win situation.
After a good lunch at Fazoli's, we went back to Grandpa and Grandma's house for nap time before heading back to Oxford. It's always an interesting ride back home, especially since Samantha ended up not napping that afternoon and Aedan didn't nurse very well before we left. We made it home in less than two hours, but it felt much longer than that. We got everything brought inside and had a quick dinner of leftovers before putting the kids to bed and collapsing on the couch ourselves. It had been a long day, a long weekend, and we were glad to be back home.
Monday was one of those crazy busy days. I had an appointment at 8:45 that morning, and Ben stayed home with Samantha and Aedan so I didn't have to drag them with me. I also had to pick up Roscoe from the kennel on my way home. I decided to take the kids to story time at the park because there are only a couple weeks left. We were a little late because I had to nurse Aedan before leaving for the park. Samantha enjoyed story time even though she was pretty tired. It was a bit chilly out, so I put Aedan in the Ergo, put his hood up, and wrapped a fleece blanket around him and the Ergo, keeping him nice, warm and cozy so that he could take a good nap while Samantha played on the playground. Samantha didn't take a nap that afternoon, and Aedan took one, but not as long as he really should have. So while we were waiting for Daddy to get home from campus, I was trying to deal with two tired and cranky children, and was trying to make homemade hummus when the blender started smoking. Then, while I was dealing with all that along with making dinner, Roscoe peed on the couch. Ben came home and said, "Is there a reason the couch is wet?" That was just the last straw, and I just broke down in tears. I felt like everything had just gone wrong that day.
However, despite all the craziness of the day, the night ended with one of the best activities, nursing my baby to sleep while he wrapped his soft little hand around my thumb. It erased all the bad feelings that had piled up throughout the day. Then, I got to drink coffee and relax with Ben. A good end to a chaotic day.
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