Aedan Starting to Sit Up, Lots of Laughs, and Miami Hockey Game

Samantha: 40 Months, Week 3
Aedan: Week 23

Tuesdays are already pretty busy days around here, but this Tuesday was exceptionally busy because our dog, Roscoe, had an appointment to be groomed, so we had to drop him off before taking Samantha to preschool, meaning we had to be ready and leave extra early that morning.

When we get to preschool, I always unbuckle Samantha first and let her go stand on the sidewalk while I get Aedan out of his car seat.  (I have to take Samantha into the building and have her use the restroom, so I can't just drop her off and I can't leave Aedan in the car.)  Well, on Tuesday morning, as I was getting Aedan out, Samantha somehow tripped on the sidewalk and skinned her knee a little bit.  She didn't cry or anything, but as we walked down the sidewalk together, she said, "It's okay.  God will heal me."  She says that all the time, every time she hurts herself.  I'm glad that she trusts God for even the tiniest scratch on her knee.  I particularly like that she just brings Him up in her every day conversation, something that even I, as an adult, am not particularly good at or comfortable with.  It's amazing to be challenged in your faith by your three year old. :)

Aedan and I then continued on with our busy morning, making our weekly trip to Kroger for groceries.  While we were there, there were probably three or four older women that stopped me to comment on how cute Aedan was.  One even admitted that there wasn't anything she needed in that aisle, she just wanted to come down and see my baby.  That was so hilarious to me!  It's amazing how much attention Aedan brings me.  Everyone loves seeing his pudgy little thighs sticking out of the Ergo.  He even ended up falling asleep about halfway through our shopping trip.  I love having him fall asleep in the Ergo because I get some extra cuddling in with my little man.  He was so content sleeping on my chest.  I almost wanted to just keep walking around the store, letting him enjoy his nap and letting myself enjoy his cuddles.

On our way home from Kroger we picked up Roscoe, got home and put the groceries away and unloaded the dishwasher in just enough time before we had to get back in the car again to pick up Samantha.  In fact, Aedan actually fell asleep in the car on the way to pick Samantha up, staying asleep all the way until we arrived back home again.

It was funny when we entered the house and Samantha saw Roscoe for the first time after his haircut.  She stopped in her tracks and said, "Who is that?"  I said, "It's Roscoe.  He got his hair cut today."  She then said, "It doesn't look like Roscoe; he looks like a different dog."  She also wondered why he had the bandanna tied around his neck.  Well, shortly after that, I placed Aedan on the couch so that I could put away our bags, then went in the living room and saw this:

Samantha sat down next to Aedan, and Roscoe jumped up on the couch next to Samantha.  Funny shot of the three living beings I get to spend my day with.

It was a very busy morning, and nap time went really well, which I was glad for so that I could get a little break myself.  Aedan fell right asleep since he was so tired from the morning of little sleep.  Samantha didn't fall asleep with me in the room, but fell asleep quickly after that since I didn't hear anything else from her.  Aedan woke up after about an hour and made some noise, but he quieted back down and slept for another two hours without me having to go in his room.  It was the first normal nap time (and bed time the night before) in quite awhile.  Lately, we have had to go in his room to settle him down when he woke up in the middle of sleeping, but I didn't have to today.  Maybe he will start doing this more, maybe he is learning how to get himself back to sleep on his own.

Samantha slept for about an hour and fifteen minutes, giving her just enough time to watch a show and get ready for ballet.  Since Aedan was still sleeping, Daddy had to take her again, which of course he doesn't mind. He said she did an excellent job listening and following Miss Ashley's directions this time, so that was good.  (I'm sure taking a nap and being well rested helps with her ability to concentrate and follow directions.)

Many times throughout the day Samantha will practice the sounds of letters, sounding out the beginning letter of a variety of words from objects that she sees around her.  She is getting really good at recognizing what letters go with what sounds.  On Tuesday evening, she was walking around the house doing that, and then exclaimed, "I'm going to be able to read books by myself soon!"  I'm so glad that she's excited about reading.  I'm excited for her to learn to read as well.  She loves looking at books, even now she could get lost in books for a couple hours.  I can't imagine what she'll do when she'll actually be able to read the words in the books!  So exciting!

Before dinner that night, I asked Samantha to put a blanket back up in her room that she had dropped on the dining room floor.  She said, "No!"  I said, "You can go put it away or go sit in time out."  So she went to the bathroom and put herself in time out.  After a little while, she came out and said, "I prayed to Jesus about yelling no."  Then, she came up to me and gave me a big hug and said I'm sorry.  It's hard to be upset even a little bit after all that.  What a cutie!

I love family nights together!  Lots of playing and lots of laughing!

And look what Aedan can do!  He can sit up pretty well for short amounts of time unsupported, as long as he has something like this cube toy to lean on and hold on to.

Before bed that that night, Daddy and Samantha made a pumpkin roll together.  She was so excited to eat it that she could hardly wait until the next day!

I feel like I have lots of Samanathaisms in the blog this week, and Wednesday morning we had another funny conversation.  As I was getting ready in the bathroom, Samantha came into the hallway and said, "Mommy, if I play my cards right, maybe you will yet me have pumpkin roll after lunch."  To which I replied, "Do you know what play your cards right means?"  And Samantha said, "Yes, if I be respectful.  What's it called, pumpkin roll?  That's hard to say."  I couldn't help but laugh out loud over this little interaction between the two of us.  She says the funniest things sometimes.  She knows and understands so many things that sometimes I forget she's only three.

I always look forward to Wednesday mornings because I have my Bible study at our church, and Samantha and Aedan go to the nursery rooms for childcare, giving me a bit of a break and a chance to be with and talk with fellow women.  It is good for my soul.

However, it is not so easy on Aedan, in particular.  He normally naps during the morning for anywhere from forty-five minutes to hour on average.  However, there is just too much commotion and noise for him to really fall asleep at church.  Apparently, the childcare worker tried to get Aedan to nap earlier in the morning, but it didn't work.  But then later, right before our Bible study was almost over, he ended up falling asleep in the worker's arms.  Aedan was totally conked out on this man's shoulder.  He stayed asleep being transferred to my arms, but Samantha was not being very cooperative or helpful in getting out of the church.  I tried to transfer him to his car seat while still sleeping, but as Samantha climbed into her car seat, she decided to scream for some reason.  This, of course, woke Aedan up and made him cry, which then made her cry as well.  So then I had to spend the next few minutes trying to calm both children down before leaving the church parking lot.  Samantha loves going out and being around other kids, like at preschool or at church, but sometimes gives me a hard time when it's time to leave.  She doesn't want to leave, she wants to stay, even though it is over and everyone else is leaving.  I'm glad she has fun and doesn't want to leave these places, but it makes it difficult for me when she's being uncooperative, and all I'm trying to do is get everyone home so we can eat lunch and I can get Aedan down for his nap.  Wednesday mornings are hard for him since he doesn't really nap, making lunchtime tricky with a tired, cranky, hungry baby.

However, Aedan did end up falling asleep in the car on the way home and I didn't have the heart to wake him up, so I just brought him in the house in his car seat, and he slept all the way through lunch.  But then, I didn't want him to sleep for too long because I knew he would be getting hungry and wanted to get him down in his crib for a decent nap.  So Samantha said, "Can I wake him up?"  I said, "Yes, but only if you do it nicely by kissing him on the forehead or something like that."  So she went and kissed him, then came back to me and said, "Mommy, that didn't work.  He's still sleeping.  I'll have to hug him this time."  She then goes and hugs Aedan, comes back to me with a huge smile on her face, and says, "It worked this time.  He's awake now."  She went back out in the living room by him and I could hear Aedan laughing, so I peeked in to see what they're doing, and got to watch Samantha playing peek-a-boo with Aedan.  She is so incredibly sweet with her little brother!  I hope they always are good friends.

When Aedan falls asleep in the car like that so close to nap time, I'm always afraid that it will be hard to get him down for a real nap that afternoon.  He nursed and fell asleep, just like normal, but as soon as I laid him down, he woke back up again.  I decided to just lay him down in his crib and go get Samantha down for her nap.  He wasn't really crying, just making noise, and all was quiet when I came out from Samantha's room.  All is well when both kids are napping, and I was glad that Aedan was able to get himself back to sleep without my assistance.

That night, once Daddy got home and we had dinner together, it was time for a bath for the kids.  Aedan has really gotten into splashing in the tub lately, so much so that he gets the kitchen (and the person bathing him) very, very wet.  We decided to move him upstairs to the bathtub and at first were going to just give him a bath by himself and then give one to Samantha.  But we decided to let Samantha hop in the bath, too.  They both loved it!  We have now started a new bath time tradition.  The kids get to hang out with and amuse each other.  Ben and I can be together, and we can get both baths done at the same time.  It was great!

Thursday was another preschool day.  Here is Aedan in his exersaucer that morning as Samantha and I ate breakfast.  I thought he was pretty cute in his little hoodie.  He loves this exersaucer.  What a wonderful invention!  And who can beat that smile?  He is such a smiley, happy baby.  He lights up a room. :)

After dropping Samantha off, Aedan and I ran a few errands.  Since he just turned five months old, I wanted to check his weight at the pediatrician's office.  They had no problem with me stopping by, and Aedan weighed in at 20 pounds, 14 ounces.  What a big guy!  Sometimes I look at him, and I can't believe how big he's getting.

Aedan fell asleep in the car on the way home, but I was able to get him back to sleep in his crib once we got home.  However, he woke up only thirty minutes later.  He wasn't too upset, so I didn't go into his room, and I'm glad I didn't because he ended up falling back asleep on his own and sleeping for another hour and ten minutes.  I actually had to wake him up so that we could go pick Samantha up from preschool.   

That afternoon during nap time, I had plans for a friend to come over and hang out.  I was really looking forward to having some time to talk with another woman who is also new to Oxford due to her husband teaching at Miami.  We both go to OBF and figured it would be nice to get to know each other better.  It's always a bit crazy on Tuesdays and Thursdays getting home from preschool, having lunch, and getting both kids down for their nap.  I got Aedan to sleep just fine that afternoon, but Samantha wouldn't settle down and ended up not napping.  She just sat in her room quietly looking at books.  Aedan had a good two and a half hour nap and didn't even wake up at all in the middle, which is rare lately.  I kept waiting to hear him cry and expected to have to leave Maggie to go upstairs and get him back to sleep, like I have to do on most days, but he gave me a nice gift today by sleeping solidly all afternoon.

Neither Ben nor I felt like making anything for dinner that night, so we decided to go out and try another local pizza place called LaRosa's.  It was fairly decent pizza, probably one of our favorites in Oxford so far, but still not as good as our homemade pizza with pizza dough from our bread machine.  Both kids were super tired that night, so they were in bed and asleep by 8:00.  But then Aedan woke up crying around 10:15, taking some work to get back to sleep.  Who knows, babies are hard to understand!  I actually ended up nursing him again because he was acting hungry.  Then he slept from 11:00 that night through to the next morning, which was nice for Ben and me.  That was the closest to sleeping through the night that Aedan has ever done.

Since we had been busy all week, going somewhere every morning, we spent Friday at home playing.  In fact, I even convinced Daddy to work from home, so that was nice.  I will always take as much time with Ben as I can get.

Saturday was pretty cold, not a good day to be outside, so we quickly went the the farmer's market Uptown to get some apples, and then we went to the library to let Samantha play for a little while, as well as check out books about leaves and firefighters, the two topics she has been asking a lot about lately.

Aedan will often have to change outfits during the day, mostly because of drool or spit up, and occasionally a leaky diaper.  Well, on Saturday I had to change his outfit and decided to try on this little sweatshirt and sweatpants, since it was a cold day, perfect for wearing comfy sweats.  (I don't think that sweatshirt was the most flattering on his body type, but the Indiana Hoosiers sweatpants are pretty cute!)

Sunday was a fairly typical day of going to church together, but the highlight of our day, and weekend, was going to a Miami Redhawks hockey game.  Ben got tickets on Friday, and Samantha was so excited about going that she could not settle down enough to take a nap on Sunday afternoon, no matter how many ways we tried to get her to fall asleep.  We thought about not going and cancelling our tickets because we didn't want to have to deal with a cranky girl at the game, but there was no way to cancel, and we have decided not to link doing things in the evenings to whether or not Samantha naps, so we decided to go anyways.

The hockey game started at 5:05, which was really the perfect time to allow Aedan to nap and to then to get back home in time for a decent bedtime.  Here we are in our seats waiting for the game to start.

It was an exhibition game against Simon Frasier, which is a Canadian university, and Miami creamed them 11 to 0.  Samantha got into trash talking by saying, "That red team is not very good at hockey."  However, the downside to them scoring so many goals is that every time Miami made a goal, a VERY loud buzzer would go off.  Since we didn't know about it, the first time it went off, it caught us off guard and really surprised us.  In fact, Aedan started crying, followed by Samantha, because it startled them so much.  But Daddy told Samantha that she had to be the big kid and not cry.  After that, we knew to expect it, so we had our hands ready to cover up our children's ears.  Aedan still cried the next couple of times the buzzer sounded, but then got used to it after that.  I still covered his ears, but it was almost like it didn't bother him anymore.

We got dinner at the stadium before the game started, took a bathroom break after the first period, and then get a snack after the second period.  However, at that point, Aedan was getting pretty tired, so I put him in the Ergo to see if he would fall asleep.  I didn't think he would considering how loud it was in the stadium, but after awhile sleep overtook him and he couldn't help himself.  He fell asleep with his head resting against my chest, getting a good little nap in.

We stayed until the very end of the game because everyone was enjoying themselves so much.  Samantha remarked several times afterwards how much fun the hockey game was and that she wants to go back again sometime.  I said to Ben during the game, "See!  We can still do stuff like this as a family of four!"

Monday was a crazy day because Ben had commitments on campus in the evenings, a dinner and meeting a Congresswoman.  Because of that, he graciously offered to hang out a little more in the morning with us.  Samantha, Aedan, and I went to the story time in the park since they both enjoy that so much.  It was a cold, rainy day though, so we didn't stay and play at the park or go on the walk.  Instead, we just came home and hung out with Daddy a little longer.  Here are some cute pictures from playing at home that morning.

I just had to include this one of Aedan crying because he does it so little.  His face is just priceless.  I forget what happened to make him cry, but look at that big mouth and squinty eyes.

So far Aedan has only rolled over once or twice randomly.  We keep trying to encourage him to roll over, but, as you can see in the picture below, he will roll over on his side and hang out there for awhile, with no desire to keep going, but that's okay, he'll do it in his own time.

 Samantha has really enjoyed coloring lately.  She will sit at the coffee table and color for quite a long time, saying that she is working in her workbook.

And here is a funny video from lunch that day.  She was dipping her raspberries in Parmesan cheese.  Don't ask me why.

After lunch on Monday, Ben headed out to campus.  I put the kids down for naps, and they both went to sleep really well as they were pretty tired.  Aedan did his obligatory cry in the middle of his nap, but I didn't have to go up there, he just got himself back to sleep, so that was good.  The rest of the evening went okay, but was a little crazy doing dinner and bed time all by myself.  Aedan didn't fall asleep when I nursed him, like he usually does, so I just laid him down to see what would happen.  Then, I got Samantha ready for bed and in her room for the night.  I could still hear Aedan crying when I was reading books to Samantha, and I felt bad that I was just letting him cry, but I didn't know what else to do.  By the time I was done with Samantha, Aedan had fallen asleep, and shortly after that Ben got home.  Whenever I am home alone with both kids, I always have a much greater appreciation for single parents.  I really appreciate all of Ben's help and how well we work together as a team. :)