Aedan Turns 10 Months!

Samantha: 45 Months, Week 2

Aedan: Week 44

On Monday night, I was looking through some old pictures when working on my blog, and I got caught up in Aedan's newborn pictures.  It's amazing how fast babies change and how quickly you forget what they looked like, how they acted, and how they sounded.  Sometimes when looking back at pictures like this I get all teary-eyed.  I said to Ben, "If Aedan were sleeping through the night, I would be ready for another baby."  Ben posted this comment on Facebook and added the reply, "I guess I need to keep giving him the special medicine that wakes him up in the middle of the night..."  I have already won Ben over on having three kids even though he says he would be just fine with the two we have, a boy and a girl.  We plan to not wait as long in between Aedan and the next baby, especially because it will probably be the last one, so then we can get out of the baby stage sooner.  We'll see, gotta get Aedan sleeping through the night first.

Ben has started attending the Tuesday morning Bible study at church again, so that leaves me to get up and around, and get the kids up, fed, dressed, and out the door by myself.  Luckily, even though they woke up at 6:45 (which is too early for this mama), Samantha is usually helpful in getting ready because she enjoys preschool so much and looks forward to it every Tuesday and Thursday.

After dropping Samantha off at preschool on Tuesdays, Aedan and I generally go back home so he can nap, unless I have errands to run or something like that.  He was really tired from waking up earlier than usual, so he took a 2 hour morning nap.  I figured there was no reason to wake him up, and I was able to get some work done around the house while he was sleeping.  However, since he took such a long nap in the morning, I couldn't get him to sleep that afternoon.  He nursed and then just started pulling my hair.  (I should know just to wear my hair in a ponytail every time I go to nurse him.)  I tried just laying him down while I put Samantha down for her nap.  Preschool wears Samantha out pretty well, and she fell right asleep for me.  I only stayed in her room for 5 minutes, and she fell asleep after I left her room, which is great because she doesn't normally do that.  Aedan wasn't crying, but hadn't fallen asleep yet, so I went back into his room to try and rock him back to sleep.  I walked in and he just smiled at me.  I tried rocking him, but he just kept scratching me and pulling my hair, so I laid him back down in his crib.  He was showing signs of being tired, like yawning and rubbing his eyes, but then he cried when I left the room.  I didn't want him to cry too loud and wake Samantha up on a day that she actually fell asleep for nap time, but obviously having me in the room with him wasn't helping him to fall asleep either.  He finally calmed down and fell asleep, which I was glad for, but only ended up sleeping for just over an hour.  Ahh, nap time struggles.

It was my turn to take Samantha to ballet.  Now that Aedan doesn't nurse before dinner anymore, Ben and I take turns taking Samantha to ballet.  I got some videos of them dancing and practicing their dance for the upcoming recital.  I mainly wanted to record these dances so that I could play them for Samantha, and I could help her practice the dance steps at home.  They have such a limited time to practice at ballet class and sometimes Samantha gets distracted by the other girls in her class.

While Samantha and I were at ballet, Daddy got to hang out with Aedan, who enjoys rolling around on the floor and sticking his little tongue out, as you can see in this video.

Wednesday was a rough day for Samantha.  She has been waking up earlier than usual, sometimes as early as 6:15, and then not going back to sleep.  (Aedan has been waking up earlier like that as well.)  Ben wanted to take Samantha to a Miami women's basketball game on Wednesday, but it was mostly dependent on what kind of a day Samantha had and whether she'd be able to handle being out past her bedtime.  Knowing that she might go on a date with Daddy that night, Samantha decided to wear her red Miami shirt and then had to pick red pants and her apple sweater with the red apple because then they all matched.

After Aedan got a morning nap in, we took our weekly trip to the library for story time.  It was the last week for Mr. Chad, so we enjoyed stories and songs before playing out in the children's department.  Aedan likes sitting by this toy and playing with the knobs you can turn on the side.  

For how easy it was to get Samantha to sleep on Tuesday, Wednesday was a different story, even though she woke up super early and was acting tired and disrespectful all morning, she refused to nap.  It seems like the days when I try the hardest to get her to nap are the days it doesn't happen.  I was trying so hard to get her to nap so that she could go to the basketball game with Daddy, but nothing I was doing was working.  I think she was too excited about going to the game, which resulted in her not napping, which then resulted in her not being able to go at all.  I was getting overly frustrated trying to get her to sleep, and nap time was turning into a battle again, something I dread every day because I never know how it will go with Samantha.  I had been doing pretty well at not getting worked up over whether or not she napped because it's something I can't control anyways, but it's difficult when she's in her room making all kinds of noise for 45 minutes and then crying about having to go potty, even though she went 3 times between coming home from the library and getting in bed for nap time.  Even though nap time doesn't seem like a big deal, it's this kind of thing that makes me feel like a failure as a mom.  I feel like I know what would be best for Samantha, but I can't make it happen.  Then, I get angry with her when she doesn't get enough sleep and is cranky, taking it out on her, even though I know that won't help the situation at all.  I know she's probably just asserting her independence and this is one way she can do that, and I need to continue to work on not overreacting.

For some reason our kids continued to wake up really early in the morning and not go back to sleep.  It's hard when they are already tired and it's not even 9:00 a.m.  On Thursday Samantha had preschool and Aedan and I went grocery shopping, just like usual, even though he was extremely tired.  I had to wake Aedan up at noon so that we could go pick Samantha up from preschool.  Apparently she was telling her teachers that she could take a nap at preschool she was so tired.  However, the benefit of Samantha and Aedan being tired is that nap time becomes a lot easier.  Both kids took good naps, and it was actually harder to get Aedan to sleep than Samantha since he had just woken up at noon.  Since they both took good naps that afternoon, and neither Ben nor I felt like cooking, we decided to go to Five Guys for dinner before I headed out for my Bible study.

On Friday morning my stomach was not feeling good.  I didn't know if I had caught some sort of stomach bug or if I had eaten something that made me sick.  It seemed like no one else in the family was feeling bad, and I had been drinking green smoothies most days for lunch.  Anyways, Ben went to campus Friday morning, and I tried to lay low as much as possible.  During Aedan's nap, I took this picture of a robin sitting on our bird feeder outside our living room window.  I haven't seen any birds on our bird feeder the whole time we've lived here, and I thought this bird was so pretty, especially with the backdrop of the snow.

I just felt worse and worse as the day went on, so I asked for Ben to come home after his class to that he could help me put Samantha down for her nap and then be home to get up with the kids so that I could take a nap myself.  I slept until dinner time, hoping that I would feel better after getting some rest, but no such luck.  We had plans to go to a family concert at OBF that evening, and Ben bravely offered to take the kids by himself.  I felt bad making Ben go by himself, and I was looking forward to a fun family weekend, but I was in no position to go out of the house and away from a bathroom.  Samantha had a great time dancing and singing, and even Aedan enjoyed himself.

Saturday morning, even after resting most of the day on Friday, I was still not feeling well.  We spent the day hanging out and relaxing at home.  I tried to do things as normally as I could so that Ben could work on his grading.

However, by lunch time I could tell that I had done too much, and I felt terrible.  I was almost feeling nauseous, so I decided to lay down again while Ben put both Samantha and Aedan down for naps by himself.  I felt bad leaving him with the kids on his own, but I was trying my best to feel better.  I wasn't really able to nap that afternoon because my stomach was just uncomfortable, and Aedan didn't fall asleep well since he isn't used to getting a bottle at nap time, so I ended up having to go in and nurse him to get him to actually fall asleep.

We had plans for our friends Maggie and Jonathan to come over to play games on Saturday night, and I was unsure about whether to have them over or not with how I was feeling.  I was thinking it was just something I must have eaten since no one else got sick in the family.  We ultimately decided to have them over because we didn't want to miss out on a fun night together.  We were looking forward to this for a long time.  I still wasn't feeling great after they left, so Ben lovingly went to Meijer at 11:45 to get me some Immodium and hopefully settle my stomach so that I could sleep.

It started snowing Saturday night, snowing all night long into Sunday morning.  We got a few inches on top of the seven inches we already had from the weekend before.  Oxford doesn't do the greatest job at clearing the roads, so church was actually cancelled on Sunday morning.  It was a blessing in some ways, giving us a nice, relaxing day at home, rather than a busy day of church and small group.  However, I was planning on staying home from church and small group anyways, and was sort of looking forward to having the house to myself so that I could rest and continue to get feeling better without having the responsibility of taking care of the kids.

Aedan's hair is getting really long, so sometimes he wakes up with crazy hair.  I had to take a couple pictures of his hair on Sunday morning because it was sticking up like crazy all over the place.  Plus, you can see the little bruise on his cheek from where he fell into the coffee table on Friday.  We definitely have a little mover on our hands.  Ben and I think crawling will happen any day now.

Throughout the day on Sunday, and after a wonderful afternoon nap for everyone in the house, I was starting to feel better on Sunday night.  I was so glad to feel more normal and to be able to play with Samantha and Aedan again.  However, I was upset that my sickness robbed me of a fun weekend with my family, making me feel crummy, instead of spending quality time with my family.  I felt like I needed another weekend before the week started up again.

In this video below, you can see one of Samantha's favorite games to play with Daddy.  She will yell, "Go, Colts, Go!"  and then he will swipe her feet out from underneath her so that she falls down on her tummy.  Of course, he always catches her.  This is a game that she can only play with her daddy, and she loves it!

Monday morning, I was feeling pretty much back to normal, and I was so thankful.  When Samantha got up that morning, she asked me how I was feeling, and I said, "Much better, thank you."  She said, "See?!  God healed you!"  Daddy said Samantha had been praying for me to get better during her nighttime prayers, and she was so excited to see that I was finally all better, back to normal Mommy again.  I was also glad that Daddy could go off to campus and not worry about how I was feeling.  I didn't want to make him stay home again because he always has so much work to do, I don't like making him feel like he is behind.

Just like when Samantha was a baby, Aedan LOVES playing with the doorstops in our town house.  He will roll all the way across the floor and push his door open to get to the one behind it.  Then he will pull on it and watch it vibrate, with great satisfaction.  We don't mind that he plays with them.  The only problem is that they have a a little while cap on the end that comes off easily when pulled on, and we are always afraid he will put it in his mouth and choke on it.  When Samantha was a baby, we actually ended up just unscrewing all the doorstops from areas where she could reach them because we didn't want to always worry about her pulling the white cap off.  Here is a little video of Aedan playing with the doorstop.

While Aedan was napping that morning, Samantha and I took advantage of the bright sunshine and "warmer" temperatures to go outside and play in the snow.  We donned all our snow gear, and our first task was building a snowman.  Samantha had lofty goals of building two snowmen, a mommy and a baby, but her attention span is just not long enough for the effort it would take to do something like that.  So we settled with this little snowman with blueberry eyes, a carrot nose, and a scarf wrapped around its neck.  Samantha was pretty proud of it.

After finishing our snowman, we went off to the side of our house and went sledding down a little hill.  It was actually the perfect size for Samantha because it was steep enough that she got going pretty fast, but not too steep where it was difficult to climb back up again.  We even went down the sled together the last couple times.  I love doing things like this with my little girl. :)  We had a great time in the snow together that morning.

Now that Aedan has mastered the art of rolling and scooting wherever he wants to go, he has discovered the bathroom.  He will just roll himself right in there and see what he can discover.  Here I caught him in the act of investigating Samantha's bag of ballet clothes that were left on the floor.  One day I even caught him eating a bit of toilet paper!  Samantha left the toilet paper rolled down too far so Aedan could reach it from the floor, he tore a piece off and of course immediately put it into his mouth.  I had to fish it out with my finger.  Oh well, I'm sure it's not the last weird thing that Aedan will put into his mouth!  However, we often comment that now nothing is safe, anything on the floor or within his reach is fair game.

Since there was no 29th of February, Aedan didn't technically turn 10 months old, so I took pictures with his sign at the beginning of March.  It's difficult to get good pictures of Aedan because he is so active now.  I figured starting off in his exersaucer would help me get pictures of him still and smiling.

Then, I tried putting him down on the floor with his sign, but he was way too interested on getting to it and putting it into his mouth.

So I tried  putting him on the black chair with the sign behind him so he couldn't reach, but that didn't work either, he was just arching his back and sliding down in an attempt to reach it.

When I tried holding it out in front of him and taking a picture, he still reached for it, and when I didn't give it to him...

...this is the reaction I got.  He makes the greatest faces.  This is the face he makes when he is truly sad and upset.  He's so expressive, just look at that face!

Don't worry, I didn't let him cry like that for very long.  Seconds later, I let him have his sign, and I allowed him to do whatever he wanted with it, which it included ripping it apart and sticking it in his mouth.  This made him very happy.

These next few pictures are to showcase Aedan's skills at 10 months old.  He can get up on his knees easily, even holding himself up with one arm and reaching out to hold something or grab something with his other arm.

He loves to roll around and explore and is just starting to crawl where he will move one arm and one knee forward, but then he'll fall down on his tummy, so he hasn't quite gotten the hang of that yet.  However, he is pretty adept at rolling, and can roll across the floor pretty quickly to get to what he wants.

Aedan has not yet begun pulling up on things, which really is fine with me, as that just adds a whole level of things that come into his reach.  We are still working on babyproofing things he can get into while he rolls and crawls around.  However, I like to give him practice standing and supporting himself, so I will stand him up in his crib and let him hold on to the railing, or I will let him hold himself up while standing next to the couch.  He likes the different viewpoint.

I figured I could also write a few general updates on Aedan other than how active he is.  For awhile now, we have been giving him 4-4 1/2 tablespoons of baby cereal in the morning for breakfast, sometimes along with pieces of banana or other small cereal pieces.  For lunch, we give him half a jar of vegetables and half a jar of fruit, along with small pieces of what we're eating, like mac and cheese, or pieces of lunch meat (he especially likes that).  Then, for dinner we give him a full jar of vegetables and a full jar of fruit, along with small pieces of what we're eating.  He really enjoys his food and likes most everything, especially after he's tried it a few times.

In regards to sleep, Aedan still isn't really sleeping through the night.  He will go to bed between 7:30 and 8:00 and will usually wake up once in the middle of the night to nurse and then will go right back to sleep.  Occasionally, he will sleep all the way to 6:00 or so, which I would count as sleeping through the night, but that is still a rare occasion these days.  I would rather him be sleeping through the night and not interrupting my sleep, but most nights I don't really mind, especially if he just wakes up once, nurses, and goes right back to sleep.  I enjoy cuddling with him and having him nurse peacefully instead of pulling my hair and hitting me in the face like he does when he nurses during the day.

I can't believe my little man is two months away from being a year old.  This year has gone so fast, and he's getting so big.  :)  I am so grateful that I have gotten the chance to stay home with him, and with Samantha.  It is wonderful watching him learn and explore the world.  It is precious to see the bond form between Samantha and Aedan.  Everyone comments on how sweet and happy Aedan is.  There is a nursery worker at church who has a very sarcastic sense of humor and once told me, "He is just the happiest baby.  Don't be surprised if you drop him off in the nursery and some day you come pick him up and he's not there.  It probably means I've taken him home with me."  He really is a happy guy most of the time and really enjoys life.  He fits into our family perfectly, and I can't imagine what life was like before he arrived.

(Blog about February 24-March 2, 2015)