Aedan: Week 54
For some reason our children have been waking up super early in the morning, sometimes as early as 6:00 or 6:15, and then not going back to sleep. That is too early for us for we usually have our alarm set to go off about 6:15, and we would ideally like to get up and get showered before our kids are awake. Lately, that has not been happening. It's been frustrating to us because then our kids are tired by 9:00 a.m., and usually with the tiredness comes crankiness, making our morning together not very fun sometimes. I don't know why it is that they have been doing this, but it sure is wearing us out. Tuesday was one of those mornings, as well as a morning when Ben was at Bible study so I had to handle the kiddos by myself. Aedan woke up a little before 6:15, and when I got up to go in his room and nurse him, I heard Samantha jingling her blankie, and she had already gotten up to go potty. I went in Samantha's room and told her it was too early to be awake and that she had to go back to sleep. However, she was still making noise when I was done with Aedan, so I went back into her room and took away her blankie and animal, telling her she had to stay in bed until I came to get her up. Aedan wasn't going back to sleep either, so I decided to just hop in the shower quick while both kids were at least safe in their beds. I knew if I didn't shower then that I wouldn't get a shower at all that day. So, I took a nice relaxing (ha ha) shower while listening to both of them make noise over the monitors.
We had a busy morning getting ready and getting Samantha to preschool. Then, after that I had plans to meet up with a local mom who is a hair stylist and is off on maternity leave right now. She offered to show another mom and me how to cut a little boy's hair by using Aedan as an example. His hair was getting pretty long and scraggly, growing way over his ears and down into his eyes. Especially with summer coming and how hot and sweaty he gets, I figured it was time for him to get a little trim. Amanda was so sweet and helpful in showing us tips on how to cut hair so that we can avoid going into a salon and paying every time we need a trim. Aedan did fairly well sitting strapped into the booster chair for her. He was very tired since he had been up since a little after 6:00, but eating a snack provided enough of a distraction for her to get his hair cut. She even saved the pieces of hair for me to put in his baby book for his first hair cut. Aww...my little guy is growing up so fast and getting so big.
After getting Aedan's hair cut, I decided to run one more errand to Meijer to return something and to purchase some room darkening curtains for Samantha's and Aedan's room. I was getting pretty tired of them waking up so early and being so tired that I figured it would be worth a try to see if maybe the sun is waking them up when it starts to rise around that time every morning.
Aedan was super tired and fell asleep in the car on the way home from Meijer. I was able to lay him back down again once we got back home and he slept until it was time to pick up Samantha from preschool. After putting Aedan down, I was looking all over the house for Roscoe and could not find him anywhere. I finally found him in Samantha's room laying on top of her blankie on her bed. It was awfully cute. I'm not sure if Roscoe likes laying on Samantha's bed because he likes her or just because it is low enough to the ground that he can jump up on it easily. I showed Samantha this picture when we got home from preschool, and she thought it was pretty cute and funny as well. For all the times that Roscoe can be a nuisance, getting in the way, bothering Aedan, or making noise in the middle of the night, it's times like these that are endearing and I am reminded that he really is just an old rescue dog who wants a soft place to sleep his day away.
I hadn't gotten any really good shots of Aedan's new haircut, so I took a few pictures once he woke up from his nap. I feel like he looks so different, so much younger, it took me a while to get used to his hair being shorter, but it does look cute on him. :)
After nap time that day, Samantha had her last ballet practice before her recital on Sunday night. Aedan has been waking up from his afternoon nap in enough time for us all to go to Samantha's ballet lesson together, so we make it a family trip. I enjoy spending more time with Ben, sitting there catching up on our days while watching Samantha dance and Aedan play with the baby toys that are in the sitting area. The dance for their recital was a little rough. It's difficult for the girls to remember what to do next. Plus, there are a few little girls that don't pay much attention, so it will be interesting to see what the recital is like when they don't have Miss Ashley to help them as much.
Wednesday was another beautiful day. In fact, it was actually going to be getting pretty warm over the next few days and into the weekend, into the upper 80s where we would have to close our windows and turn our air conditioning on. Anyways, that morning several moms from the PATS group I am a part of on Facebook planned to get together at the TRI playground. Samantha, Aedan, and I went last week after Aedan's 1 year check-up, so we figured we'd go again.
However, that morning started off badly with Samantha. Again, our children woke up early. She was cranky as soon as I went into her room to get her up. I had just gotten out of the shower and Daddy was in with Aedan trying to get him back to sleep, but for some reason Samantha knocked on Aedan's door, which woke him up. I told her to go downstairs and was kind of grumpy because I was tired of dealing with her being cranky from the moment she wakes up. She has been very emotional and very sensitive lately. Once she has done something wrong and gotten in "trouble," she needs to be reminded that you still love her. It seems like until that happens, she does tend to be more short and cranky with us. I don't know if she's going through a growth spurt of some kind, but we are trying to get her as much sleep as we can, getting her to bed by 8:00, but she wakes up at 6:15 or 6:30 regardless of when she goes to sleep, whether 7:30 or 9:00. She's been napping longer lately, too, sometimes between an hour and a half to two hours. But even with all that sleep, it doesn't seem to be enough. I have to do a better job of not expecting certain things and then being disappointed. I just need to expect our kids to wake up early so that way I am not grumpy when they do. I need to get myself to sleep earlier at night so that 6:00 doesn't come as soon. I know that I am less patient and easier to become frustrated when I am tired.
Daddy got Aedan back to sleep that morning and he slept until past 9:00, so once he was up I fed him his breakfast and then we got ready to go play at the park. There were quite a few moms there this week as well, and Samantha recognized a few of her little friends to play with. I put Aedan in the swing and Samantha came right up and wanted to push him herself. She loves playing with her little brother. :) We had a good morning outside playing in the park in the shade of the tree. It's nice to get out and let the kids play and also be around other moms that I can socialize with as well.
Just recently I pulled out these walking toys to see if Aedan would be interested. When we first tried them with Samantha at this age, it took her awhile to figure out how to pull up and then pace herself so that she wouldn't go too fast and lose her footing. Aedan, however, picked up on it very quickly, and LOVED it! He was so excited to be walking all by himself, and if he fell down he would just laugh and pull himself back up again. The only time he would cry is when he went as far as he could go and he had to wait for us to help him turn the car around the other direction. He's always so proud of himself and giggles while he walks.
On Wednesday night we decided to try out a local pizza place called Richard's that had pretty good reviews. We are still searching for good pizza, but nothing in Oxford compares to Mother Bear's Pizza in Bloomington. This place wasn't too bad, and Aedan really enjoyed the spaghetti. Daddy fed it to him off a spoon so that he wouldn't make too big of a mess. Aedan learned two things during dinner that night. One was to grab the spoon and guide it to his mouth. (Sometimes you just can't feed this boy fast enough!). The other was to say please in sign language, which really is placing your right hand on your chest and moving it in a clockwise direction, but with our kids has looked more like patting your chest with your hand. We have been trying to teach him the signs for "more" and "please" when he wants more food instead of grunting, pointing, or screeching. We have showed him the signs over the last couple weeks, but this was the first night that he actually signed "please" by himself.
Thursday was another typical day of taking Samantha to preschool and taking Aedan grocery shopping. We had leftovers for lunch and this time I let Aedan eat the spaghetti by himself. I took his clothes off and let him get as messy as he wanted. By looking at how messy he and his tray got in this picture below, you can see why we fed it to him on a spoon at the restaurant. It's fun to let him get messy at home. However, now after he eats we have had to sweep the floor and take him to the sink to clean him off, but that's the fun of being a toddler: being independent and getting messy!
Now that we've introduced Aedan to his push car, it's one of his favorite activities to do at home. Here are a couple more videos of our little guy. He is getting pretty sturdy on his feet!
We just recently got the Timehop app on our phones, and it's always interesting to see what pictures we posted a year ago. Thursday's picture was priceless. Here's the picture and quote that Ben put on Facebook that day: "Now Aedan has a laugh that is specifically reserved for Samantha. They love each other, and it is fun to watch them together." We took this picture the first Sunday morning after Aedan was born. Samantha was all ready for church, I had just done her pigtail braids, and then I walked into Aedan's room and saw her sitting on the floor with a book, in front of Aedan sleeping in his chair. She said that she was reading to him. It was so precious and still brings tears to my eyes. She is just as much a devoted sister now as she was then. We couldn't have asked for a better oldest sibling to show love to and set the example for the rest of our children.
We had had a pretty busy week with something scheduled every day, so we took the opportunity to play at home on Friday morning. While Aedan took a morning nap, Samantha and I did some preschool activities. We have been working on letter sounds as well as identifying what sound and therefore what letter starts certain words. She can correctly identify all the letters and most of the sounds. We played a matching game and a bingo game practicing matching sounds and letters, and she did a wonderful job. I was really impressed! In fact, I made a comment to Ben that day about how much Samantha has learned over the last year through being in preschool, doing some activities at home, as well as just growing up and getting older. I wouldn't be surprised if she is reading simple books by the the end of the next school year before entering kindergarten. Samantha spells signs and words everywhere she is. She will just see a sign and start spelling it, and then will ask what the word says. I have a feeling she will pick up on reading quickly because she loves and enjoys books so much.
After Aedan woke up from his nap, we spent some time outside playing on the patio before lunch. This video shows Aedan's new spider crawl. He particularly does it when outside on rough surfaces, particularly when wearing shorts. He doesn't like the feeling of concrete or even grass on his knees, so this is his solution to his problem. I don't remember Samantha ever doing a crawl like this, and it's great to watch him get around, mostly in an attempt to get a ball so that he can throw it again or play catch with you. I know I've said this before, but Aedan's favorite toy to play with is a ball.
And of course, Samantha wanted to take Aedan down the slide on her lap. :)
Friday night after Daddy got home and we ate dinner, I suggested we go Uptown for awhile. It was a beautiful evening. United Dairy Farmers (UDF) was selling their ice cream scoops for 75 cents each, and we took the opportunity to be outside. We hadn't planned on going over to the park area with the fountains, but it's too hard to resist when the weather is this pleasant. We saw several other families from OBF out that evening, too, so apparently other families had similar ideas for an evening out with the family. We didn't bring the kids' bathing suits, but we told Samantha that she could get wet, we just didn't have clothes for her to change into. For some reason, even though she had a really good nap, she was still acting tired and a bit grouchy. However, Aedan was having a great time outside. For how much he hated the fountains the previous week, on this occasion he LOVED them. He could have played and splashed in the water for much longer, but we needed to leave because Samantha was starting to become disrespectful, and we needed to get her home to bed. Here are some pictures and videos of our time Uptown that evening.
Can't you tell how much he enjoyed the water? He giggled and splashed and didn't even mind when it splashed him right in the face. I love this little boy! :)
It's kind of sad that we had to leave the fountains early because of our almost 4 year old and not because of our 1 year old. Ben and I talked about it later and we decided that she must be going through some kind of a growth spurt or something where she is requiring more sleep and is just crankier than usual. I sometimes forget that children go through growth, change, and development when they are older just like babies do, and those things can affect their mood and behavior, too. It will be interesting to go to the pediatrician in a couple weeks and see if she has any advice on helping Samantha sleep more, helping her be less tired during the day, and maybe even how we can help her not wake up at night to go potty anymore.
We left the park at the time we are usually getting our kids in bed, so they were both pretty ready by the time we got back home. The rest of our weekend was pretty busy as well, leaving not much time for resting or relaxing. On Saturday morning, Ben took Samantha out to let her pick out some things for me for Mother's Day. While they were gone, I got Aedan down for his morning nap, took my shower, and had a few minutes to myself before they got back. Here is a picture of Aedan sleeping from that morning. He has been sleeping like this a lot more lately, on his tummy, with his knees tucked up under him and his tushy up in the air. Man, he is so cute!
Then after lunch that afternoon, it was time for Samantha's dress rehearsal for her ballet recital. Samantha's call time was 1:15 and the rehearsal started at 2:00. The timing of this was difficult for her because she is definitely used to her afternoon nap to get her through the day. With how early she has been waking up, the nap is a necessary thing, but she had no choice on this particular day. The rehearsal lasted for a couple hours because after they rehearsed their individual dance, Miss Ashley wanted them to stick around so they could practice the finale dance all together. I don't know if it was just the time of day or if it was being up on the big stage, but their dance was really rough. They didn't know what they were doing at all. Most of the time they were just standing around looking at Miss Ashley off on the side of the stage. They had to restart once and Miss Ashley even had to go out on stage several times to tell the girls what to do. I was a little disappointed because I knew that Samantha knows it better than that, and we have been trying to encourage Samantha to be the leader among her class, to show the other younger girls what to do.
Also, after a few dance numbers, the fire alarm went off and everyone had to exit the building. It turned out that it was a false alarm, one of the ballerinas pulled it. It wasn't until after the rehearsal that I found out it was Samantha that pulled the fire alarm. I texted Ben and told him, and we were both very upset with her about that. When I talked to her about it, she was really upset and did her hyperventilating cry. I asked her why she did it, and she said she didn't know. She was just so tired, and it was hard for her to miss her nap time, not that that excuses her behavior. It's just interesting to think about how a few months ago we were in Disney World and Samantha did not take a nap the entire time we were there, and she was more respectful then than she is now. Lately, she will be in a pretty good mood in the morning, but then be a totally different person in the afternoon/evening. Sometimes I wonder if her napping has anything to do with it, like if maybe we cut her naps, she would go to sleep quicker and sleep later in the morning. But right now, I don't know how she could make it through the day without a nap. She seems to really need the sleep and goes to sleep pretty easily every afternoon.
Anyways, here is their first attempt at the rehearsal. You can see that Miss Ashley comes out on stage to have it restarted. Their second attempt was slightly better, but a bit concerning considering the recital was the next day.
Once we got back home, Ben and I talked more with Samantha about why she pulled the fire alarm and how she should never do something like that again. We played the videos of her dance that Miss Ashley recorded during dance class, and we had Samantha practice her dance for ballet until she knew it much better. Again, we tried to emphasize how important it was that she try to be the leader, to try to remember what came next, and to do her very best.
She was very tired that evening, so we had dinner, bath time, and an early bedtime in preparation for another busy day on Sunday. Sunday morning Ben and I were scheduled to work with the kids during second service, so we went to both services, attending church during the first service. Both of our kids are pretty wiped out by the time we get home when we are at church all morning like this. Actually, when I picked Aedan up from the nursery, he was fast asleep in one of the worker's laps. I was so surprised because he very rarely falls asleep in public places like this, particularly with someone he doesn't really know. There was only one other baby in the room, and Aedan kept crawling around and then laying down on the floor, so the lady decided to hold him in the rocking chair and he fell asleep right away. By the time I picked him up, he had already been asleep for 15-20 minutes. He even stayed asleep being transferred into my arms and all the way out to the car. It was so precious to see him so fast asleep like that.
After we got the kids down for their naps, Upland Grandpa and Grandma arrived at our house because they came to drop off our bikes and to stay for Samantha's ballet recital that evening. They graciously offered to come early so that Ben and I could run an errand while the kids were sleeping. We went down to Colerain to do some mattress pricing. We planned on getting Samantha a twin size mattress as her birthday present this year, and we wanted to compare prices at a few other places before purchasing one. It was a quick trip, but one that was much easier to do as just the two of us. Plus, we didn't want Samantha to know what we were up to.
Grandma graciously offered to put the finishing touches on dinner for us so that way we could eat early. Samantha had to be at the auditorium for her ballet recital by 5:30, and she sometimes takes awhile to eat, so we wanted her eating at least by 5:00. I took Samantha to her ballet recital while Daddy, Aedan, Grandpa, and Grandma came a little while later. Even though I put Samantha's water bottle and ballet shoes in her preschool bag with her name on it, she somehow misplaced it when she went downstairs to get her costume on. She came back up and found me, needing help, so I had to go down there with her to help her find her bag. On the way down the stairs, we passed Miss Ashley who stopped and gave Samantha a big hug, thanking her for the card Samantha made to say "I'm sorry for pulling the fire alarm." Ashley reassured her that she wasn't mad at her at all. That was a nice gesture that made Samantha feel so much better, I'm sure. We found Samantha's bag up against a wall, and I stayed down there to help her get her ballet shoes on and to place her bag in a place where she would remember it later.
The ballet recital started at 6:30, and Samantha's class was the 4th or 5th performance. Aedan sat with us in our seats through that point, which was pretty good for him. We were armed with snacks, and he just kept going back and forth from one person's lap to another. I was SO proud of Samantha when she came out on stage to dance. You could tell our practicing really helped. She remembered a lot of what she had to do next without looking at Miss Ashley, she was a leader for the other girls to watch, and she had a blast doing it! I couldn't stop smiling while watching our little ballerina dance. We didn't capture it in the video, but at the end of the dance Samantha bowed and curtsied extra times after most of the other little girls had left the stage. It was priceless and made us laugh. She wasn't nervous one bit to be up on that large stage.Yep, that's our little girl, and we love her so very much. :)
After Samantha's dance was over, Daddy took Aedan to the back of the auditorium to crawl around where he wouldn't be distracting to others trying to watch the rest of the performances. Then, at intermission, the first act dancers came out to sit and watch the rest of the recital. Daddy took Aedan on a walk in the stroller so he could get out of the warm auditorium and also because he needed to get papers from his office anyways. Once Samantha was came out, she wanted me to take pictures of her posing on stage.
Samantha went on stage to dance with Tia for the finale. She had a blast, and I'm glad we could stay for it. However, when she came out from backstage she was crying because she realized she needed to go to the bathroom right when she was in the middle of dancing on stage for the finale. On the way out of the auditorium to the bathroom, my friend Maggie stopped us and gave Samantha two red roses as congratulations for her performance. The whole way home Samantha couldn't stop talking about the roses she got from Miss Maggie. That was so sweet of her to think of Samantha like that.
We had a busy weekend full of various events, but it was precious to see Samantha's first ballet recital. I think she really enjoys dancing, and we'll see if she wants to do it again next year. We are definitely signing her up for soccer, just to give her experience playing a team sport as well. We want her to be well-rounded and to have experience with sports as well as dance. We gave ballet a try for a year, and we'll see what Samantha likes better!
(Blog about May 5-11, 2015)
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