Aedan: 14 Months, Week 2 (Week 63)
Samantha continued on with her week of sports camp this week. Every day they did a different sport, like tennis, basketball, soccer, and baseball. Samantha really enjoyed herself and got to swim every day but one. I am really glad that we signed her up for these two camps, but in some ways I was ready for them to be over. It was strange having her gone every morning away from the house. I really missed having her around. I feel like most of the summer is already gone, and we have been so busy that I haven't been able to take her and Aedan many places together due to camp, swim lessons, bad weather, or being out of town. I also had a flash forward to when she will be preparing for kindergarten in a year. In some ways, I can't imagine her being gone from home all day. I won't see her very much, and I will really miss spending time with my little girl. I need to soak up all the time I can get right now before her school years start and then time will really fly by.
On Tuesday I found out about a magic show put on by the library at the TRI that started at 1:00 p.m. Aedan still takes morning naps most days and ended up sleeping a little bit later that morning, so I decided we could try to go to the magic show, as long as Samantha was in a good mood. I called Daddy to let him know what my plans were and to see if he would want to join us for lunch. I figured it would make the most sense to pick Samantha up from camp, go and eat a quick lunch at Wendy's, and then go back to the TRI for the magic show.
When I picked Samantha up after camp, they were just coming out of the pool area, and as soon as I walked up, Samantha started crying. I pulled her aside and talked to her to see what what going on. Apparently she was just really disappointed because she was hoping to play at the playground after swimming time, but they ran late and ran out of time again, allowing no time for the playground. However, I was able to cheer her up by telling her that Daddy was in the car waiting for her so that we could go eat lunch together. That made her cheer up quickly, and she was very excited about being able to come back to watch the magic show.
We dropped Daddy back off on campus before making our way to the TRI gym. The magic show was about having magical reading powers to help fight the evil Mr. Eraser who was trying to erase words from all books. He was an older man and was pretty funny. Aedan and I tried to sit with Samantha for awhile at the beginning of the show, but Aedan didn't last long. He just wanted to get up and walk around the gym. Samantha was just fine sitting by herself on the gym floor and did a great job listening and watching the show. I'm so glad that I went against our normal routine of getting them home for nap time so that she could experience a fun show like this. However, the one thing that Samantha doesn't quite understand yet is that at shows like this where there are a lot of kids in the crowd that want to be volunteers, not everyone gets chosen, and in this case, not everyone gets to take a balloon animal home with them.
One of our favorite after dinner activities is to play outside. Lately, we have set up the baby pool in our side yard so that the sun will shine on the water a little more to help warm it up. Samantha doesn't mind the cold water and will get in and out. Aedan, however, is not as big of a fan. It is just too cold for him, and he would much rather walk around the driveway, throw balls, and play with the frisbee.
Wednesday was one of those rough days of napping for Aedan. Since Ben doesn't have to be on campus at a certain time during the summer, he has been taking Samantha to camp in the morning, making my morning with Aedan a little more relaxed. He slept about an hour and a half in the morning and didn't give me much trouble, but the afternoon was a different story. He was definitely tired and needed a nap, but it was past 3:00 and he still wasn't sleeping. I gave both kids some medicine before nap time because they were fighting off some stuffy noses and coughs. I rocked Aedan until he was pretty much asleep, laid him down, and then he started crying. He settled back down but wasn't back asleep when I finally got Samantha in bed. She was moving very slowly, was very tired, and her cold was making her not feel well. She was constantly sniffling and rubbing her nose. I usually lay in bed with her for a few minutes when I put her down for her nap, but on this day I laid on the floor next to her bed because the day before she had been silly when I laid in bed with her. She was so tired that she fell asleep when I was in her room laying on the floor.
When I came back out of her room, Aedan was crying harder, the kind of cry that I knew didn't mean he would fall asleep on his own. Plus, I didn't want him to wake Samantha up, so I went in his room. He had thrown his pacifier on the floor, so I got it and rocked him and he fell asleep quickly in my arms. He was fast asleep, not moving, and even snoring. However, as soon as I go to lay him down, he woke up screaming and crying. I tried leaving his room to see if he would stop, and he stopped screaming after a couple minutes. However, he still was not asleep. I didn't know what to do because it was obvious that he was tired since he fell asleep so easily in my arms, but it didn't seem to do any good to go in there and rock him asleep if he would just wake up and get so upset every time I tried to lay him down. In the past, he wouldn't fall asleep with us, so I would just lay him down in his crib. Sometimes he would cry or fuss, but he would always fall asleep, so I wondered if he was just not used to being laid down when he's fallen asleep in our arms or if there was some other issue going on.
Forty minutes later I went back in Aedan's room again because he started crying rather loudly. He had thrown his pacifier on the floor again and also had pooped. However, after I changed him and tried to rock him, he didn't want me to hold him or rock him anymore. I tried laying him down again, and then he started screaming again. I felt so bad for Samantha because she wasn't feeling well and really needed a good nap that day. I hoped that he wasn't waking her up with all his noise. At one point I even turned on the dryer with nothing in it as a way to make more noise to cover over his screams. At 4:00, my battle was finally over. He had given up and fallen asleep. I finally got a chance to sit down and have a moment to myself, and then I heard Samantha waking up from her nap. Ahh, the joys of motherhood, not a moment to rest!
In the past week Aedan started a new thing with crying, screaming, and pushing his legs out straight every time I tried to put him in his car seat. I'm not exactly sure why this started happening all of a sudden, but it made me a little nervous in looking towards our trip West Virginia for our Toll family vacation. He just likes to be out exploring and walking around too much to be cooped up in the car.
Ben and I have been trying to exercise more regularly lately, and Ben actually was the one who started the interest in it. It helps me so much to have someone to keep me motivated. We have decided that it is best to get up early, about 6:00 a.m., to exercise so that way we can do that and be showered and ready before the kids wake up. Waking up early is hard for me at times because I like my sleep and would much rather stay up late and "sleep in" in the morning. However, I have enjoyed the week and a half that we have made exercising a priority every day. I enjoy being in control over when I wake up rather than waking up when the kids wake up every day. I also enjoy having more time with Ben in the morning, to talk and connect, before the kids wake up and we have to address their many needs.
I have been looking for a variety of ways to exercise because I don't like doing the same thing every day. I joined Ben on his jog outside one morning, but I didn't like leaving the kids alone in the house, even though they were just sleeping in their beds and we were only gone half an hour. So, Jeni told me about a 2 or 3 mile walking routine you can follow on YouTube, and I also got a Jillian Michael's DVD called the 30 Day Shred that I have tried out as well. Both those are good work out options for at home in the living room. You get a good cardio workout and I can do it any time of day and even in the winter when you can't exercise outside. In addition to those things, I decided to participate in a free Zumba class that my friend Beth is teaching at Miami. It is free because I am an employee spouse, so I decided to try it out. I am in no way coordinated at dancing and usually try to avoid any situation where I would have to dance, but I heard so many positive things about Zumba that I just had to give it a try. I really enjoyed it even though I felt silly and had a hard time keeping up at times. It was so fun and fast paced that you didn't even realize that you were exercising or sweating so much. I will definitely have to do it again sometime!
Friday night, mostly because we had no food left in the house since we were going out of town for the next week on vacation, we went out for dinner at Chipotle and then ran a few errands in preparation for our trip. Chipotle is a great restaurant and our kids love the food. We actually bought Aedan a kid's meal for the first time since he has such a healthy appetite. We found that we were giving him so much of our own burrito bowls, so this time he had his own quesadilla, rice, and beans. After eating dinner, Samantha wanted to go up on the stage Uptown and pretend to be singing and performing. Here's the little video we took that night.
Saturday morning we were pretty much all packed up and ready to go. We just needed to get showered and dressed, have breakfast, and gather a few odds and ends. We were on the road to West Virginia by 9:30. We had a 6 1/2 hour drive ahead of us, and our plan was to try to drive about 3 hours before stopping for lunch. We had bags of toys packed up for the kids to help keep them amused while riding in the car. Aedan took a nice, long morning nap in the car after playing and looking out the window for awhile. I had the idea to get Samantha a couple new Color Wonder coloring pads as well as new markers. These markers are great because they don't color on anything other than the special coloring pages, which makes them perfect for the car. If they fall on the seat, floor, or clothes, you don't have to worry about any marks left behind. Samantha LOVES to color. She could literally do it for hours, and in fact, she did while we were in the car. We put her markers in one of the cup holders of her car seat so she could reach them easily. She got a library book to place on her lap as a hard surface, propped her feet up on the back of the driver's seat, and colored for most of the morning. She is very detail oriented in this way. She stays in the lines, and she actually likes to color the characters true to what they really look like, if she has the right color markers. She would keep flipping to the front of the book to make sure she had the coloring right as she went. I am so glad we got these books for her, as they were a wonderful, quiet, purposeful task for her while we drove. She chose to color more than she chose to look at books.
I wasn't sure how our drive would go because it's not exactly fun sitting in the car all day, especially when you're looking forward to being on vacation with your family, but it went much better than I expected. Sometimes Samantha gets antsy in the car after an hour or two, but I think she knew this was going to be a long drive so she didn't ask about how long until we get there until we were about an hour and a half away that evening. Once we got closer to where our rental house was near Snowshoe, West Virginia, we had to take this really curvy, pretty much one lane road called Williams River Road. We were lucky to go maybe 30 miles per hour on this road, making 20 miles seems like forever. Plus, not far into this little road, Samantha said she had to go potty, and there was no potty in sight. We told her we'd look for one since we saw some campsites and figured there would at least be an outhouse somewhere. However, her only other option was the woods. Also, at this time Aedan was getting really upset as well. He was just done being in the car. Snacks weren't making him happy. He kept throwing off every toy I tried to give him. We were SO ready to make it to our house! We finally found a little outhouse for Samantha to use, and I also took this opportunity to check Aedan's diaper. He had pooped and I don't know if it was from sitting in the car seat or not, but throughout the day he had developed a pretty bad diaper rash, making him not happy to be changed and definitely not happy to get back in the car.
However, we arrived at the vacation house, after driving the 8 minutes up the gravel road that led to the house, and we were met by all the rest of the family, much excitement by all, and this GORGEOUS view. It was so wonderful to finally be there and to be looking forward to a fun, relaxing week together with the Toll family. (I also have to make a disclaimer that not all the following vacation pictures and videos are mine. We shared everything via Google Drive, so I am posting some from other members of the family as well.)
The house we stayed in was great with lots of space and lots of bedroom arrangements. We decided to put Samantha and Aedan in the bedrooms upstairs with Aedan in a small room with bunk beds and Samantha in a room with two twin beds. Both rooms had additional air conditioners placed inside since it was much warmer upstairs than in the rest of the house. Also, the room Samantha was in was attached to a bathroom which was perfect for when she wakes up during the night to go potty. I was worried that there was no bathroom upstairs and that she would have to come all the way downstairs in the middle of the night. Saturday night, since Tim was staying with us as well, Ben and I offered to sleep in the laundry room area in the basement that had extra beds in it, so that way Tim could have a proper bedroom. Then, Ben and I would move into that bedroom on the main level the next night.
Aedan was having a rough night our first night at the house. He hadn't napped as long as he normally does during the day, making him extremely tired as soon as dinner was over. His diaper rash was really bad, probably the worst one he's ever had. When I was getting him ready for bed that night, his poor bottom was bright red and puffy, almost with a swollen look to it. I tried to be as gentle as I could, and I lathered him with cream, as well as gave him ibuprofen to help him if it was painful. However, he just cried and cried. I felt so bad for the poor little guy, and he was just so overtired. I always try nursing him at night, but he usually acts pretty disinterested. However, this night he nursed very well, almost like when he was a young baby. In fact, he actually fell asleep while nursing! I was shocked! I don't even remember the last time he did this. He was nursing and then the next minute he was snoring. I just sat and held my sleeping boy for awhile. He was so precious, and I don't get this opportunity to just sit and cuddle with him like this. He is normally too much of a busybody during the day to cuddle and doesn't usually fall asleep with me anymore, so I took advantage of my opportunity. :)
Saturday night, after getting the kids tucked into bed, the adults stayed up and played Dominion together. It's fun to play games together, and we used to do it a lot more than we do now, so we had to play a game while Tim was with us.
Our plans for Sunday involved driving about an hour to a nature center where there was supposed to be a snake demonstration as well as some trails to hike on nearby. However, the snake show didn't start until after lunchtime, so we had a slow morning around the house. Everyone had fun sitting out on the porch taking in the beautiful mountains and watching the fog lift.
Samantha and Alaina always have fun together, and this morning the activity of choice was singing into a microphone. It actually was a working karaoke machine, but we didn't need to turn it on for them to have fun with it. Aedan just wandered around and played with toys or pestered his sister, just like he does at home. The first video is funny because it shows Samantha showing attention to Aedan while she's waiting for Alaina to finish her turn singing. You can see that Samantha has now discovered that she is strong enough to pick up Aedan and carry him for a short distance. It's helpful in certain instances, like when he is attempting to climb the stairs and she can grab him off the bottom step and move him to a different location. It's not so great when her arms don't go under his arms and it looks more like a choke hold. Nevertheless, she is a great big sister and loves to try to include her little brother in play whenever she can. However, there was something nice about the girls being able to go off and play by themselves. They are at the age where we don't have to worry too much about what they're doing or what they're getting into, leaving us with only Aedan to watch and play with. It gave us a little bit of a break at least!
Aedan took his morning nap in the car on the way to the nature center while Samantha colored quietly. When we arrived we found out that there was a triathlon taking place that day and there were a lot of people there; therefore, they cancelled the snake demonstration for that day. We looked around the nature center for awhile at the taxidermy animals, other small exhibits, and many cages with snakes before having a picnic lunch outside.
Here are the girls posing with Uncle Timmy outside the nature center. This is a great picture! Just so precious.
The kids were doing well even though it was getting close to their usual nap time, so we decided to drive to some trails nearby. The first trail was on a boardwalk through some wetlands, so I was able to push Aedan in his stroller. He thought it was pretty interesting to look around at all the different plants and flowers passing by his stroller, even feeling some of them brush against his legs and arms as we walked by. Samantha and Alaina walked together, held hands, and acted silly, pretending they were going to find a bear in the forest somewhere. It was a pretty trail and not very long, very manageable. You wouldn't expect to find wetlands like these in the middle of the mountains.
Since the boardwalk trail was pretty short, we decided to go to another trail nearby that led to some waterfalls. It had three stages of falls at lengthening distances, and we figured we would at least go to the first one and then make a judgment as to whether we should turn back around or not. I wasn't sure exactly what the path looked like, so I put Aedan in the Ergo on my back for the hike so that he would be easier to carry, less squirmy, and hopefully happy just looking around rather than yearning to get down and walk all the time. Here are Samantha and Alaina from the beginning of our hike.
We stood at the Middle Falls for quite some time, just watching the rushing water pour over the rocks and crash down to the bottom. Aunt Jeni took this great picture of our family of four looking at the waterfall. Aedan thought the water was really cool and wanted to reach over the fence and touch the water. Samantha liked the view on Daddy's shoulders much better.
After finishing the trail, we switched Samantha's car seat into Grandpa and Grandma's car so that she could ride back in the car to the vacation house with Alaina. She had been asking to do this all day, so we figured we'd give it a try. Aunt Jeni rode in the car with the girls while Grandpa drove, making sure the girls didn't talk and went right to sleep in the car so that they at least could get a little nap on the way back. The rest of us drove in our car so that we could stop and get gas and more water at the only town that is close by our house at over a half hour away.
That evening after dinner we decided to bust out the water guns that Grandpa and Grandma bought for us before vacation. We filled buckets with water and placed them in the grass for filling stations. The girls got in their bathing suits, adults got in clothes that they didn't mind getting wet, and we had an all out water fight. I got Aedan in his bathing suit as well, but he wasn't so sure about the water, the commotion, and everyone yelling and running. In fact, it made him upset and cry. The water guns were a big hit, especially with the girls, and it was great to do this as a family. Even Grandpa and Grandma joined in on the water fun!
After everyone had their fill of the water guns, Ben and I gave Samantha and Aedan quick baths before getting everyone ready for bed. Aedan got to rock with Grandma and Alaina for just a few minutes before it was time for bed for the children.
On Monday we planned to drive out to a special park called Beartown State Park for a hike on the boardwalk. We had rain in the forecast many of the days, but we were lucky and it rained at night or cleared up just in time for us to do what we wanted to do outside.
These next few pictures were taken by Grandpa, and I thought they were pretty neat because it shows Grandma's interaction with her grandchildren. This patio got a lot of action because the doors came right off the living room and it was completely enclosed with a fence as well as chicken wire so there was no way Aedan could fall down especially since there weren't any steps going down. It's nice to have grandparents to get down on the level of the kids and to make them feel special by spending one-on-one time with each one.
We weren't quite sure what to expect from Beartown State Park, but it certainly exceeded our expectations. It said there was a boardwalk, which was true, but there were a lot of steps going up and down between the rocks and trees, so we eventually deserted Aedan's stroller and just carried him the rest of the way. The park was beautiful and had some many fascinating rock formations. Some that you could see through, some that hung down, some that you could tell had split apart from the rock formation across form it. It was very interesting. Plus, it was cool and shady. In fact, there were many places on the wooden walkway that were rather slippery from dew.
We then spent the rest of our evening at the vacation house, letting the girls relax and watch some of a movie together, eating dinner together, and of course, playing outside in the yard surrounding our house. We brought a soccer ball. Grandma brought a ball and bat. There was the grass maze to wander through as well. We had a great first few days of vacation and were looking forward to the rest of the week together.
(Blog about July 7-13, 2015)
