A Toddler's Perfect Day

I don't think toddler Aiden has ever had a truly perfect day but if he did, this is what it would look like.....

Aiden would wake up and immediately nurse and eat something with mangoes for breakfast.  Mama would pass him spoons, forks, spatulas and sharp knives for him to play with while he ate.  After breakfast, Mama would carry him to each and every light switch in the house and hold him while he turned it on and off many, many times before moving on to the next one.  Then, he would do a tour of the house.  Mama would hold Aiden while he pointed at a shelf and cried out "Eh!", she'd follow his directions and let him pick whatever high up things he wanted to play with....especially the pens and scissors.  

Then he'd head outside.  Aiden loves to water the yard and signs "water" each and every time we leave the house, every time we arrive home from somewhere, and every time he looks out a window and sees anything remotely green.  He hasn't learned the sign for drought yet.  Anyway, back to his day....he'd spend a significant amount of it watering the yard and playing with the hose.  Ideally he'd be naked.  Then, off to the park where Mama or Dada would push him on the swing for a very, very long time.  None of the other kids would protest when he stole their sand toys, in fact they'd jump at the chance to watch him play with their toys.  Every park would would have a water feature and large friendly dogs.  Motorcycles, buses, trucks and trains would occasionally drive by so he could admire them.  

Once home, Aiden would rummage though the diaper bin and kitchen trash.....after having watered the front yard again.  He'd open and close all the Tupperware and make a collage with it covering the house.  Then he'd walk around with Mama's grocery bags collecting random things to carry.  Many of those things will never be seen again.  His Dada would give him a two hour bath and he would cuddle up with both Mama and Dada playing horsey and giving Eskimo kisses until he fell asleep.  

I'm sure I don't need to mention that he wouldn't have any teething pains the entire day.    

Here's some pictures of Aiden doing some of his favorite things.....

Pushing, pulling and dragging things around.  Bonus points if dragged item has some sort of bucket feature.  

Watering the front yard

Stealing another kid's toy.  He played with this walker for a good 40 minutes even though there were swings near by!?!?!

Hey Mom, wanna go water?

Da-da

Aiden with his Dada!

Aiden is taking his first baby steps with talking.  He can kinda say "this", "that", bubbles ("bub"), the "fffff" sound for fan and an unmistakable "Dada".  As it turns out, Dada is a multi-purpose word and is used liberally to refer to both his dada and his mama.  While he's only tried to say Mama one time, he makes a valiant attempt at "Angela" every night at the encouragement of his official Dada.  It sounds like "ya-ya-ya".  This might be Aiden's first joke.  He knows it's funny and that he should be calling me mama.  The more I hear it, the more I like being called Dada.  It's beyond cute and truly an amazing feeling to hear my little one call me. 

AidenTeeth

The smile says it all.  Aiden has graduated from tooth to teeth.  Actually, he's had *teeth* for two weeks but whose counting.  He's figured out they are used for something which is pretty cute.  

This photograph, while adorable, is unfortunately not rare these days.  Every day, usually at least twice a day, Aiden looks like this.  Meal time is perhaps my greatest challenge as a mama lately.  Aiden's hair is very, very hungry and he tries to feed it regularly.  I've also started feeding without clothes because he wont wear a bib and ruined so many of this 9-12 month onsies.  Now I know better.

After his meal, I pick him up, march him to the bathroom and give him a quick sink bath.  He tries to grab me because he likes to share, I try and keep him angled away because I like my food on my plate.....Sigh....

Little Man

Aiden is so good at walking these days that its rare to see him crawl.  He proudly paces up and down, up and down.  At Barbara and Alvin's baby shower, I followed him around thinking he'd eventually tire out.  It never happened and I finally pulled up a chair in the middle of the room and watched him from there.

In these pictures, he looks like a little boy and not a baby.  It happened so fast, I'm still not sure where my baby went.

Heat Wave!

Today was hot!

Trying to cool down with Auntie Pamela.

Aunties and Uncles: Multi-part series

Aiden is blessed with no less than 6.5 aunties and 5 uncles.  Sadly most of them live far away.  This summer we have been lucky enough to have a steady stream of uncles and aunties come to the bay area for a visit.  We're have great pictures of Aiden getting to know his family but are so behind on sharing them that this post is only the beginning of the uncle and auntie series.  

It all started with Uncle Rick who visited from Philly in June.  Uncle Jonathan and almost-auntie Ashley from So-Cal where there too.  They were so taken by Aiden that they decided to move north....Ummmm, so it didn't quite happen like that but Jonathan and Ashley ARE temporarily living just a bridge away in Marin.  We encourage the other uncles and aunties to do the same though they probably shouldn't all move in with Grandpa.

Diaper changes are way more fun with personal baby entertainers.

Hanging out with Grandpa by the pool.

Aiden and Hope Swing Together

Another night of insomnia leaves me looking at pictures of beautiful Baba because I just don't get to spend enough time with him during the day (hysterical stay-at-home mom joke which you might not get if you aren't one).  I love this picture from a month or two ago and never posted it.  Their heads look so big on those little bodies...and they are so excited to be swinging.  These days, there are few things Aiden loves more.