Childs Tracks

He’s survived 18 months so far without being killed by his brother! Hooray!

Aaron’s unofficial stats (next well baby check is at 20 months):

Weight: 26.5 lbs (55%)

Height: 34″ (~90%)

Aaron’s getting into EVERYTHING now that he has learned to climb on the dining room chairs. *sigh* He knows how to push the chair across the kitchen to the counter to get to things, and now he wants to help make stuff, which is fine. A bit messy, but fine. He also has been caught on the dining room table several times, but is quickly learning that that’s not allowed.

Words consist of mama, dada, Joshua, weeeee, and uh oh! He also says something with b’s in it when we talk about his belly button, so I think he’s trying to say belly button, although it sounds nothing like it. LOL. He can point out his head, belly button, nose, tongue, and feet.

We’re enjoying the nice weather and being able to go outside! We have one of those cozy coupe type things, but it’s the police car instead of the red car. Aaron LOVES it. Totally his favorite outside toy! I also moved a dump truck and a crane (both Tonka) outside, as the trucks were taking over the den. So the boys have fun moving dirt and rocks around with those. We’ve also been able to play soccer and baseball outside lately, and Aaron can kick the soccer ball a bit, and he swings the bat like a hockey stick to hit the ball.

Getting LOTS of teeth in these days. I think he’s still working on his 4th first year molar. He’s got 3 canines in, I think. And his upper two second year molars have made teeny tiny holes already!

We’ve been battling ear infections again. I switched peds last month, and had to go in for a sick visit 3 weeks ago for ear infections. This is a ped that doesn’t hand out abx easily, and he did a shot in the office *and* oral abx to start the next day. So I guess his ears were pretty bad. The good news is that his recheck yesterday found his ears to be clear, despite him having a NEW cold that started right as he was finishing up the abx.

Aaron starts Bible class this Sunday (Mother’s Day!). I’m very excited! He’s visited his new class and sat in a chair. He thought it was pretty cool. He’ll have a hook-on chair at first, to keep him contained. But I think he will like class. And I’m excited to be able to once again pay full attention to the adult class! I got Aaron a little Bible to take to class, and he already likes it. I’ve also been teaching him the songs they routinely sing at the beginning of class. If I sing them during a diaper change, he actually lays still! Lately, he has been mimicking the song leaders… He’ll grab a book and wave his arm. It’s very cute. He sings along with it too.

All in all, things are going well. I have finally updated the photo album with 15-18 month pictures, so make sure you check those out!

Joshua will be 4 years old in 3 months! Ack!

He’s really grown up recently. He can have a conversation with you, and even argue with you, although I argue him into a hole he can’t get out of, and he’ll just go silent. Heehee!

We’ve been playing soccer and baseball in the backyard recently. I need to get him out to the ice again for skating. Of course, everything in life is hockey, but he enjoys the other outside sports as well.

He asks a lot of questions about the world around him - bugs, animals, trees, etc. Always learning something new! Still loves to read books. He’s not reading them himself yet, but he can sight read several words. Just doesn’t understand the act of putting phonics sounds together to form a word (although he’ll tell you the phonics sounds very quickly). It probably won’t be long. His imagination is amazing. He builds rockets and robots a lot, and of course always plays hockey with Duplos. He can work the Tivo to pick out which of his shows he wants to watch, and he’s very good with his computer which only goes to starfall.com.

Joshua is in the 3 year old Bible class, and he’s memorized almost all of the books of the Old and New Testaments. And he finally answers questions on occasion during class.

He’s a great helper with housework, and sometimes will remind me that we need to clean the living room or vacuum or whatever we need to do. Neat freak. Definitely did NOT get it from me.

He’s also incredibly helpful with his brother, and “gets him” every morning (ie, plays in Aaron’s room until I get up there). Sometimes he takes things a bit too literally, like when I told him at the library last week “Hang on to your brother”, thinking he’d hold Aaron’s hand so Aaron wouldn’t stray TOO far while we were checking out, Joshua instead wrapped his arms completely around Aaron and literally hung onto him. I must learn to say exactly what I mean! Joshua definitely enjoys Aaron a lot more now that Aaron is walking and can play a bit. They especially like to play trucks in the den together.

Hopefully I’ll get pics of everyone up soon… should at least do it before Joshua’s 4th birthday…

Ok, so I’ve yet again been a slacker… but in my defense, I DID do a 14 month update, and the server crashed and our site was restored from an old backup that didn’t have the 14 month update, and I can’t possibly be expected to remember anything that I wrote, so if you missed it, you missed it.

Don’t have any real stats, as he hasn’t had a well baby check since 1 year, but he’s roughly 27 lbs and probably 32-33 inches or so. He’s a big boy.

Aaron started walking at 14.5 months, and now he gets around everywhere, climbs on things, and is trying to run, although he’s still too wobbly to actually do that. He loves to throw things and has a really good arm. He’s starting to say more words and sounds… we’ve added “uh oh” and “weeeee!”. No *real* words, but I don’t expect them anytime soon. Joshua started really talking around 2 years old, and I figure Aaron will likely be similar. They seem to be roughly the same in the verbal communication department. He understands everything though. He can point to body parts (head, feet, belly button), point to someone else’s body parts, follow simple commands, etc.

He still eats us out of house and home. One night we went to Pizza Hut and got a large pan pizza. He ate at least 2 slices, and they had a lot of toppings on them! Definitely a bottomless pit.

One of his favorite games now is to fling himself on you if you’re laying on the floor. He’s gotten really good at climbing on Daddy on the floor and rough housing. I get a kick out of watching the 3 of them.

Interaction with the animals is getting better. He’s starting to get a little more gentle with Warlock, and he likes to say hi to some of the goats.

Overall, things are going great, and he’s growing bigger and learning new things everyday! His expressions are hilarious, and while he doesn’t talk, he says 1000 words with a single expression!

Last night, as a friend of ours was leaving the restaurant we were eating at, she waved and said “Bye-bye” to Aaron. He reached his hand out and said “Bye-bye” back! His first time saying “Bye-bye”.

And this afternoon, Aaron took 4 teeny tiny steps before falling. He’s starting to get slightly more adventerous.

1 year ago today, my 2nd little man was born.

Aaron had his 1 year checkup today. Stats are:

Weight: 22.9 lbs (~50%)

Height: 28.5″ (~15%)

So he’s a SHORTY! I expect a good growth spurt pretty soon. He’s been packing on pounds lately with no change in height from 9 months, although today’s measurement could have been off by a bit. The funny thing is that he wears size 2T shirts and his head is about an inch below the plastic on his carseat now, so because of his insane torso height, he’ll likely have to turn around when I wanted him to stay rearfacing a bit longer. His pants are size 18 months, and 12 month is only a tad too short (the rise is way too short, of course).

We’re battling our first cold of the season, and with it has already come an ear infection. But no antibiotics. This one should go away on its own once the cold leaves.

Aaron is cruising everywhere, standing up and letting go a lot, etc. No steps yet, but it won’t be long! He really enjoys everything that rolls, and still plays with his large fire truck and dump truck, moving one, then the other, back and forth. He’ll study how each one moves in relation to the other, then he’ll make one move the other. It’s neat to watch!

Sleeping is still going well. The only time he’s woken up was a couple nights where he had a high fever a couple weeks ago. He had a stomach bug with a fever, plus he had tooth #8 coming in. Poor guy!

Words, or things that sound remotely like words maybe… mama, dada, and ba (brother). He may have even called Warlock something, but I’m not sure. He gets excited and squealy when he sees Warlock. Not so much with Aerial or the dogs. He just really loves Warlock. Joshua used to especially love Warlock too. I guess his coloring is exciting to a baby or something!

The boy still eats like a horse. He can down a 3-4″ sub sandwich by himself. Eek! I’m so scared of high school with these mega-eaters….

Joshua was talking about the animals just now, and he was talking about Bosco and Kira being German Shepherds. Then he said…

“Wanagi has a pair of knees.”

LOL! Wanagi is a Great Pyrenees.

My new sewing addiction is Ottobre Design. I got 2 of the kids magazines (sewing several Christmas presents from there) and 1 of the woman magazines. LOVE the fit. Here’s my first Ottobre skirt from the 5/07 issue, skirt #4. I actually might be able to get away with going down a size. When I made the muslin, this size fit perfectly, but with the cordouroy I used for this, it has a bit of give, whereas my muslin fabric had NO give, so this is a bit loose. Not falling off loose, but I don’t have to use the zipper in the back to get it on and off. This is a lined skirt.

Joshua is acting more and more like a little boy instead of a toddler. *sniff* This week, he figured out how to put socks on by himself, and he did it exactly right! He already puts underwear and pants on by himself, has done a shirt by himself once, and can usually get his shoes on by himself. Plus he goes potty all on his own with no help from mama. Such a big boy! He also learned this week that he can open the fridge, which seems like a scary thing, but so far, he only did it when I was making a PB&J sandwich and he wanted to get the jelly out (he usually gets me the bread and peanut butter already). I said “Ok, if you can open the door”, and he tried and very easily opened it. Ack!

We got Joshua some hockey skates this week. He’s worn them a hand full of times in the house and has amazing balance. He can walk around, run, jump, walk up stairs. He hasn’t hit the ice yet. We hope to do that this coming week. He won’t start Termites (4 and 5 year old hockey league) until next year, but he’ll learn to skate this year.

We went to our first hockey game of the season today. It was just a scrimmage, but Joshua had a blast watching the “Hockey Chargers”. When we got home, he just HAD to put his skates on and play hockey, as you can see in the picture.

In the learning department… I suspect he can read some basic words, although I’m not positive. He’s learning his books of the Old Testament for Bible class, and we had already been learning the books of the New Testament this summer. He’s up to 2 Peter in the NT, so almost done! Wow! And in the OT, he’s said on his own up to Esther, and is learning up to Song of Solomon for his next class. We only started the OT books a few weeks ago!!!

Ok, so I’m a lazy, slacker mom yet again…

Aaron is doing great. He’s 11.5 months old now, weighs 23 lbs (eek!), wears 18 month clothes (and 2T shirts fit him too!), cruises really well, eats me out of house and home, says “dada” and as of 2 days ago says “mama”!

He often stands up and lets go while playing with/holding toys. The other day, he stood up and was about to take a step towards Joshua, but then decided not to. He did that a few times that day. I expect his first steps any day now!!! I ordered him some shoes from JoShoes, and they should be here in another week or so (WAHM made soft shoes). Today I put long sleeves, long pants, and socks on him for a hockey game, and he was rather confused at all this strange clothing! He kept picking at the sleeves on his arms, chewing on his feet, etc. It was funny. His hockey jersey fits if I roll the sleeves up about 3 times.

Today, Joshua picked up a brush and was brushing his hair. Aaron was holding a rectangular thing. He looked at his brother, then started brushing his hair with the rectangular thing. Too cute! So he can brush his hair.

Sleep is going great. He is starting to move toward one long nap a day, but he sleeps through the night again. Basically, it took about 3 nights to get him sleeping all night again. Yipee!

He’s still mischievous as ever. He also chews anything and everything. I call him my little puppy. He’s also an alligator when I’m dressing him, as he can’t possibly be still!

Favorite toys are definitely trucks and anything that rolls. He will play with two large trucks in the den, rolling one, then the other, and seeing how they meet or how they miss each other. He studies them very carefully, and very clearly understands how the two trucks interact (like how to get one to push the other, etc.). So neat to watch!

Birthday is coming up on the 1st! I can’t believe he’s almost a year old!!!

Aaron slept 10-12 hours through the night from about 2.5 months to 7.5 months of age, and then he started waking due to teething. Well, the big teething pain has subsided, and now we just have a waking habit. I decided it was time to get back to sleeping all night - not that children this age have to, but that I do best on more sleep, and he has already shown me that he doesn’t need to wake at night, since he slept all night on his own accord for 5 months.

So someone recommended this book to me: Good Night, Sleep Tight by Kim West. I checked it out from the library, and I think it’s a pretty good book. I already had The No-Cry Sleep Solution by Elizabeth Pantley, and that’s a decent book too, and certainly has some good info on sleep in general (like putting baby to bed earlier to get them to sleep longer), but when I tried it with Joshua, he actually cried more. So with Joshua, I had to end up doing a bit of a fuss-it-out approach. So back to this new book…

The night before last, I decided to go ahead and try Kim West’s approach, when I was having some trouble putting Aaron down (I usually don’t have much of a problem - just nurse him, then put him down drowsy but awake, and he finds his thumb and falls asleep). He was overtired and it was showing. So I sat down on the ottoman and made some soothing sounds “shhh shhh shhh”, etc. He cried for a minute, then stopped, sat down, then plopped onto his tummy in sleep position. Then he popped up, looked at me, then flopped back down. He repeated this several times, sometimes fussing a tiny bit, but not crying. So far, we were getting less crying than with the No-Cry Sleep Solution! I realized that this method is looking like it will work for Aaron. The problem though? Toddler downstairs making a LOT of noise. *sigh* Aaron finally got to sleep, then got woken up. I decided to give up that attempt and let Aaron “help” me put Joshua to bed (reading books, etc.).

So Aaron crawled around Joshua’s room while we did our bedtime routine. I then took Aaron back to his room and tried Kim West’s method again - sitting right next to the crib. You’re supposed to do that for1-3 nights, but no more than 3 nights. Apparently, if you go too gradually, it will actually backfire on you. The next 3 nights, you sit halfway across the room. Then you move to the door, then outside the door but in line of sight, and then out of sight. This is called the Sleep Lady Shuffle. I sat by Aaron’s crib and he fell asleep pretty quickly. I was quite surprised! I then snuck out of the room, but as I was closing the door… “CRRRREEEEAAAAKKKKK!” Ugh! And we don’t have any WD-40. Aaron woke up and cried. I went back in and repeated the Shuffle. He fell asleep, I snuck out, the door creaked and woke him up, but this time he let out two cries and fell back asleep. Phew! I went downstairs and went to bed myself.

Middle of the night came around… Aaron woke up around 1:20am. Usually I nurse him and he goes back to sleep. This time I didn’t nurse him. I just did the Sleep Lady Shuffle - sitting by the crib until he fell back asleep, soothing him if he got too upset, but mostly just sitting there waiting. He went back to sleep quicker than if I’d nursed him! Woohoo! I then snuck across the room and out the door… “CRRRRREEEEAAAAKKKK!” Doh! He woke up and cried. Tried again. Same thing. So I grabbed a pillow off the guest bed nextdoor and plopped on the floor. I slept on the floor. Around 3:30am, I woke up and needed to use the bathroom. Aaron was sound asleep and had been for a while, so I figured this was as good a time as any to sneak out! I went out the door and Aaron again woke up to the door creaking. He was crying, but I needed to use the bathroom. I used the downstairs bathroom, then by time I got back to the bottom of the stairs, Aaron had fallen back asleep. I went to my own bed, and Aaron slept the rest of the night!

Night 2… Aaron had had two good naps and a pretty good day. It was past his bed time since we had church, so he was quite ready for bed. To combat the door creaking issue and the noisy toddler issue, I got a box fan from Doug’s office and placed it in the corner of Aaron’s room on full speed. It’s nice and loud. Aaron had no trouble falling asleep quickly with the Shuffle (me sitting by the crib), despite noisy toddler downstairs. He also didn’t wake up when I left the room. Phew! Even better… He slept ALL NIGHT! In fact, it’s 8:15am and he still hasn’t woken!

So I’m definitely liking the ideas in this book. It’s not cry-it-out and it’s not pick-them-up-multiple-times. It’s mainly sitting next to the bed and waiting for them to fall asleep, soothing them if you need to, but mostly letting them figure out how to fall asleep on their own. I highly recommend this book to anyone with a young baby.