TWO YEARS OLD!

This past Wednesday was Aiden's second birthday. I can't believe he is already two years old! In honor of his birthday we had a family get together at his aunt's house to sing "Happy Birthday", eat lots of yummy food, and smack around a pinata. Since our little leprechaun is a St. Patty's Day baby, his daddy's family is all Irish, and St. Patrick's Day fell in the middle of the workweek, we decided to combine it with honoring St. Patrick too! I'm sure Aiden's birthdays will always be quite the festivity.

I love how baby k's mom posts updates at milestone dates, so decided to start doing the same with Aiden ... especially since I'm not good at getting the baby books filled in!

At two years old Aiden:

*is a hefty little guy weighing in at 30 pounds

*wears size 5 diapers, but is well on his way to size 6 (which mommy's procrastinating because there are a lot fewer in a size 6 vs. a size 5)

*wears a size 2T shirt and pants

*loves Elmo and dancing to Laurie Berkner

*loves playing Wii with his sister and wrestling around with his brother

*favors his daddy over his mommy, unless dad isn't around, then mom rocks the world

*loves cereal, deli turkey meat, yogurt, bananas, and honey buns

*cannot have anything of value in fear that he will throw it in the toilet, trash, or down the laundry shoot

*still loves LIGHTS and FANS which all have to be "on" all.the.time.

*still climbs onto EVERY.LITTLE.THING he can

*is starting to initiate imagination play by himself, with all the great sounds included, such as cooking in his play kitchen, zooming vehicles around the kitchen floor, playing at his train table, and even playing "listening check" with his rings and Lego's

*has become quite the "organizer" and likes to sing the clean up song ("mmm up, mmm up") as he puts things away (sometimes without being asked!)

*loves bathtime and will even take our hand and lead us upstairs, saying "mmm on" (come on) when he wants to take one

*loves to "help" mommy sweep, feed the cats, fold the laundry, and empty the dishwasher.

*has to get a goodnight kiss on his head from everyone and has his own special "I love you"

*loves to throw everything out of his crib, all the diapers out of the stacker (attached to his crib which I really need to move), then proceed to take off his pants and diaper and pee in his crib in protest to naptime which I refuse to give up yet.

*is showing signs he's ready to be potty trained (see above), but for some reason, mom is just not mentally ready *deep breath*

At two years old, Aiden LOVES to hear and shows us this by:

*replacing the coil all by himself when it falls off

*pointing to his ear as soon as he wakes up in the morning or from naptime and says "on"

*stopping to listen and pointing to sounds and expressing emotion toward it.

*taking off and handing me both his CIs himself when getting a shirt put on, at bathtime, and at bedtime (but only after he's laying down and we're done with prayers and I love yous), only to ask for them back as soon as he's through

*repeating almost all the Lings during a listening check - oo and ee still aren't quite there although the sound he does make for them is quite consistent.

*receptively understanding SO much, including countless nouns, many verbs, and many, many commands.

*imitating so much more and really starting to come along expressively.

HAPPY 2ND BIRTHDAY SWEET BOY!

We are so proud of you!

From Snow to Sunshine

Just a few weeks ago we were overloaded with snow. Since it was too cold to go outside and play, we brought it in.

Aiden got to SCOOP and DUMP, make HILLS then pretend to drive the trucks UP and DOWN the hill, make SNOWBALLS, play find the (insert object), BURY, DIG, and "ooooo, the snow is so COLD, brrrr", FILL the cup up until it's FULL then PAT-PAT-PAT the snow down, and even make a mini SNOWMAN ... all from the kitchen sink.



Oh, and his big sister even taught him about "yellow snow" and how never to eat it.


Aiden has played in the snow before, but not like this. Everytime we took him outside he sort of stayed away from touching too much of it. It took him a little bit to get his hands "cold and wet", but before too long, he was having a blast.

Fast forward just a few weeks and it's feeling like Spring outside! The sun is shining and I can't keep Aiden inside. So I picked up an indoor herb garden to plant with Aiden.

With this Aiden got to POUR the water into the BOWL to BREAK UP the SOIL and MIX it all up with a big SPOON, SCOOP the soil into the PLANT POTS, OPEN the SEED packets and POUR them into the soil then PAT-PAT-PAT the soil down, and pour more SOIL into the POTS, then WATER the PLANTS so they can grow.

Both of these activities also worked on Aiden's sensory integration (SI) goals, such as being able touch and feel different textures but even more so, being able to sustain attention to one activity for more than 5 minutes (which we're working very hard on)! It is very important that he feels a sense of accomplishment to help him attain this goal.

And as you can see, he is very proud of his final product!

Happy First Hearing Birthday Sweet Boy

(turn the music off on the left before hitting play)

ALL IN A DAY OF AIDEN

Everyday I have to stop and take many deep breaths.
No, I don't have health problems,

I have Aiden.
The boy is a ball of energy and into.every.little.thing.

Not much has changed since he became mobile as an infant,
except that now he can hear me say NO and STOP,

although he acts like he can't.

I'll use today as an example (and note, it's not even dinner time):

Breakfast

When Aiden is finished, he either starts throwing his food on the floor,

stuffing it down in his highchair, rubbing it in his hair,

smashing it through his fingers, or all of the above.

This morning he decided to also wear the bowl

(with some milk still in it) on his head.

DEEP BREATH.

He thinks he's funny (and he really is),

He also knows those eyes melt my heart.

Grocery Shopping

I don't know why I even try. Let's just say I shouldn't

have taken the extra time to check out all the new Spring

scents of air fresheners and I had a lot of boxes

torn open and Gogurt squished all over the cart.

DEEP BREATH.

Home

After feeding him lunch (which I made the mistake of giving him

a sippy cup without the spill proof thingy and he proceeded

to shake it all over juice flying everywhere),

I decided to clean up the floors and therefore shake the rugs first.

I unlocked the front door and stepped outside,

closing it behind me and that little stinker

LOCKED ME OUT.

As I'm peering through the windows on each side of the door,

PLEADING for him to open the door, he stands there and

WAVES, LAUGHS then RUNS OFF!

Thank GOD for a beautiful day and open windows, BUT

I quickly learned the screens won't come off from the outside unless

you unlock them from the inside first. I'm getting frantic by this point.

I run to the truck to search for a spare key and (thank GOD number 2),

Aiden's daddy left his toolbox in there from a weekend trip.

I get the screwdriver out and tear up the screen to crawl through the window

Aiden laughing and cheering me on the whole time.
MANY, MANY DEEP BREATHS.

Nap time.

During this time I sit to check emails and hear my phone ring ...

can't find it, but the ring leads me to ...
the trash can.

That must be where he ran off to as I was locked out.

Not too fun digging through the garbage

looking for a phone all while hearing Aiden playing in his crib.

DEEP BREATH.

Still.nap.time.

...half hour later, STILL not sleeping.

I go up to check on him, since he's also very well known

to take off his pants and his diaper,
sometimes with an extra surprise (again not fun)! Sure enough,
there's my boy, bare bottomed, clean diapers thrown all over the room,

dirty diaper laying on the floor, and there he stood

holding a clean diaper and his pants out to me, Hard to discipline a little boy who can't hear you.

So I have to get his CIs and put them on.

(notice the mattress on the floor ... that's because he

also loves to climb out of his crib and nearly

broke his arm - I know, time for a big boy bed).

So after the third time of chasing him down,

changing his sheets, CIs on and off again,

and getting him BACK TO BED,

he finally fell asleep

with his pants on.

Forget the deep breaths.
I need a glass of wine.

BYE-BYE BA!

The bottle is "ALL GONE"!

It has actually been a couple weeks now.

I know, I know, he's almost two

and it should have been gone quite awhile ago,

but guess what, he's the baby and I don't care.

I'm actually surprised it is gone at all.

One by one they'd disappear

(get lost, left in the car, left at grandma's)

and once we got down to just one,

I refused to buy any more.

Then a couple weeks ago, Aiden bit a hole in the nipple

and when I went digging for a replacement,

I found we were all out!

So bye-bye ba ...

and for someone who was seriously addicted,

he's had no problem with it. One of those

harder on mom than it was on baby situations.

NEXT UP ... THE BINKY!

By Golly I Think He's Getting It

Yesterday Aiden and I left early morning on our trek to Cleveland for his first therapy session with our new auditory verbal therapist (AVT) Dr. Don. His appointment wasn't until 3pm, so we stopped and visited with Aiden's awesome aunt (and God mother) so he could eat lunch, get his energy out, and nap all in hopes of this session going much better than the crazed boy he was at our meet and greet a month ago.

Let me just say, either there was some other little boy in the chair or this man is AMAZING. and I have to say, I'm pretty sure it was Aiden sitting there. Our whole session was like an out of this world roller coaster ride with twists and turns, not knowing what was coming next, and full of excitement. Here's a snippet from it all.

There's no punctuation in this description for a reason ...

As soon as we walked in the room it all started

plastic rings turn on the table Dr. Don belts out the lings

Aiden puts the rings on as

Dr. Don takes it a step up and prompts Aiden with much excitement

to repeat the lings and Aiden does

each.and.every.one

his /s/and /sh/ were simply amazing

his /m/ and /oo/ were still closed mouth

yet he was so proud of himself

and could tell he was having fun showing off

The excitement continues

The room's in uproar full of

motion and we're off to the next activity

Here come the animals and old MacDonald and

for as much as Aiden will not play this activity with me at home

he loved every minute of it because this man

is so animated with every little thing he says and does

Animals are going here and there and Aiden

attempts to repeat all the sounds and

"SHAKE SHAKE SHAKE" them in the silo, and

"OH NO, where did the cow go? The silo's empty?" and

"OH, the pig SNORTS and OINKS and the sheep's SO SOFT"

and we got through the whole song with so much more

than just animal sounds and E-I-E-I-O's

THEN before you know it

"The wheels on the bus go round and round..."

and the people go "in and out" and one gets stuck so

"BANG BANG BANG! (the bus on the table), they're STUCK"

and the baby's crying and even

Aiden made the baby cry "WAHHHH"

(first /w/ I've ever heard)

and the mom says "shhhhh" oh so softly

(and so did Aiden)

and each and every word Dr. Don emphasized,

"Aiden, help me say it, SHUT"

and sure enough, this little show off

helped him say it ... or at least tried!

After the bus we sorted pictures of airplanes and cows

(btw, this is an activity from The Listening Room)

and after a round of modeling

Aiden wanted to do the rest all by himself and

put all the cows on the farm (each with a "mmmm")

and all the planes at the airport (each with an "ahhh)

(I tried sorting with him just the other day and it went nowhere)

and when Aiden was done with an activity

he'd hand it to Dr. Don and say "all done" clear as day

and before I knew it over an hour had gone by and

seeing my little monkey happily engaged

for more than TEN minutes and perform the way he did.

WOW.

In between all this nonstop excitement, there were pauses of silence, times to "STOP" and discover, different alarm clocks ringing (to check Aiden's detection and localization). A good hour of solid, yet FUN language immersion and Aiden was like a little sponge the whole time saying words I thought were lost in Never Never Land.

What may seem overwhelming to some, was PERFECT for Aiden. Being the crazed monkey he was our first session set the stage for what AIDEN NEEDS for a successful therapy session. For a therapist to pick up on this and hold Aiden's attention that long AND get that much language out of him, I gotta say,

I think we've finally found our right match.

and it feels GREAT!