At first it was weird to adjust to the fact that Aiden is his own little person now. He has his own agenda and he knows how to put it in action! The things he can now do on his own, as simple as they are, blow our minds. We constantly say, "Look! Look, what he is doing, its like he's a little person, he is putting shoes on himself!" It happened so fast. He went from being completely unaware of his surroundings to taking charge of them. Its so exciting! I get such a thrill watching him discover new things and seeing him laugh and giggle. Even though he makes huge messes, can get a little loud, makes a quick trip to the store take over an hour, sometimes falls down, tastes something icky, or gets completely dirty...I let him go for it. I let him be him. And it is so much more fun that way-for the both of us. "oooh!" I love it when he says that when he figures something out. "mmmm-num num," when he eats something he likes. "Aaah-ha-ha!" when he wants to get someones attention. When we go out in the stroller, he will point and reach for practically every flower or leaf and will say, "mama! mama!" until I pick it and hand it to him. By the end of his walk, the front of his stroller is filled with flowers and leaves (and so are his hands!).
He is becoming such a love bug. He gives me the best hugs when he is sleepy--just squeezes my neck and pulls my head into his body and smiles. He has started to give other kids hugs to when he is trying to make friends. He is such a little giant though! I swear he has grown taller and heavier this month.
He understands far more than he can say at this point and he follows instructions pretty well. "Want to take a bath?" He will run to the bathroom and start pulling at his clothes. One morning, I grabbed a cracker for the dogs out of a drawer and then I threw it out the sliding door so they could have a treat, well, Aiden remembered that. For the last 3 days, he has woken up, ran to the kitchen, "Dog! woof! Dog" and he will open the drawer and wait for me to give him a cracker. Then, he runs to the sliding door, I open it, and he throws the crackers to the dogs.
He even recognizes our house. If I try to pass our house after walking around the neighborhood, he will point and yell, until I turn into our driveway. In the mornings, before I go to work, he hands his Abuelita the remote so he can watch the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. He is active, he is social and silly and I love him more and more each day.
Feb 16-23: Aiden was born at 6:54pm on Wednesday, February 16, 2011. To see all of his stats, go to the "About Me" page. His first week was really hectic. Between non-stop visitors we did our best to battle sleep deprivation while getting used to having Aiden home and learning to care for him. He is a happy baby, but being first time parents we have Kaiser on speed dial and we called the advice nurse over and over as we debated whether or not what we were experiencing was "normal." So far, so good. We love him so much and are learning more and more about him as each day goes by. We are loving every second.
First Hour
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Day 1: Aiden could already lift and hold his head up at only 12 hours old! After breastfeeding, he pushed up off my chest and stared at me for a few minutes. My heart melted.
Day 2: It took Martin and I over a half an hour to figure out how to fix the car seat that I assembled incorrectly! Once we got it together, we got to take our baby boy home.
Day 3: First "well check" Dr. Appt. Aiden weighed in at 7.2 and was given a clean bill of health! The Dr.and nurses keep telling us what a handsome 3 day old baby he is, and obviously we agree :)
Day 4: He loves to snuggle on my chest to sleep and he will lift his head to look at me. When I kiss his forehead, he sets his head back down. He will do this over and over to get some kisses from his mama.
Day 5: We call him our little ranita (little frog) because of the way he lays on my chest with his beefy little legs curled up. I read him his first book and he stared at all of the pages.
Day 6: Another outing to Kaiser but this time it was to turn in state disability paperwork and to attend a breastfeeding consult. He is eating great and is already almost back at his birth weight, weighing in at 8.2lbs. Martin and I are so tired we have been up all day for the last 6 days with appts and visitors, but we are hanging in there!
Day 7: We are finally feeling a little more rested. Even Aiden got a lot of sleep!
