Proud!

I am so proud of Aiden today!

He is normally one of the pickiest eaters I have ever seen. (Chuck tells me that he was a picky eater as a child, perhaps one of his relatives could assure me of this!). Lately Aiden's ENTIRE diet has consisted of (are you ready for this?): apple cinnamon cereal bars, blueberry waffles, pretzels, drinkable yogurt, milk, freeze-dried strawberries and bananas, french fries, fish sticks, chicken nuggets, and cheese quesadillas. Yes, that's IT. I know, you're wondering what I wonder daily: How can a child survive on that? Beats me!

Anyway, today was Aiden's most adventurous food day by far. I really am so proud of him. I bought him a few new things for lunch this week and today he had popcorn shrimp and loved it (as long as I called it "chicken" and NOT shrimp, he insists that he HATES shrimp, lol)--he gobbled up his whole plate! Then tonight for dinner we took the kids to a Mexican restaurant. They both did great and Aiden was particularly good. We ordered him french fries and chicken fingers, but he wanted to try everything (including our margaritas--don't worry, we said no! Lol.) Aiden had orange juice (which he usually despises), a beef enchilada with lettuce, sour cream and guacamole, tortilla chips, and even salsa--which he liked! I was so happy I almost cried:)

Ava is also delving into more foods. She tried my mexican rice (wasn't a fan) and also happily munched on cheerios and even ate some baby food. Hopefully we can get this girl eating more food and then she'll start sleeping through the night! (A girl can dream, right?)

Pics

Just a few misc. pics from today for the 3 minutes that my camera was working. :)

Master Manipulator

I've come to the conclusion that my almost-8-month-old is, indeed, a master of manipulation. She's known this for quite some time and her powers are nearly driving me batty. Really.

Ava has decided that she does not want to sleep...ever. Not because she isn't tired, trust me, she is. But because she would much rather be held and hang out with me than go to sleep. So her newest sleep issue is that she just won't go to sleep. She'll cry and cry when I put her down for a nap, and since she sounds so darn pathetic, I will reluctantly go in there to give her her binky back and pat her on the back. This used to work like a charm, it only took once or twice and she would give up and go to sleep. But now that she's figured out her powers of manipulation? Forget it. As soon as she sees me, her chubby legs starts kicking and she gets the biggest grin I've ever seen and starts cooing as if to say, "See? You can't possibly leave me in here all alone! I am the cutest thing you've ever seen. You know it's true. So pick me up and let's just forget about this nap business, ok?" It's ridiculous. This morning it took 40 minutes and me going in to her 5 times before she fell asleep for a grand total of 20 minutes.

I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, "Well, just STOP going in there and she'll learn eventually and she'll just go to sleep." And I know that you're right, I really do. But for some reason I cannot stand to hear this child cry, I just can't take it. My pulse starts racing and I break out into a cold sweat and I feel like I'm going to pass out if I am not up the stairs and in her bedroom in 5 seconds flat.

I know that Aiden never did this. He wasn't a good napper, but it sure wasn't because he wanted me to hold him, lol. He never did the "Come save me!" cries of torture and then put on a huge smile the second I walked into the room. Don't get me wrong, he's a pretty cuddly kid now, but as a baby, no way.

So I am stumped. If anyone has any great words of wisdom for me (other than to buy earplugs, which I have and yet have only used one night for about 20 minutes, lol), please don't hesitate to help me out! I've resorted to moving her swing back into her room and plopping her into it when she wakes up after 20 minutes, like she always does. For whatever reason, she never cries in the swing and she goes right back to sleep. But if I try rocking her or anything like that she is grabbing at my face and trying to play and taking her binky out and trying to give it to me and it is basically the opposite of soothing to her. I feel like I'm back to square one and I have no idea where to go next. :(

Funny from Aiden

I thought this was funny so I wanted to share it on the blog.

Every Monday and Wednesday I get free rental codes texted to my phone for Redbox. If you don't know what Redbox is, it's pretty much the best movie rental invention EVER. They have them at Walmart and McDonalds and other places like that, and it's basically just a vending machine for movies and it only costs $1 per night--waaaay cheaper than renting at Blockbuster! Go to www.redbox.com to sign up for the free text codes if you want! Anyway, I digress, lol.

Today we went to Walmart to pick out our free Wednesday rental and on the way home, this was my conversation with Aiden:
Aiden: We got a new movie for Daddy. It's called...I don't know. What's it called?
Me: "What Happens in Vegas?"
Aiden: I don't know...what happens in Vegas?
Me: (Laughing) No, no, honey, I'm sorry. The name of the movie is "What Happens in Vegas?"
Aiden: Oh.....THAT'S not a kids movie! No, that's NOT a kids movie!

Maybe you had to be there, but trust me, it was hilarious! I was laughing so hard I was crying, lol.

On a quick side note--I should have known that along with socialization and all the good stuff that comes with going to preschool, my child would also pick up other children's bad habits and mean sayings. After Aiden got home he was being quite the little brat and then turned around and yelled, "I'm going to tell my Daddy on you!" I asked him, "Aiden, did you learn that at school today from another kid?" (knowing full well that he did, because I've never said anything like that to him). Of course he said, "Yup, and I'm going to tell my Daddy on you!" I really don't think he has a clue what that means, lol.

And a few more...

Ok, as promised (it's been a long time coming, I know!) 9 new video clips in all, so here are the final 2. Enjoy! Now I can start using the camcorder again! I've been waiting so that I didn't get too far ahead of myself with videos to download, lol. So more to come soon!

More videos...

More videos (see post before this for lots more)

In this one Aiden is yelling, "Surprise!" over and over again because he surprised me by taking his drawing off the window, lol.

Videos

Here are a few videos from July and the beginning of August. I am working on downloading more onto the computer but it just takes so darn loooong to do it! Either our computer stinks or the software is bad or something is not quite right. Anyway, enjoy! They are all short clips--about 30 seconds or less.

First day of school pics

As promised, here are a few pics from the first day of school. I was going to take them outside of his school, but am glad that I decided to take them at home instead, because there were about 20 million other parents trying to get their toddlers to hold still in front of the building for a photo opp, lol. Thanks again Granny for his new Lightning McQueen backpack--he loooves it!

Aiden did ok on his first day. I think he must have gotten scolded, because all he would tell me at first was, "I was talking about my mommy, I was telling her about my mommy and she said BE QUIET AIDEN! I don't like school....I don't want to go to school anymore." Poor guy:( But he did have fun painting on the easel (he wanted blue paint, but it was "red day" lol) and he told me he liked the "square crackers" they had for a snack, so that was good. I'm thinking that tomorrow will go better, hopefully.

Now that I have some time alone in the mornings when Ava is napping, I have grand plans to spend hours getting the last 2 months of videos off the camcorder and onto the computer, but Ava would actually have to NAP for me to do that, lol. Monday she took a ridiculous 30 minute nap, so we'll see what tomorrow is like! Maybe she needs Aiden running around yelling in order to fall asleep, lol. Anyway, hopefully there will be tons of new videos to post soon!

Milestones

Today was a pretty big day around the Bailey household.
Here's what the kiddos accomplished today:

Ava: finished an entire container of Stage 2 baby food in ONE sitting; rolled from her tummy to her back completely unassisted for the first time; took a 2 hour afternoon nap IN HER CRIB instead of the swing. BIG day for her!!! (she also basically completely refused to take a morning nap for Chuck while Aiden and I were grocery shopping, so that might explain her excessive tiredness and nap-taking abilities in the afternoon, lol. Poor Chuck!)

Aiden: peed in the potty for the first time!!! (Not to discredit him, but it was the tiniest amount of pee I've ever seen, like 3 drops, but he did it, so we are very proud of him!) We haven't started potty training but a friend lent us her son's old potty chair, potty book and Elmo's Potty movie, so we've been talking about it a LOT (Aiden already knows that he wants Lightning McQueen underwear, lol) and letting him have potty time every night before bed. He's peed on the floor before (GROSS!), but never actually IN the potty, so I think we're getting somewhere. We'll probably aggressively start training around Halloween or so maybe.

Just wanted to share the milestones today! Aiden starts pre-school tomorrow, and he is very excited. Chuck managed to get my camera working, so hopefully I can post some pics of him tomorrow on his first day of school:)

Leaving my babies:(

I joined MOPS (Moms of Preschoolers) which is a local group of moms that meets once a month for 3 hours to talk, listen to group speakers, and just have fun. This morning was the first time I've ever left both the kids with anyone other than family (well, Aiden has had a babysitter a handful of times, but not in almost a year, believe it or not). I actually cried when I left Ava in the 3-12 month old room at the church. The worker running the room asked if she was my only child, and when I explained that I also have a 2-year-old she seemed more than surprised that I was getting misty-eyed. I couldn't help it, Ava is my little baby!

Aiden did wonderfully. He had a great time making a craft, coloring a picture, having a snack, and playing with the other kids. He barely noticed when I said goodbye and greeted me excitedly when I picked him up 3 hours later. Poor Ava, on the other hand, did not fare so well. She didn't nap at all, and was completely hysterical when I picked her up. She cried herself to sleep on the way home, took a 20 minute nap, and is now awake again and just plain grumpy
:( I hope that she'll do better next time!

This morning was a great warm-up for Aiden, who starts his first day of school on Monday! He is very excited and had a wonderful time meeting his teacher, Mrs. Moore, when Chuck took him to his school on Wednesday. I know he's just going to love preschool and will probably want to go every day:)

pics

My camera is pretty much officially done. Hopefully this weekend I can find a new one that I like. Does anyone have any recommendations on their favorite point-n-shoot? I'm looking in the under $200 category. Thanks!

Here are a few pics of the kids from the other day. Ava eating puffs and Aiden enjoying his new blanket that his Aunt Lizzie made him:)

Misc.

Sorry it's been almost a week since my last post!

Really, nothing new has been going on. Ava is getting a little bit better about trying to eat food, although not much. Saturday we took the kids out to dinner at a local pizza place and they both did great!! Aiden even tried some of the pizza and Ava had a few bites of breadstick. It felt sooo nice to rejoin the world of people who dine out, we had a nice time and Aiden was very good. Success!!

Ava is still not mobile. Not at all. It's like she's completely given up even trying and she just whines and cries the second I put her down on the floor, or anywhere. If I'm not holding her, she's just not that happy. Well, unless I am holding her hands and letting her "walk" in which case she is very happy, but my back kills me and it never lasts long.

Ava is still not sleeping through the night. Not even close. She gets up a few times, usually twice but sometimes more. Because she eats next to nothing in terms of solid foods, I'm still feeding her at night too, which is ridiculous. But I am trying to have faith that this, too, shall pass. She'll only be this little once and I really hope that very soon she figures out this sleeping business like her brother did. Until then I am just hoping that no one notices the giant black bags under my eyes. I feel like I've aged 10 years in the 2.5 since I had kids. Sheesh.

Aiden is doing great. He starts preschool a week from today and is VERY excited. We are going in on Wednesday to meet his teacher and see his classroom. He'll be going Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays from 9am to 12pm. I'm not sure how much he will actually learn--he knows his colors and letters and numbers already--but I think the socialization will be great for him. This morning at the park he sang the alphabet song almost completely correctly for another little boy, it was so cute. Then he surprised me by attempting to count to twenty--he actually got fourteen, fifteen and seventeen right, but then went straight to twenty, lol. He's such a smart little guy though!

Well, I've been trying now for 20 minutes to upload some new pics and it keeps giving me error messages, so I'll have to try again tomorrow. My camera is seriously falling apart and the pictures are not great--hopefully we'll have enough saved up by the end of the month so I can get a new one!

I do all my own stunts...

Aiden wore this shirt today (I posted this pic in the blog before this one). Little did I know that it would be all too true today.

We were playing at a friend's house this afternoon when Aiden had a horrible accident. My friend's house is gorgeous and she has a very long, steep staircase. She has wonderful, sturdy baby gates at the top and bottom of the stairs, but I got careless. When I opened the top gate to go downstairs I didn't see Aiden just sneak past me. He was 3 stairs down when I asked him to go back upstairs. He turned around to face me, lost his balance, and fell down the entire staircase. Maybe 18 stairs in all? We're talking somersaults down the stairs, his head hitting the railing, and he landed flat on his face on the hardwood floors. My whole life flashed before my eyes. I was sure he had broken bones, or worse.

Thankfully, he was fine. A few minutes and one lollipop later he had made a full recovery. By the grace of God (and many of you know I don't call on Him too often) and the amazing resiliency of the toddler body, he is completely fine. Me? I'm still shaking.

For all those with babies or toddlers, let our misfortune be your warning: make SURE your toddler is behind you on the stairs and doesn't sneak past you when you open the baby gate!

It's time to...

Whoever said that children thrive on routine couldn't be more right. Anyone who knows me know that we have a pretty strict routine in our house, mainly for the sake of everyone's sanity. It is proving to pay off now with a toddler who can be unpredictable, at best, because he is so much more aware now of what is going to happen at what time of the day. Every day when Aiden is done eating lunch he says, "It's time to....take a nap!! Lemme find Blue Bear!" After his pre-bed snack he says, "It's time to...take a bath!! Let's go Daddy! Goodnight Bob the Builder trucks, I'll play'p you tomorrow!" It's so cute. Having a solid routine makes it easy to plan our day also and usually, the kids go down well for their naps because they happen at the same time every day (9am for Ava's morning nap, 1pm for both kid's afternoon naps:)

On a side note, my camera is B-U-S-T-E-D, busted. Seriously, it is barely working. I have a rubberband holding the batteries in because they will fall out otherwise. We are saving to buy a much nicer, new camera, but in the meantime you'll still have to live with my 3MP pics:) I took these this morning. It struck me when I was uploading them just how BIG Aiden looks--he isn't a baby at all any more, he is a little boy. It seemed to just happen overnight somehow. :( Sigh.

Staying in Macon

Thank you to everyone for thinking of us and sending us your well wishes over the past few weeks while Chuck was interviewing for the Austin job. Sadly, Chuck did not get the job, so we'll be staying here in Macon. We've had a lot of good memories here and I'm looking forward to many more over the years to come. We are very lucky to have everything that we do, especially the love and support of all of our family and friends spread around the country.

We are so proud of you Chuck for working so hard and doing your very best. It is hard to do, but we have to just have faith that Austin wasn't meant to be.

Thanks again everyone!

Good luck Daddy!

If you don't already know, tomorrow Chuck has 3 very important interviews for a potential promotion. He's interviewing at corporate headquarters in Cleveland, OH, but the promotion would move us to Austin, TX, possibly as quickly as the end of September.

We wish you the best of luck tomorrow!!! We love you and are soooo proud of you for making it this far and beating out so many other people. You should be very proud of yourself too!

More funny quotes from Aiden...

Today we went to a new bouncy-house place called Monkey Joe's. Macon's bouncy-house place, Kangaroo Bob's, closed last week. Monkey Joe's is about 30 miles away, but it was worth it! On the way home I asked Aiden if he liked Monkey Joe's or Kangaroo Bob's better and he said, "Monkey Joe's was better. It had toys! And video games! Waaaay better." Lol.

Tonight I was giving Aiden his bath and I helped him take off his clothes like usual. I asked him to put his clothes in the hamper and he tried to fold his Lightning McQueen T-shirt and put it on the counter saying, "I wear this again tomorrow, it's not dirty. It's clean already! I wear it again tomorrow." Nice try kid:)

Mirror, mirror on the wall...

Who's the cutest baby girl of all? Ava of course!

I spoke too soon...

A few posts ago I mentioned that Aiden's phase where he was saying "he said" after everything he said was over. Not quite. In fact, it's gotten even more elaborate. He's started adding narrating comments to his pretend play and even things I say. Examples:

While playing with his fire station: "Don't worry doggy, I will save you!...the firefighter said."

I asked Aiden what he would like for lunch. His response: "What would you like for lunch...asked Mommy. No Mommy, I don't want any lunch...he said." He impressed me with that one because he used "asked Mommy" correctly, lol.

I would be concerned about this odd behavior, except I think it's just a verbal stage that is sort of similar to over-correction. I'm choosing to ignore it for now and since it went away once for a few days, hopefully this even more interesting phase will be over soon enough! Lol.

SHE DID IT!!!

Ava finally rolled over!!! Better late than never, right? At 7 months and 1 day old she rolled from her back to her belly while I was vacuuming :) Very exciting day for us! :)