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No news is good news

Published on June 12, 2009 in Aidan, Family, Friends, Parenting, Preschool years and Straight from Aidan's mouth. 6 Comments

Wow! It has 2 months since I have done any kind of remotely comprehensive update. I don’t know why it has been so hard to find time to blog. I have to chalk it up to life gliding along in a really lovely normal way right now. There is a certain ease that life with Aidan has fallen into and it is nothing short of beautiful.

Brace yourself for the mother of all updates. And I’m sure I will still forget some really cool stuff!

Aidan just finished up his school year and will be on break from his preschool for the summer. These last few months have been amazing for him and I am so glad we decided to go ahead and get him going on preschool. Pretty much all of the 16 kids in his “3’s” class are coming back next year to do the “4’s” class together. The moms have organized summer outings once a week with the kids so they don’t miss each other too terribly. He has made some really good friends there and his social skills are booming!

The preschool year finished up with some neat events including baby ducks hatching in the classroom (the 4’s class brings them on their overnight to Pioneer Farm and gives them to the farm…Aidan will get to do this next year). The kids got to see the baby ducks swim each class day and they all got their turns holding the ducklings.

The kids also had a “Teddy Bear Picnic” on the last official day of class. A few days later his class gathered at the Pea Patch at Mercer Community Center to plant their pumpkin starts. In the fall they get to go up in October and pick the pumpkins they planted. I LOVE the wonderful continuity these teachers bring to the children. I couldn’t possibly have found a better place for my boy.

We spent Memorial Day weekend with my brother and his family. My brother’s kids are 12 (girl) and 9 (boy). Aidan ADORES them and he always rises to the occasion around older kids. I couldn’t believe all of the things Aidan learned to do over that weekend. He built marble runs with cousin Gavin, played stomp rockets with cousin Morgan, learned to ride a scooter, took part in a water fight and got Daddy, and got his first bike! This child is really coming into his own and figuring out how his body works. It is nice to see him take chances and not be afraid to try new things. It was a glorious weekend. When I saw him riding his bike, I actually had tears come to my eyes. So many times I had really never dared to dream of this day. A day when I wouldn’t be thinking of oxygen tanks, damaged lungs, and all of the other things that came with his prematurity. I was just watching my little boy growing up before my eyes…racing a scooter down the street and fearlessly pedaling his very first bike. It was almost surreal. I basked in it. It felt….good, right, and overdue.

The weather in Seattle has also been almost too good to be true. We had a couple of 95 degree days last week and I have been taking full advantage. I think Aidan and I have fallen just short of living outside the last few weeks. We have gone on outings to the zoo, out to new parks, out to the Town Center fountains, to a new splash park, many neighborhood parks, and gotten him his first supersoaker.

His brain is growing every day too. He is currently amazing me with how much his intellectual curiosity is ramping up. He has started asking LOTS of questions. Some examples recently range from “Mom, do you think it will rain today?”, “My favorite engine is Thomas, what is your favorite engine?”, “What does THAT sign say?”, “Why is Daphne’s (our cat) tongue so much rougher than mine?” It is amazing to see his mind start to function in different ways and start to show lots of curiosity about the world.

Oh…and thanks to Daddy, Aidan finally totally potty trained in the snap of a finger. They were out and about with underwear on and Aidan wanted a pull-up to do “#2″ in and they didn’t have one. So Aidan didn’t have much choice but to go on the potty. And once he did that, he was totally trained. He has also stayed dry overnight better than 90% of the time. Just goes to show you that with a lot of things, when your child is really ready then it will be easier to do it than when they aren’t.

I’m sure I’m forgetting a ton, but let’s just say life is GOOD. It’s better than good. It’s amazing and I swear I am the luckiest woman on the planet to get to be part of this wonderful life with my son and my husband. I am truly humbled and grateful.

To close out the post, what would summertime with a 3 year old be without his first real summer scrapes? (courtesy of the new bike)

Life is busy I guess

Published on May 5, 2009 in Aidan, Friends and Preschool years. 2 Comments

Oh my! I promise we are ok!!! Will update with a better post soon, but wanted to reach out and say hi to my blogger friends.

Until then, here is some eye candy from a recent park outing with some of Aidan’s friends. Enjoy.

Content

Published on April 6, 2009 in Aidan, Friends, Parenting and Preschool years. 5 Comments

Before I was a parent, I would never have believed some of the things that give me such joy. One of the most amazing things to witness right now is Aidan blossoming socially. Watching your 3 year old develop these new friendships that are fun, fierce, silly, and awkward. It is truly touching to see it happening.

As we would sit beside Aidan’s isolette in those early days, I don’t think I even let myself REALLY imagine the boy I see before me today. The boy that would be going to preschool, going to a friend’s birthday party for the first time, and learning how to make friends.

So watching Aidan today at the zoo as he saw his friends Ryan and Brooke was a moment of sheer joy. I felt my heart leap a little and a tear came to my eye. The three of them said their excited hellos and in a moment of synchronicity just took each others’ hands and walked happily from exhibit to exhibit. They talked, made animal noises, made funny faces, shared snacks, and laughed…a lot.

I go to bed tonight with a sunkissed face and a grateful heart.

Oh…and a couple of cute ones with Daddy working with him on learning how to pump his legs on the big boy swing.

Our growing boy

Published on March 20, 2009 in Aidan, Parenting and Preschool years. 2 Comments

We had our first parent-teacher conference last week. Aidan’s preschool teachers like to meet with the parents in the spring and talk about your child’s development.

We were so pleased at our meeting. They said he keeps up well physically with all the other kids and is always willing to try new things. He interacts with all of the other children and is having one on one play with many of them. He is really good about coming to the teacher and specifically asking for help when he needs help with something. They say he is relaxed and has a good time while he is there.

They also commented that they feel he knows a lot about a lot of different subjects and feel that cognitively he is among the brightest. They also said he is starting to ask questions in earnest and he seems right on track in terms of that milestone.

Some areas they are working on with him are taking turns better, expressing frustration better, and sharing. They noted they are working with almost all of the kids on this. We did talk a bit about attention issues since I am concerned about those. They feel it is too early at age 3 to decipher what is truly attentional and what is a busy 3 year old boy but they are keeping an eye out for me since they know it is a concern.

I had wondered if it was wise to keep him back and have him repeat the “3’s” year next year since he only will have completed half of it and using his adjusted age he wouldn’t have been eligible to even be there this year. But both teachers felt like Aidan right now is thriving off of being the youngest and having the older kids to emulate. So they are recommending sending him off the 4’s class this fall. All in all, a great report for a kid that is younger than everybody else in his class and is a preemie who had to be a bit socially isolated in his first couple of years for health reasons.

Following are a lot of cute pictures taken over the last week.

Evidence of Aidan’s first “girlfriend” at preschool.

Some shots of Aidan with Catherine’s dog, Bela. So sweet!

And some outdoor shots of some our first spring park outings. He was so exhausted from a morning at preschool and an afternoon at the park that he fell asleep on the way home. But he wouldn’t let go of the two pinecones he picked up.

Oh, and he now not only wants to do EVERYTHING by himself, he wants to do things for us too. Check him out brushing Daddy’s teeth.

Child of many faces

Published on March 4, 2009 in Aidan, Parenting, Preschool years and Straight from Aidan's mouth. 5 Comments

Bad blogger. But I have a really good excuse. My whole family has been sidelined by one of the worst GI bugs I have seen. Aidan brought it home and got sick first about 9 days ago. Lots of vomiting that finally led to his pediatrician giving him some Zofran which helped him turn the corner. The first day was so miserable for him. He vomited at least 20 times. Probably more. Brandon next. He actually fared the “best” and was only down for about two days. I thought somehow I had dodged the bullet when I made it through the week with no symptoms. But in the wee hours of Sunday morning, I couldn’t sleep…with a sleeping pill on board. My body was on high alert.

It wasn’t pretty. I lost so much fluid that by 4 a.m. I was crying and waking up my husband. He came into the bathroom to check on me and I told him I had almost passed out. Twice. Off to the ER I went where I got Zofran, Dilaudid, and 3 bags of IV fluid. Now that is dehydrated. Felt very tired Monday. Sort of ok most of Tuesday and then the second part of the illness hit. Massive fluid loss again, leading to another ER visit this a.m. and another bag and a half of fluid.

Gratefully I am on the mend.

In some lighter news, Aidan has taken a very keen interest in emotions lately. Talking about what mood people are in, guessing what a character’s face in a book is expressing, and asking us to show him certain emotions. He will ask, “Show me angry. Show me excited.” And so on and so on. It is beyond cute. He looks at us very intently and then makes his version of each face.

Brandon captured him doing this tonight and I had to post it. I didn’t know that 3 year olds thought like this. Very, very cool.

Aidan’s angry faces.

Aidan’s surprised face.

Aidan’s sad face.

And the best….his happy face.

I have bees buzzing in my shoe!

Published on February 15, 2009 in Aidan, Funny, Parenting, Preschool years and Straight from Aidan's mouth. 3 Comments

Not a lot substantive to say right now. I just wanted to write about a couple of cute moments before I somehow forget them!

Recently when we were shopping in the grocery store, Aidan started wiggling and kicking his right leg. He had been sitting in the cart a while as it was a major stock-up trip. I asked him what was wrong and he looked like he was trying to find just the right words. Then he replied, “Mama, I have bees buzzing in my shoe!” It took me just a second to realize that his foot had fallen asleep and he was trying to describe the sensation to me. I thought it was a very inventive description for a 3 year old.

He has also started to think it is really funny to steal whatever spot Brandon and I have been laying in/sitting in. When he first wakes up in the morning, he always trots right into our bedroom and wants a few minutes to snuggle with us before we all get up for breakfast. If Brandon gets up to go the bathroom, Aidan excitedly moves over to Brandon’s spot in bed and gives me a cheesy grin. Then he says, “I’m taking Daddy’s spot! He’s gonna tell me to scoot my buns!” So when Brandon returns he obliges and tells Aidan, “Scoot your buns!” And Aidan giggles wildly. Today he did this to me during lunch. I left the table a couple of times to get things from the kitchen and each time I returned he had gotten out of the chair he had been sitting in and took whichever chair I had just vacated.

I came back and he was grinning from ear to ear and said, “I took your spot!”

There are so many fun moments with a 3 year old. I am truly a blessed woman.

Some recent cute moments caught on the camera.

Stuffing Daphne into a little canvas toybox with him.

Getting his own water….”I do it MYSELF mama!”

Making cupcakes with Daddy.

Why I love PBS

Published on February 5, 2009 in Aidan, Parenting and Preschool years. 6 Comments

I know there is a lot of controversy out there about children and television. Brandon and I fall somewhere in the middle of the two extremes. We did not get rid of all of our TVs when we had Aidan, but we also do not let him watch TV very much. We like to be pretty choosy with what he watches so that he is not spending much time in front of the tube.

Occasionally I would let him watch “Sesame Street” as a baby. More for the colors and music. Then as he approached the age of 2 he really began to like the characters and understand some of the stories.

“Curious George” was added to the “ok to watch” list around the age of 2. I can’t remember what “Curious George” was like when I was a kid, but this newer version is great. It teaches lots of math and science concepts. Some even simple enough for preschoolers to get. Plus, George is just a silly, funny monkey. Aidan loves his antics and this show definitely was great as he started developing his sense of humor.

The show most recently added to the list is a newer show called “SuperWhy”. There are a lot of early reading concepts on the show. Some of the activities include identifying letters, starting to introduce lowercase letters, and phonics. Here is a good explanation of the show.

Right before Aidan’s nap today, I let him watch the episode of “SuperWhy” that I dvr’d while he was at preschool. I was amazed watching him. At one point in the show, one of the characters always asks the kids to help her phonetically spell a word. So she will tell them the word and then start asking questions about the letters. Today’s word was “BELL”. So she asked, “What letter makes the sound ‘buh’?”. I looked over and Aidan is excitedly shouting “B!!!” He did this for the whole word.

Now, Aidan has known his phonics for a while, but really the only way I had seen him use that skill was to tell me what sound a letter made and not the other way around. For instance, when he sees a sign he might pick out the first letter and tell me “M says mmmmm”. I had no idea he could work from the sound to the letter. Too cool! He loves this show and the characters are constantly asking the kids questions. It was so much fun to watch Aidan shouting answers back to his SuperWhy pals.

In my book, PBS rocks.

Here is a picture of Aidan today enjoying his episode of “SuperWhy” with his favorite furry pal Daphne.

And one from a couple of weeks ago of Aidan telling me that someday he wanted to build a nest like Big Bird. I left the room for a couple of minutes and returned to an “Aidan nest.” I love watching his imagination grow.

Preschool is a hit

Published on January 29, 2009 in Aidan, Funny, Parenting and Preschool years. Closed

I am happy to report preschool is going very well. Aidan looks very forward to going. He loves his 2 teachers and greets them enthusiastically when he comes in. He is doing totally fine with me not being there except for the 1-2 times a month when I am one of the class parents.

Last Thursday when I picked him up, the kids were still outside on the playground and had just started to come in when teacher Judy blew her whistle. There were a few stragglers that didn’t want to go in….and big surprise…Aidan was one of them. I saw teacher Nancy gently prodding them to go in and then she spotted me coming to them. She said, “Wait there, we’ll come to you.” I heard her tell Aidan, “Your mom is here Aidan.”

I heard a squeal of delight and out pops Aidan’s smiling face from around the toy shed. He took off in a full sprint to me and threw his arms around me. He missed me!!! But the good kind of missing. Where he had had a great time without me but was still happy to see me. I loved it. That moment will probably be burned into my memory forever.

Teacher Nancy told me he is starting to really make some more connections with other children which is great because that is one of the big reasons we wanted to do preschool. His preemieness (especially his fragile lungs the first couple of winters) really limited our ability to get him same age social exposure.

I remarked to teacher Judy today that Aidan seems more comfortable being a little chatterbox around adults and a bit more reserved around his peers. I love these teachers because they bring a sense of balance to my thoughts around Aidan and help me understand the way kids work since their experience is MUCH more broad than mine. Judy nodded and said, “Well, Aidan is an oldest and an only. I always expect those kids in my class to be more comfortable with me in the first few months than their peers. Most of their conversations have been with listening, relatively quiet adults and it feels natural to them.”

She told me Aidan shared well today and that he is doing wonderfully. She thinks he is coming along at a wonderful pace and that I should not worry. At that point Aidan came running up to me, hugged teacher Judy, asked where teacher Nancy was, and insisted he must say goodbye to Liam before we leave. Too cute!

I am so glad we made this decision for our boy. It seems to be going really, really well.

Oh…and a funny. Aidan is SOOO obsessed with his Thomas trains. He has taken this into his pretend play. He pretends to be a train. He army crawls sometimes and tells me his knees and elbows are the wheels. He toots and chugs. Then he says , “See the smoke coming out of my smokestack” as he points to his head. And the color of shirt he is wearing determines what train he is that day. Today was a blue shirt so he was Thomas. Yesterday was a red shirt so he was James. He will even refer to Brandon and I as different trains based on the color we are wearing. He called me Gordon this morning because my coat was blue. I asked him why I wasn’t Thomas and he said, “Thomas is smaller and Gordon is big.”

Please, oh please tell me that their obsessions give way at some point. I just can’t go through life being called Mavis, Percy, or Gordon.

Cuteness at preschool to follow.

Guaranteed to make you smile

Published on January 18, 2009 in Aidan, Parenting and Preschool years. 4 Comments

Even on the days when motherhood is tiring, you seem to find a way each day to remind me how damn lucky I am. You are the best Aidan.

In the video, Aidan has just woken from his nap and discovered that his cat, Daphne, had crawled under his covers and slept with him. Aidan is clearly delighted. And, yes, this is the glorious laugh we get treated to every day.

For Kathi

Published on January 11, 2009 in Aidan and Friends. 3 Comments

The last few weeks have been a sobering reminder that life can be so short and our moments with loved ones so fleeting. A couple of posts ago, I wrote about my friend R taking her own life.

On January 1 I was shocked by the sad news that one of Aidan’s primary NICU nurses, Kathi, had lost her beautiful daughter Megan in a tragic ice climbing accident on New Years Eve. Megan was only 24 years old and had a bright future ahead of her. She graduated with honors from the University of Washington earlier this year, had aced her MCAT and interviewed at the UW Medical School. Her goal was to become a doctor and practice family medicine in a rural community. There are a couple of beautiful obituaries done on her in the Redmond Reporter and the Seattle Times.

I went to her memorial service yesterday. Though I did not know Megan, if the stories her mom had always shared with me were any indication of the type of person her daughter was I knew that I had missed out on knowing an incredibly beautiful person. My understanding from talking to another mourner was that the church held at least 700 people and it was literally standing room only. I was immediately taken by the outpouring of love for Megan and her family.

There was a glorious photo of Megan in the foyer of the church. The songs chosen for the service were beautiful. One of the priests spoke about who Megan was as a person. I was sitting in awe of a young woman who had done so much. Who embraced the outdoors, her family, and the opportunity to give back to her community and to help the less fortunate among us.

Kathi wrote and read a beautiful narrative about life with Megan. Speaking lovingly and tenderly about welcoming her into the world, stories of her childhood, and recent stories of her coming into her own womanhood. Traveling to Italy and studying abroad.

A couple of her closest girlfriends shared funny stories and one read Megan’s letter of application to medical school. It was clear that Megan must have gotten her writing ability from her mother, Kathi. It was filled with passion and evoked feelings of wanting to help others. I have no doubt she was on her way to a brilliant career in medicine.

The family compiled the most touching DVD presentation I have ever witnessed. Pictures of all of the stages of Megan’s life danced across the screen set to two different songs. The first was “Wide Open Spaces” by the Dixie Chicks. What a perfect song. Looking at all of the pictures of Megan out in nature and exploring the world was so well narrated by this song. The DVD ended with “Bookends Theme” by Simon & Garfunkel.

There were gorgeous pictures of tons of family adventure. A young Kathi with her young daughter. Megan’s brother Ryan putting up rabbit ears in one photo and tenderly holding his new baby sister in another. A proud father, Tom, taking his family out on numerous outdoor adventures. Kathi and Megan cooking in the kitchen. So much beauty. So much love.

I don’t believe I saw a dry eye anywhere I looked.

Kathi and Tom so clearly did the most amazing job raising Megan. I sincerely hope Kathi and Tom are so very proud of their Megan. I do so wish I had had the honor to know her. Instead I hope that Kathi will fill my head and heart with numerous memories of Megan as she feels ready to do so.

Kathi (if you are reading this), you mean the world to me. You helped me see light and hope during the darkest days of my life. You provided a scared, scarred, shell shocked preemie mom with understanding, compassion, and hope. You were the first nurse who really gave me hope that Aidan had a chance. You recognized my tremendous postpartum emotions on the day I had to go home without my baby and decided to find a way to let me hold him before I had to go home with empty arms. You were the first to place my child in my arms and allow me to breathe in the sweet smell of Aidan. You talked me through endless hours of questions, sorrow, and doubt. You cared for my baby like he was yours.

You were there for me in ways great and small. I can never repay you for all you did for my son and all you did to heal my wounded heart. I don’t know the best way to help you. All I know is that I desperately want to. I hope, in some way, I can repay the tremendous kindnesses and friendship you have shown me.

Brandon and Aidan and I all love you. Thank you for being you.

These are the photos that Kathi made possible. The first time I got to hold my son. He was only 5 days old.