Aidan,
You have an amazing ability to bring out emotion in your father. I wanted to write this down so that we never forget it. One night last week when your Daddy came home from work, you ran to him smiling as you always do. Then you said, “Welcome to home Daddy!”
Daddy scooped you up and gave you a huge hug and it was then that I spotted the evidence of the effect you have so often on him. He was smiling and there was “sand in his eye.” 
We love you little man. You continue to delight and amaze us.
Here are some pictures from early festivities of Christmas 2008. You are so enchanted with everything that is going on. Understanding who Santa is, making cookies and gingerbread, going out in the snow….you are loving it all. The Christmas gift you are getting is so big that we really had to have you open part of it early. We are going to Portland to see family for Christmas and we can’t transport it all. Hint to those looking at pictures….what might go ON a brand new train table? You already have a small Thomas starter set and you have asked Santa and Mommy and Dad for a big Thomas set. So we shall see my little man.
Here you are putting the table together with Daddy.
And here is our first attempt at a gingerbread house. We did pretty good!
I love seeing the magic of Christmas through your eyes, Aidan. Thank you for this most precious gift. This is my best Christmas ever.
Have I mentioned that I think Aidan is pretty smart? There are a ton of reasons, but at the top of the list lately is probably his sense of humor.
Funny story…Saturday night the family walked down to the Mercer Island Fire Station for the annual Mercer Island Christmas tree lighting and community gathering. They were going to light the tree in Mercerdale Park and the firefighters were going to be showing the trucks to kids. Christmas goodies and hot drinks to be served. Except…
That Mom got the night wrong! Don’t ask me why on earth I thought the 5th was a Saturday and not a Friday. But I blame it entirely on Mommybrain. Does that give me a pass?
On the way home, I suggested we stop at the Starbucks and get Aidan a hot chocolate. We sat inside by the fire and he thoroughly enjoyed it. During one sip, he began doing the swishing thing that kids like to do with drinks sometimes. I told him politely to swallow it. He smiled devilishly at me and kept swishing. I said, “Aidan this is NOT a game! Swallow it.”
He smiled again and Brandon told him to do what Mommy said. So Aidan swallowed the cocoa and dealt out the following gem.
“Mommy, it IS a game.” And he smiled ear to ear.
Brandon looked at me and simply said, “Mommy, you got served!”
This is really the first year that Aidan seems to have a grasp on what Santa is really all about. We have been reading him stories. He has watched Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer and Frosty the Snowman. He has a pretty good grasp on the fact that Santa brings good little boys and girls presents on Christmas.
We took him to see Santa this evening. He was quite excited. He actually told Santa a little joke and then told him very clearly that he wanted a train set for Christmas. I have been looking at Thomas sets and I feel broke just looking at them :-) He was pretty happy to be sitting up on Santa’s lap.
Then after we left Santa Claus he seemed upset and told us “I’m sad.” It turns out that Aidan thought that he went to Santa, told him what he wanted for Christmas, and then Santa would give it to him. Poor little guy. So we re-explained that Santa has to go make the toys and that he delivers them while boys and girls are sleeping on Christmas Eve.
It is so cute to see him really getting into the Christmas stuff this year. He LOVES snowmen and everything he thinks of that he might want he says to us, “Maybe I can get that for Christmas.”
I found the picture we had taken two years ago on my hard drive, and thought it would be cute to post today’s picture beside the one from two years ago to see just how much he has grown! It almost takes our breath away…well…in truth, it does take our breath away.
I love seeing Christmas through the eyes of my son. It is the best gift I could possibly get this year.
For those of you not extremely familiar with all of the preemie lingo, today is Happy 3rd “Coulda, Woulda, Shoulda” Day for our amazing Aidan. Today, November 23, is the day he was due to arrive 3 years ago. Instead, he had already been alive for over 12 weeks. I have our family pictures taken every year right around this time because it is sentimental for me. It is a way of celebrating Aidan’s birthday on the day it should have been.
I will take some time later on today to post some more of the beautiful photographs taken of us at our photo session this weekend, but for now here are a couple of pictures that make my eyes well up with amazement and gratitude. (The first is Aidan on his due date 3 years ago, and the second is Aidan today.)
We love you Aidan. You are truly amazing.
Aidan is already so darn tall! I love it that he is going to be a tall guy. His pediatrician thinks he will most likely be taller than Brandon (who is 6′2″). He figures Aidan may end up somewhere around 6′4″ to 6′6″. Crazy!
Other people pretty consistently ask me if he is 4 or 4 1/2. They are blown away to find out he just turned 3. I figured his growth may slow down some soon, but it doesn’t seem to be letting up.
Over the past week or so, he is sleeping 11-12 hours a night and taking a 2 to 2 1/2 hour nap. I have had to go into his room everyday this week to wake him from his nap lest he sleep too long and turn bedtime into an ugly matter. This is a LOT of sleep for a 3 year old to be getting. (I’m NOT complaining, mind you. It is great!) He has also been eating like crazy. He has been asking for a LOT more milk. Like double his normal amount. Brandon told me that milk was one of his “growth foods” when he was a kid. Brandon’s mom confirms that.
So Brandon and I were looking at him a couple of nights ago and both commented that he looked bigger. We backed him up against his growth chart and sure enough. He has grown 1/2 inch in less than 2 weeks. He is about 41 1/2 tall.
I can’t tell you how amazing it is to watch him grow this much. Back in the NICU three years ago, the neos were a little concerned with his length. He was so IUGR and even when he reached his due date was only 19 inches long. I guess he is making up for lost time.
His language skills grow every day. Lately he is really into experimenting with adjectives. Describing things as large, small, happy, sad, beautiful, cold…etc, etc. So darn cute. He tries his hand at huge words and almost always gets them right. But even the little mess-ups are amazingly cute. He tried to say “Boa constrictor” when I was reading him the book “Little Gorilla” the other night. It came out as “Boa consnicknor”. Too darn cute!
We were visiting our friend Catherine on Wednesday and he loves her dog Bela. Suddenly he looked at Catherine and said, “Catherine, Bela is a Vizsla.”
Here he is playing with and feeding Bela. So far 3 years old is absolutely my favorite age. Aidan is so much fun right now!
Published on November 4, 2008
in Aidan.
Today I cast my first vote for my son’s future. I have voted in every election since I was eligible, but this was the first where I took a whole new set of priorities with me when I darkened in the circles on my ballot. Today was the first time I voted in the interests of a child and not just my interests. It really felt wonderful and patriotic. I can honestly say that the excitement of voting today beat out my excitement of the first presidential election in which I could vote—1992.
We are having a very small election night gathering here this evening and I hope to be going to bed with a feeling of peace in my heart and hope in my mind. Cross your fingers, everybody.
If you are a “regular” blogreader of mine, you might notice a new tab on the top of the page. It is Resources from “Preemieville”. This is something I have been meaning to work on for a long time. I finally started today. I only have 2 pages up, but it’s a start and I will continue to add as I find the time.
When moms or dads of new preemies find Aidan’s page, one of the things that happens most often is that I get questions from them about resources or what we have personally been through. I LOVE talking to other parents of preemies, so please don’t stop sending emails. But I realized it might be helpful to the shy passerby to really document the things I found helpful and what I have learned along the way.
Not all of the information I put up on the Resources page will apply to or help every parent of a preemie, but I’m hoping it might help some.
Let me know if you have any suggestions of other things I could put up. I am planning at least the following: Our experience with oral aversion and feeding therapy, resources on birth trauma and PTSD, information on HELLP and pre-e, information about RSV, and some others I am spacing at the moment.
And since I am completely incapable of posting without a cute picture. Here they are. One of Aidan in his new winter coat (he looks SO darn old sometimes), one of him figuring out how to take the bottom plug out of his piggy bank, an interesting angle from above when he was outside with Brandon over the weekend, and some of us at the pumpkin patch yesterday.
