Happenings of Aidan with musings by his lucky parents
Aidan is REALLY into emulating Brandon lately. He climbs into his shoes and puts on any of Brandon’s clothing and accessories he can get his hands on. Belts, shorts, work jackets, baseball hats, sunglasses, etc.
Most mornings now when Brandon is getting ready for work Aidan will go running into the bathroom and tell Brandon, “Want hair like Daddy’s!” That is Brandon’s cue to wet Aidan’s hair down and put in some gel.
Do these two look alike or what?
Yesterday when I was asking Aidan for a kiss, I puckered up my lips very tightly and he just stared at me. He ran his little index finger around my bottom lip and said, “Mommy wrinkles!”
Ugh. At least I had to be puckering for them to be seen!
I mentioned in an earlier post that Aidan is really ramping up his pretend play skills. For a while he has been playing with his Little People SUV and pretending that the mom and baby in the SUV are “Aidan and Mommy”. He usually has us driving and going to Little Gym or Pump It Up.
But today, he was driving it around and I asked him where they were going and he replied, “Going to get Mommy some coffee!”
So either once a day Starbucks is too much or I just have a very observant child! I am going to believe the latter, because let’s face it….Mommy needs her Starbucks!
I moved to Seattle 15 years ago. (Yikes! I’m getting old) I came out here after graduating from college and thought this was a great city. In many ways, it is. The job market is still good (even in the face of a recession), the average person here is more educated than in most places, it is in a blue state (oops…did I just reveal too much of myself?), and when it is sunny here there is no place I have ever been in the US that is more beautiful. But here is the key phrase in that last sentence…. “when it is sunny here”.
The weather here largely sucks. It isn’t just the rain. It is the constant lack of sun that hurts so bad. It makes even lily white Norwegians like myself go searching for tanning beds to spend a scant few minutes in to have the illusion of sun.
I really realized just how infrequently the sun appears when at Little Gym with Aidan last week. At the end of class, the teacher always stamps the kids’ hands and feet with a different stamp. Last week it was a yellow sun.
My son is a really smart cookie. He knows words that would floor you. (Like hippopotamus…it is crazy) He knows pretty much every weather condition and constellation. For example, he knows: moon, stars, rainbow, windy, clouds, sky, rain, snow, and hail. Yes…he knows what hail is. But he was at a loss when he saw the sun stamp. He looked at me with a confused face, crinkled up his nose, and said questioningly (like he knew it was wrong)….”Moon???”
I smiled down at him and chuckled to myself. I vowed that the next day the sun came out we were going to cover that. I am still waiting. 
This is the recurring theme of the last few days. This must be about the age that kids’ imaginations really start to go wild. I guess it is a good sign that we are hearing lots of stuff about him being scared of monsters in the potty. At least his imagination is working. ;-)
I have seen a LOT more pretend play in Aidan lately. Last week his Fisher Price Little People farmer was milking the cow and combing the sheep’s hair. So I carried the idea onto the other farm animals. We had the farmer ride the horse and went up to get eggs from the rooster (yes…I know roosters don’t lay eggs, but he is only 2 1/2…cut the boy a break!). Then we got to the pig. I paused and chuckled to myself. What to tell him about the pig? So we did half the story…the farmer fed the pig. He doesn’t need all the details quite yet!
He is also showing every possible sign of potty training readiness except lack of fear. He has had very verbose expressions of fear about the potty over the last 2 weeks so we are just backing off and letting him decide. Last night he came running out of his bedroom crying and telling us of his bad dream about the monsters in the potty. He declared, “I scared of the potty. Monsters in the potty.”
Awww…poor little man. Time for some snuggles on Daddy. He will keep you safe, bub.
I have a bunch of thoughts swimming in my head about preemies with feeding issues and really just want to get some of them off my chest. If this seems a little disjointed…you were warned. :-) Compared with a lot of our other preemie pals, Aidan’s feeding issues really look mild. But this is really the one area that Aidan is still a bit “behind” in for his actual age. I had really come to a place of peace about the feeding stuff until I recently had several different people make inquiries about something having to do with Aidan and food and it got me thinking and riled me up a bit.
So…some background. Aidan is a former 28 weeker, vented for 7 weeks. Came home appearing to have no oral aversions and did well bottle feeding. Right around the time I started trying purees and cereal, he immediately began having gagging issues with the solids. I presumed it was just new to him and plowed through. But I became concerned as I began reading more and more on the preemie groups how common feeding issues were. I asked for a referral to a feeding therapist when Aidan was about 1 year actual/9 months adjusted. Aidan was vomiting on me anywhere from 4-6 times a day. The sheer amount of time spent feeding and refeeding was enough to make most people lose their sanity.
My thoughts about his gagging and aversions were confirmed by the therapist. During the time we were in feeding therapy, Aidan also began developing an aversion to his bottles. I think the stress of the gagging and aversions were spilling over into something he had always done well. As he began to make progress with crunchy foods (cheerios, crackers, etc), I decided to switch him to whole milk and sippy cups. This actually worked! I think the fact that a new container held his new kind of milk was really a nice mental clean slate for him.
The feeding therapist began having me try crunchy combinations such as really crispy grilled cheese sandwich and things of that sort. About 3-4 months after beginning feeding therapy, Aidan was on the right track and we were discharged. Things were slow going and he was still getting a lot of his calories from milk and purees. But Aidan’s growth has always been great, so his pediatrician was ok with what we were doing.
A few months later, Aidan decided that macaroni and cheese could be added to the menu. This was a HUGE leap, because it added a lot of calories to his diet. Still I fed purees at least once a day until Aidan was almost 2. Yikes, huh? Thank goodness Aidan has always done very well with yogurt and cheese, so calorically we haven’t been very challenged. But it wasn’t until about age 2 that he stopped doing the occasional gag. The chance that he could gag not only worried me, but it made it hard to want to try to new things and create a new aversion.
I followed the central piece of advice of our feeding therapist throughout it all. She advised me that our relationship with food is intricate, delicate, and lifelong. That I should really try to foster the best relationship possible with it for Aidan. If this meant that his diet was very narrow for a while, so be it. So I started giving him great vitamins (Nordic Naturals Berries) that gave him all of the vitamins he might not be getting through food and added a 3-6-9 omega in for good measure.
Aidan is thriving. He is closing in on 40″ tall and 34 pounds at 33 months actual/30 months adjusted. He is at about the 50th percentile for weight and 97th or better for height. We have been doing something right! Aidan’s relationship with food is a good one. He has a narrow food menu, but I hadn’t given it a lot of thought in a while.
Recently, my MIL asked me about his diet while she was here. (Paula, if you’re reading this….I know you meant well…no worries!) She said she noticed I hadn’t fed Aidan any vegetables. You know…I immediately felt defensive and went back to this scared space where I wondered if I was doing this feeding issue thing right. I told her that for a while it was hard to get him to eat *anything* and that I was focusing on that first and foremost. But this inner being inside me (the one still scarred with PTSD from a premature birth, feeding issues, etc) wanted to ask her if she knew what it was like to watch a child gag on everything you fed him. What it was like to have him vomit the entire meal you had just fed him on you? To know that if you couldn’t overcome this somehow that you might need to resort to a g tube or inpatient feeding therapy? I wanted to be recognized for patiently feeding and refeeding a child who vomited on me for 6 months straight. I know my MIL really doesn’t understand the feeding issue…nor should she. I think this is the central problem.
Parents that have kids with feeding issues are off on an island. Everybody else has great ideas about how you should be doing it, but they’ve never been out there with us on that island trying to feed our kid. I can’t tell you how many times I had somebody watch me making Aidan consume a certain volume of food and comment, “Kids will eat when they are hungry.” Really? Because I know a bunch who won’t. I know a bunch who would starve first.
I was even concerned about Aidan’s hunger drive for a while. I wondered if spending weeks and weeks on continuous feeds via NG in the NICU messed up his hunger drive. It is really just in the last couple of months that Aidan will tell me he is hungry. Yay…another victory!
But here comes my big question. How do you know when to give your kid a little push? Recently he has tried some things he would never have eaten before. He is now eating cheeseburger, turkey or ham and cheese sandwiches, egg scrambles with meat and some chopped veggies, and even asked me for a bite of my halibut the other night. Is it time to start pushing more veggies? And how does a mom who is a picky eater herself feed veggies she doesn’t like? Do I start by trying something new once a week?
He now has all his 2 year molars in and is much more adept and chewing. He could never eat meats like deli ham or turkey before and now he has one of the two kind of sandwiches for lunch almost every day.
I really want to abide by the central tenet from our feeding therapist (who is many ways saved my sanity way back when) and make sure Aidan has a good relationship with food. I fear that I was so scarred by the months of gagging and vomiting that I don’t know how to make neutral choices about this. It has been weeks since I heard even the slightest gag from Aidan and months since a vomit. But I am scarred enough that to this day, if Aidan gagged on the other side of the house, I would probably hear it and feel that same sense of panic come rushing back.
Help me out, readers.
Somehow at the end of last summer, Aidan’s baseball tee got broken and we didn’t bother replacing it over the winter. I just went out this weekend and got him a new one. Not thinking he would have major league skills, we were letting him have at it inside. Check out the video. It is about 40 seconds and about midway through he really drills a couple and catches Mommy really off guard.
Oh…and do let it run until the end. In the last few seconds he can be heard saying “Love you” to me. I will keep this video forever.
You know the jingle. :-) Aidan was having an afternoon snack just now and it occurred to me that he should be able to dunk his Oreos just like we do. So I poured some of his milk from his sippy cup into a regular glass and let him at it. He was great at dunking! He did decide that one cookie deserved a full dunk!
Then something completely unplanned and unexpected happened. Aidan put both his hands around the glass and drank perfectly from it! I was so glad I had decided to take a picture of his dunking adventure and had the camera for this occasion!
I successfully stifled anything inside me that was worrying about a mess or a broken glass and just enjoyed watching him. He was actually quite masterful.
Aidan, thanks for yet another reminder of why I love being your mom.
This is one of those areas that a first time parent really questions, I think. Is my child ready to be potty trained? I think Aidan is exhibiting a lot of signs, but feel really unsure of how to proceed.
He has been able to tell us for a while now when he is going. He has been searching out a private place to have bowel movements for a while as well. In just the last week, he now goes into his room and shuts the door to do it. We stayed at a hotel for my sister’s college graduation last weekend and he seemed very fearful of the force and loudness of that particular toilet’s flushing.
He is doing LOTS of emulating Brandon. He wants his hair like Daddy, he is constantly putting on Brandon’s shoes, and last week started putting Brandon’s belt around his waist when Brandon comes home from work and changes.
So I see the opportunity, but I just don’t know how hard to push it. He has had a potty chair in his bathroom for a while but hasn’t really tried it out much. Our friend Catherine suggested that maybe if he is so into emulating Daddy, that one of those kid seats that you put on the regular toilet is a better option.
So, we now have both. This morning he wanted to try to sit on the kid seat for a few minutes, but nothing happened. He didn’t seem scared, but he just talked A LOT about the toilet. How the potty gets flushed down the hole and such.
Ok, moms…how should I handle this? Slow and easy and let him guide or try to give him more of a push toward it?
This seems so easy, yet I feel a bit lost.
Watching Aidan’s development is absolutely fascinating to me. I had always heard that development happens in spurts but had never really witnessed it firsthand before. Aidan is currently experiencing several developmental leaps right now.
He is starting to pick up phonics. He is only 2 1/2. My husband and his mother could both read a bit at age 3, so perhaps this shouldn’t be that surprising to me. We have a couple of wonderful Leapfrog phonics toys. A Leapfrog Phonics Bus and a Word Whammer. I LOVE these toys! He has started to associate sounds with about half of his letters. It is so cute to hear him say “D says duh” and the like. Over the last couple of days he has learned to spell “MOM” and “DAD” on the Word Whammer.
Yesterday at Little Gym and today at Pump It Up, he was noticeably more engaged with the other kids. It is still normal for kids this age to do mostly parallel play, but I have really noticed him actually engaging other children more just this week. It is so much fun to watch this.
And a couple of posts ago, I spoke about him climbing. Wow! Today at Pump It Up, I turned around inside one of the inflatables, and he was climbing up the “ladder” to the top of the slide completely without me. He had no fear. When I saw him doing it by himself, I had to squelch the part of me that wanted to run up behind him and follow him up like I have always done. He climbed all the way up and came down by himself. He was so proud and started clapping. He went up and down all by himself at least 5 more times and we had a blast!
On the way home, he was asking for french fries. Normally I will stop and get him some fries at McDonalds after our Wednesday outing to Pump It Up. (I know…bad mama. He doesn’t eat fast food much at all and has never had a sip of soda! There…I feel better now. :-)) I got him a cheeseburger (I thought I’d give it a try) and took the meal home. He sat up and had almost all the fries and about 1/3 of the cheeseburger!!! Meats have been a sticking point for Aidan. He has tended not to know what to do with them so he chews and chews and then there is like a meat paste left in his mouth. But he really ate this cheeseburger! He has been doing this with more and more foods lately. Perhaps because he has all his 2 year molars?
I sat there watching him and felt a tidal wave wash over me. I didn’t even recognize what I was feeling at first.
I felt normal.
It was really the first time I can actually really remember feeling normal deep into my core in almost 3 years. Sure I have had moments of normal here and there…but never really a moment where I didn’t find myself thinking something about his preemiehood. For a while this morning I forgot he was a preemie. I just saw my son.
I loved this morning. I love feeling normal. But most of all, I love my amazing son.