Month 4 week! Daddy and Aidan's day of fun!

Through some clever finagling, I managed to swap my telecommuting day from Thursday to Friday, since today (Friday) was a half-work day (due to Independence Day weekend), I could work from home til noon, and be free to be with you 100% just in time for your Mommy to go to work!

And the day started off with a bang. I was upstairs working when I hear your Mom whisper-yell (a skill all parents need to learn s they can yell at their spouse and get their attention without waking the baby)...she told me to peak into the nursery...and this is what I saw:

Your Mom saw it too...that shouldn't be visible above the crib rail, should it?

No way!
You're on your tummy!

This was my first morning to see the evidence of you doing what you've secretly been doing all week in bed! You were sleeping on your tummy (and blending in quite well to the crib sheets too...we've got to stop dressing you in baby camouflage)!

Video of the son rise.

I was amazed with you, but then again I'm pretty amazed that I was amazed, because we've been super amazed with how grown up you're becoming all week!

Last night as I was reading you your bedtime stories, you reached out and were grabbing the book! Holding on to it...

The other day we were bathing you and you grabbed on to the bath toy and just held on to it!
Even you look amazed at that!


And Daddy and Aidan day proved to be no less amazing! Today as we were playing tummy time the second I put you down on your back, you rolled immediately over to your tummy and stayed there for a long time, just looking around, scooting in a circle and watching your dogs play (or laughed at them for looking so forlorn).


Becoming a dad makes people overly sentimental...and we can't help it. This morning, I just lay down next to you on your multi-colored play mat and was talking to you, playing with you and having a really good staring contest with you. You smiled and laughed and looked confused and farted. You went through just about all your awesome faces. And then iTunes played a mean trick on me (about as mean as playing a "cotton: the fabric of our lives" commercial in front of a menopausal woman.) ITunes played the song that Ben Folds wrote for his son, which goes like this:



And while the song was playing you just stared at me...looked deep into my eyes. And I sang to you. And by the time I was singing the second round of "Everybody knows, it hurts to grow up. And everybody does. So weird to be back here. And let me tell you what, the years go on and we're still fighting it..." ...and then the part where he says "you'll try and try, and then one day you'll fly away from here." I started seeing you growing up before my eyes...growing a head of hair, falling asleep at a carnival and me fireman carrying you home, you leaving for college (Go TUFTS (if we can afford it), and I started tearing up. Twice in one week this happened to me. Stupid Toy Story 3 made me do the same thing when Andy was leaving for college, and now here I was welling up. But, college is not for 17 years and 6 months, so let's make the most of every minute we have together.

So, it turns out your old man is kind of a softy. Don't tell anyone. Okay, fine, tell whoever you want! I ain't ashamed!

I dried my single tear, you farted again and drooled all over the place and we decided to go downstairs so I could feed you. You got pissed at me and screamed at the top of your lungs. Thank to an insider tip, I figured out that you were telling me you needed to be burped, so we walked around and I patted and rubbed your back for about 20 minutes until--- burp! -- a teeny tiny burp. Was that it? Perhaps! So I took you downstairs, and you downed your entire bottle in one go! Amazing!

While you sat in your new green chair (thanks Uncle Taff and Aunt April!), you were playing with "Green Man" (also known as the notorious Crinkle Frog!), and you were holding on to him by his handle. Yes, actually holding on tight! I picked you up and you picked Green Man up! You held on to him for a good long time.

Then you napped like a pro...from 2:30 til 5:00!

During dinner, you were having a conversation with your Mommy and me...we would ask you questions and you'd reply (of course it was all gobbles and garbles and jibber jabber baby flabber fun stuff). Your Mom said, "I have a feeling you're gonna be a talker, just like your Daddy!"

To which I replied, "That Aidan...he always has to have the last word!"

And then your Mom added, " Like you." Totally disproving her point, since she, in fact, had the last word.

I even tried my hand at bathing you for the first time tonight, in honor of Daddy/Aidan day, even though your Mom was here. Normally I'm towel boy/dinner man, so while your Mom bathes you, I fiddle around with dinner and then when it's time to get out of the tub, I swoop in and catch you with the towel. But tonight, we switched it up. Your Mom and I cooked dinner together, ate (at which we had the aforementioned conversation), and then I got to bathe you! I did a pretty good job, I must say. You were shining like new.

And I was beaming. We put you in pajamas, read you a story, then picked you up to put you in bed and, while your Mom was holding you, the lullaby was interrupted.

You had to amaze us once more before bedtime: you threw up all over your Mommy's arm and your shoulder. I was on clean up duty, and your Mom asked me to check the floor, and I didn't see anything there.

The lullabies continued...and I looked down and noticed two new white spots on Preston's back, where he didn't have any white spots before. Good aim son! Now that's amazing!

To finish off this amazing day, your Mom and I sang you "The Rainbow Connection," and then a riveting Beatles medley consisting of "Golden Slumbers," what we could remember of "Carry that Weight" and "The End."

...and in the end
the love you take
is equal to the love
you make.

Wise words. Today I felt the love; and even though I feel the love every day since day one when I first saw you and you held my hand, this was extra special because it was Daddy and Aidan's day all by ourselves (unless you count the dogs...which, apparently, you did...because you puked right on one of them).

And thus wraps up the week marking your 4th month on the planet! Happy monthi-versary week, Aidan!

I can't believe how much you've grown in just one month.

Here you are at 3 months:

And here you are at 4 months old (on the dot!)

Let's see that again. 3 months: 4 months!
I know as the weeks go on, you will only get more amazing! I love you, son.

Heads and Nails

Week 34 is a big week in your development. It kind of seems like a bunch of grand openings were just announced. Check out all that you're able to do right now, according to the bump and some other sources:

• When light peeks in through your Mom's belly (whose thin is stretched thin), your tiny eyelids and irises can blink and dilate. So maybe I won't shine the flashlight in your eyes!
• You are now smart enough to recognize and react to simple songs… That means you may already recognize your lullabye that I've been singing!
• Your finger and toe nails are growing fast and long...and they're sharp too. Good thing we got the baby finger nail clippers we'd been eyeballin'!

For all this development, though, it still seems like you're miles away from coming out to meet us. Although we only have 38 official days to go, it seems like an eternity. Not that we're anxious, but time is definitely dragging, especially when I read about how much of a working, functioning little person you are in there.

But, you do need more time in the oven until you're ready to come out.

For now, you stay in that oven and we'll just have to wait, and appreciate you from the outside. Yesterday you gave us a great opportunity to do so. While your Mom was sprawled out on the couch she grabbed my hand and placed it to her belly.

"What is that?" I asked.

"I don't know," she said.

"It's too big to be a hand or a foot. Is it a head?"

"Maybe..." she smiled in awe.

(Don't ask me how she can smile in awe, she just can).

But, there I was, with my hand palming something the size of a large orange. It could have been your butt, but I prefer to think it was your head. And that means you must have been sleeping the way I sometimes do on planes: head first.

It was almost as if you were trying to peak your head into our conversation. But, as you can tell from above, the conversation wasn't too intelligent anyway.

But, it was full of awe.

Clean Plate Club

There's a club in which I've often been a member. Your Mom has seldom come close to even an honorary membership. But last night, at a BBQ joint, your Mom joined the Clean Plate Club.




We went to Peggy Sue's BBQ with Danny and Kelly, and your Mother ordered chopped brisket, corn and mashed potatoes. When all was said and done, your Mom's plate was SPOTLESS. We're not talking "I ate all the food, and there's some sauce still left on my plate." We're talking Clean. Plate. Club.


Your Mom would have given their dishwasher a run for their money. The only way that plate could have been cleaner would have been if Holly started eating the plate itself. But then we might have had to pay for that.




I think a major growth spurt may be coming very soon, to the dismay of BBQ joints in the greater DFW area.



Dinner was also interesting for another reason: crazy kids in the restaurant.



A couple of families had 3 young boys between them, and those kids were being pretty good for kids at restaurants. By "pretty good," of course, I mean, these root-beer-drunk, sugar high heathons were dumping their food on the floor, talking really loudly and wandering around the restaurant all willy nilly.



In reference to the Lords of the Flies, Kelly said "That'll be you guys soon!"



And, in all honesty, I can't wait! Hopefully you won't get all hopped on root beer all the time, but these things happen!



And, those kids' behavior was way better than the behavior of a couple in relation to their toddler that we witnessed a few days before.



When we were out to a Tex-Mex dinner with your Uncle Joe a few days ago, the family at the table next to us was just letting their little girl toddler wander around. No one was watching her, no one was stopping her from going up to other people's tables and putting touching the salt and pepper shakers, pulling on the table cloths, etc. We plan on teaching you to stay in your chair at a restaurant to avoid these types of displays (and it is possible, Uncle Taff and Aunt April do it with Addison!)



And you'll be thankful for these efforts when you hear what we'll be keeping you from doing. Listen to what happened next with this little girl:



Feeling tired from all that walking around, she decided to lay down on the restaurant floor. On her stomach. She made snow-angels there for a few minutes until someone came by and picked her up. But in being picked up, the little Toddler spilled a whole bag of dry cereal on the floor.



Now here's where we enter bizarro land. About five minutes later, the little girl was on the loose again and, once again, belly flopped on the floor. But this time she was, apparently, hungry. She proceeded to eat the cereal off the floor. Without using her hands.



That's right. She was bobbing for cereal off of a dirty restaurant floor.



With that, she earned herself a membership in the Clean Floor Club, and her parents were none the wiser. That's a club I hope we're all gonna stay out of...but who knows how hungry your mother may get!

Super Smell & The Quest for a Lullabye

Something stinks. And, according to your Mom's renewed super sense of smell, it's still me! After not hearing much about smells for quite some time (probably due to the cold and sinuses blocking that sniffer's super sensibilities), we are now currently experiencing a resurgence in your Mother's acute sense of smell!

The other day I went in for a smooch and Holly notified me that I "smell weird."

"What did you eat?" She asked.

"A slice of pizza and tuna fish." I replied.

"Yup! That's it! That's what it stinks like!"

Okay, admittedly, that snack wasn't my finest culinary hour, and tuna pizza breath would probably offend a regularly-powered nose.

But then yesterday, we were talking after we both got home from work and I was notified again that my breath stank once again. I did have a sandwich for lunch, but no tuna and pizza to speak of.

"You've been eating cloves of garlic again?" she asked.


First of all, I only did that like twice, and secondly, I hadn't done it that day!


But her nose was so sensitive that I was instructed to speak out of the corners of my mouth...like the Ninja Turtles.

Now HIS breath would certainly reek of Pizza and small acquatic organisms.

So, it's entirely possible that I suffer from halitosis. But I seriously doubt it. My mouth is so clean you could eat off of it! I think what we're really dealing with here is pregnancy Super Powers rearing their ugly heads again. First victim: anyone that might not smell like roses 24 hours a day. Namely, me and my breath.

Hopefully side-of-mouth-Ninja-Turtle talking will put that issue to bed.

Speaking of putting things to bed (how was that for a segue?), I started thinking yesterday about what Lullabyes we want to sing to you.

We could sing the Ben Folds Lullabye we heard at his concert (which you seemed to react well to, since you did kick your mother a lot during that concert).




And then, there are tons of Beatles candidates too, including Blackbird (which my old College roommate taught me to play on Guitar), I'm So Tired, Let it Be and Golden Slumbers.



And also a strong candidate is "All the Pretty Little Ponies" which- with a little bit of Hebrew added in- is pretty much the Lullabye Mimi and Pops sang me and Aunt Rebekka when we were growing up.

Ignore the "My Little Ponies" in this video. They are frightening doe-eyed monsters.

I also am quite fond of Simon and Garfunkel's "Sound of Silence," though I don't think it's a lullabye.

But, in an effort to sing that tune to you last night, I came across a very serious, chronic, hereditary illness from which I suffer: Lyric-itis. I inherited it from Mimi (who famously sang the song "You make me so very happy" as "Me so Me so very happy")

In "Away We Go" (that movie we were watching when I felt you kick) this pregnant lady sings a pretty cool lullabye to her niece: Bob Dylan's "Mr. Tambourine Man." SHE KNEW EVERY WORD TO THE SONG off the top of her head! I couldn't even get through one verse of "Sound of Silence" before I started make words up. I couldn't even do "Let it Be" without the song playing along with me! Singing you a Lullabye is gonna be pretty tricky if I dont' know any words to any songs.

So I started compiling a list of songs whose lyrics I do know:

• Boehmian Rhapsody
• Row, Row Your Boat
• Some of "Rapper's Delight"
• Quite a bit of Weird Al's "Yoda"
• Werewolf Bar Mitzvah

Yeah, these will all make terrible Lullabyes. I've got to start memorizing some lyrics!

In any case though, please be sure that after we tuck you in and turn on your nightlight (which your Mom made herself! Check it out below) and BEFORE we start singing you a Lullabye, I will brush my teeth, rinse with Scope and eat a mint- just in case you get your Momma's nose.

Coolest Night Light Ever! Made for you by your Mother! Sleep tight, little guy!