Week 12 Belly Shot & Video Close-up

Daughter,

Through the wonders of modern technology, I can show you this incredible video footage of you! You're only 3 inches from top of head to tip of toe, but you're already a handful, jumping and headbutting all over the place.



We loved seeing you on the big screen: your darling little face, cute feet and active nature. It's only made us more excited to see you in a few short months!

After seeing you from the sonogram, it's clear what we're looking at when we see you bumpin' up your Mom's belly on the outside.
You're growing, and your Mom's showing.

We're so excited to see our growing daughter, who is so beautiful already!

Profile of a 12 Week Weinstein

At 12 weeks and 1 day along, your mom, Aunt Rebekka and I got to see you up close and personal for the first time. You were bouncing all around your Mom's womb. We saw you scratch your feet and eat your toes, you got comfortable and bounced all around. You tossed and turned and slid all over the place.

We got to see your beautiful face:


We got to see you in your entire cuteness:

And even a close up on your cute little toes.Here's the full set of a very active photo session for a very active little girl.

Oh, did I say little girl?

That's right! with 98% certainty, the Doctor happily told us- when we asked- that we were having a daughter!!!!!!!!!!

We are so excited to have a daughter and, little girl, Aidan is psyched to have a little sister. Alright, he's still a bit confused, but we know he will love you the moment he sees you.

You are 12 weeks old, and your vital systems are almost done developing. You are the size of a plum, and we are just plum happy!

A perfect little girl. You have already taken our breath away.

Movie Night

Pop some popcorn and get comfortable.

Your Uncle BJ made this magnificent movie from our day at the arboretum.

Your Mom and I got teary eyed just watching it...considering BJ aimed to make us cry, he did a great job!

Spring time for Aidan, a story in pictures

Spring is in the air! And you're loving every second of it, and growing older and more adventurous with every day. You're really learning the ropes of this whole two-year-old experience.

This spring so far we've played a lot with Brady, communed with nature and the garden hose...buck naked, become very interested in bugs and garden snakes and other cool stuff in our backyard, and become quite taken with all things art.

You've even learned to say your favorite color and now, when asked, you tell us that your favorite color is "yell!"

So, here's an impromptu awful ode to spring:

The sun sets later, so it's evenings at the park.

The weather's nice, so you're naked in the yard.

The clean up's pretty easy...so it's finger painting if you're able.

And you're becoming a big boy now, so you take your meals at the table.

11 Week Picture

Here's your Mom at 11 weeks with Aidan:

And now with you!
We started shooting at 8 weeks with Aidan, but this pregnancy's been a bit rougher on your Mom than Aidan's. Which is another reason why I'm predicting you're a girl! So, Little one, I finally got your Mom to take a her first belly picture with you!

Actually, you helped too! Your Mom is finally starting to feel a little better, and was up for being photographed. In fact, today, she said she was upstairs painting for the first time in 6 weeks...the first tri-mester had previously made painting into a potential puking; but now she's up and at 'em!

So here you are, a little belly bump goes a long way toward showing how far we've all come in these 11 weeks!

Oh, that little ragamuffin by your Mommy's feet in both pictures is Toby. He'll be one of your dogs...and he'll always be by your side.

Cherry Pie, Being Seen, Toddler Beds, Feeling Green

Children,

Your mother's cravings continue to amaze. The other night she took a big breath in and said 'MMM...cherry pie!' I have no clue what she was smelling because I was making noodles. The good news is though, even though the first trimester blues has your Mom feeling a little green, she's feeling a little better.

She actually went to the store to get her own late-night craving. Also, the instructions were too complicated for me to follow: "cherry pie that is like flaky on top but not too thick and is ready instantly."

She found Mrs. Smith.

And Mrs. Smith treated your Mommy very well.
You might be wondering where your Mom is putting all this food...well, it's a lot of effort to build a new little Weinstein, so that's where it's headed.

And I do declare, your Mom is 'showing' already! Check it out: Here is the last picture of her - at week 10.5 - with her long hair.

This is going to be a rough summer. We're already in the high 80s and your Mom just couldn't take the heat anymore. So she chopped her hair off. I couldn't be a posed picture for the "after" view, but you'll notice in the following pictures that her hair is much shorter. I'm working on getting your Mom to pose for the belly pictures we did during Aidan's pregnancy. But every time I ask her to take a picture, she gets a little more green...you'll understand more later. But don't worry: we're starting tonight, with Week 11.



Okay, I'm going on the record here: I'm thinking that you, little one, are going to be Aidan's little SISTER. I'm officially thinking that you're going to be a girl. The cravings, the nausea, the way she's carrying you are all so much different that with you, Aidan.

Plus the Chinese Gender calculator predictor nonsense says you're a girl, little one. But it also predicted Aidan would be a girl. And he's definitely not. He's a boy.

And in fact, this weekend, Aidan, you got to take another big step toward being a big boy!

We did some re-arranging and bed trading and wound up with a toddler bed. You were super excited by this development and, after you got over being upset that we weren't going to let you just play on the wooden frame and that you couldn't lift the mattress off yourself (and no one was going to help you do it, despite your multiple requests for "halp...halp"), you really liked your bed. You stand on it to look out the window, you crawl up on it to sit. You brought some snacks up on it to eat while relaxing. And you called it "bed."

With this kind of reaction to the toddler bed, we thought we'd give napping in it a try.

So we tucked you in and sang to you as usual, and you were just really excited to be in the toddler bed.

I gotta be honest, I had my doubts that you, such an excited little boy, would fall asleep on the toddler bed. But, low and behold, you took a good, long 1.5 hour nap on your big boy bed.
Your Mom and I were so proud of you. But, of course, not being caged in a crib makes for an eventful time when you woke up. Your Mom was napping while I was outside doing yard work with Pops. Your Mom said she awoke with a start when she heard your familiar loud-stomping through the house. You just got up, crawled out of bed and decided to go to the living room and check out what was going on out the window. I guess you had places to go! You're getting so grown up, Aidan; but it's a good thing you've still go lots of room to grow.

And speaking of growth, little one, you are now 11 weeks along and you're the size of a LIME! (no wonder your Mom's feeling green!) I can hardly remember when it was lime time for you, Aidan!

Your head is the same size as you body, and your fingers and toes are no longer webbed. You're working on growing hair follicles, tooth buds, and nail beds. That sounds like a lot of work indeed. No wonder your Mom's a bit soured on making lime-ade out of these limes. She's feeling better, but sometimes, Pregnant Mommy feels so green that she says hilarious things.

The best line of the pregnancy thus far happened in our kitchen. I'm trying to have a conversation with your Mom, asking her question after question...with no response. Finally I stop and realize I'm talking to myself and say..."hello?"

Your mom looks up at me, lookin' pretty green and says "answering questions makes me sick."

We eventually had a great laugh over that one, and a great weekend playing outside with you Aidan, and watching you grow inside, Little One.

So, a week of hair cuts, cherry pies, new beds, new aversions (questions...who knew?) were just what the doctor ordered.

We've got a big boy and a bitty baby bump on our hands; and we're loving every second of it. As long as pie or strawberries and nutella or mangos or almond milk are readily and as long as no body ends a sentence with a question mark.

Any questions?

Clever/Funny Boy: A Four-Part Expose

Aidan,

You are making some stellar associations and doing some great imaginative play as of late. Sometimes, they amaze us, sometimes they crack us up (because, c'mon, some of this stuff is funny to an adult); but all in all, they just show how fast your brain is working and continually learning and re-assessing the world around you.

Disappearing Act

A few weeks ago, when you had a double ear infection and bronchitis, we had to give you medicine via oral syringe three times a day. This stuff must taste horrible...because you hated it.

At first you fought us...that didn't work.

Then you thought you could cry your way out of it. That also didn't work.

Then you adapted and tried something more clever. You kept your raspberry motor running the whole time, so anything that entered your mouth would be immediately spit out. That also didn't work...babies gotta breathe.

So, you figured out the ultimate solution: if you could just disappear, then we wouldn't be able to see you and we couldn't give you your meds! But how to make oneself disappear...oh, that's an easy one!

When you saw your Mom or I approaching with the antibiotics in hand, you immediately covered your face with your hands! And, as an avid player of peekaboo, you know that when the hands go up, Aidan disappears!!! Cute, clever, funny and very smart of you. Unfortunately, that trick didn't work either. But, good news: the ear infections are gone (and so are the antibiotics).

Under The Sea

Back track a little: your vocabulary is growing day by day, but sometimes there are easier ways for you to talk to us than use your words. Most of this creativity comes out when you request a song for us to play on the iPod.






When your arm reaches to the sky dramatically and you say 'Mama', you want to hear the Muppets sing 'Bohemian Rhapsody.'

When you used to say 'Ha Ha,' you wanted to hear "You've got a friend in me" from Toy Story (Because 'ha ha' meant Woody at that point.)

"B" means you want the Sesame Street classic Beatles spoof, "Letter B."

When you trumpet like an elephant, you want to hear the elephant march from the Jungle book.

Your song-du-jour for a while was this little ditty from "the Little Mermaid." (at this point you and your Mom had just watched the Little Mermaid, and you loved it!)



You request this song by conducting a bit with your hands and singing in a high voice "Hoo hoo ho ho." Under the sea entertainment at its finest

Okay, flash forward to last weekend. We took you to the Dallas Children's Aquarium, and we walk into the door into a magical world where we're seemingly underwater. Fish surround you in big tanks and your first reaction was to sing The Daughters of Triton, "Hoo hoo ho ho!" And they say that the seaweed's greener in somebody else's lake...

In the Bathroom, by the sink, on the toothbrush...

Another amazing feat of cleverness that has just been cracking us up is your budding skill set as a detective. You're finding clues everywhere!

Now, this post is really making us sound like parents of the year because I'm talking about all these movies and shows that you watch. But, give us a break! Your Mom's pretty much been sick 24/7 since week 4 of your baby sister or brother's journey! So, at any rate, lately you've been really in to Blues Clues. I'm really happy about this development, actually, because it's a pretty educational show and it does for attention spans what lying does for Pinnochio's nose..that is, makes it longer. I'm so ADD from my Sesame Street-riddled past that I could hardly watch the show at all. Plus Steve's pleated khakis are gross. But, the issue was that you didn't want to watch it either. It was either too slow, or too advanced or something. But, around when you turned two, you actually requested to watch this show. You saw Blue, the dog, and said 'arf arf arf!' So, we watched it, and you loved it.

In the show, the dog leaves her blue paw prints on items...these are clues. Then pleated-pant Steve solves a mystery based on these clues. Not a scary mystery like "who stole the mummy's emerald scepter?" But a more cool mystery like 'what song does Blue want to sing?'

Any way, so you've been a fan of Blue's Clues for a few weeks. You even request the show by name" "bloo cloo." And then, all of a sudden, while your Mommy and you were brushing your teeth one morning with your Snoopy Tooth brush you started saying "cloo! cloo! cloo!" It took your Mom a minute, but then she saw what you saw: right there on your toothbrush were Snoopy's paw prints! And of course, paw prints are clues!

Then you started seeing 'clues' everywhere: on paw printed washcloths, and towels and t-shirts. And you'd tell us: cloo! cloo! Cloo!

You even started pointing out semi-clues. The apple logo on the back of someone's iPhone? Close enough! It's a cloo too!

We are tickled pink by this development. You're so smart and clever, and unintentionally funny too; and we couldn't be more proud of our budding detective. You even like to try to draw a clue on your MagnaDoodle with Mommy's and Daddy's help! We even play a little "Blue's Clues" ourselves from time to time, involving a crudely crafted clue on a piece of construction paper that materializes from time to time!

Do Eat the Pictures

Okay, okay, final bit of bragging about my clever, funny, creative boy.

We've been encouraging you to stop and smell the flowers for a long time. You do this quite well with real flowers all the time.

A while ago, I can't quite remember when, you started smelling flowers in books. I think it must've been that interactive sensation, "Pat the Bunny," that originally encouraged this type of imaginative engagement with literature. Now you smell the flowers whenever the appear in books, even if they don't actually smell.

For Valentine's Day, your Aunt Sham gave you a cute Valentine shaped like an ice cream cone. What's a kid to do but lick it? We know you're pretending because, after the first lick, the jig is up that it's not really a sugary treat. But you kept on licking.

Now, to be honest, I can't remember which came first the Valentine or the about-to-be-described behavior, but they go hand in hand...or tongue in mouth.

When reading "The Very Hungry Caterpillar," you used to name all the foods. Now, in addition, you help yourself to tasting all the foods too!

When you come to this page, which is now pretty much the first page you flip to and the only page worth eating... I mean reading, you take your time and lick, pretend eat (nom nom nom) and chew up all of the foods.

Did you try the watermelon today?

"Pop!" you say, before trying the lovely lolly.

Mmm...pickle.

This, as you can imagine, is hilarious, endearing and just plain awesome.

I just hope you don't get a paper cut on your tongue.

One of your other favorite books has no edibles in it, but you also started to interact with that one too. In "Hello, Van Gogh," the other night you decided to greet Van Gogh's Landlady in a very romantic way:

You planted kiss after kiss after kiss on this painting, while your Mom and I beamed with pride.

You truly are a book lover.

Between the books and the clues, the singing and the hiding, you are just wowing us around every turn. You're creative, you're making connections, you're hilarious and you're aware of so much. You're melting our hearts...and our faces!

You're Aidan at almost 25 months...and we couldn't be more proud!