Aiden's 10 Month Birthday

Well its been so long since I've made a post that I really don't remember what exactly Aiden was doing at 10 months!! I'm fairly certain he was still eating pretty good. Bath time is lots of fun (as you can see). He is a master at crawling and is pulling up to standing on everything.

Merry Christmas!

Well we opted to start the family tradition of Christmas morning at the Fink household so we were hoping that Aiden would be as excited as we were. However... he (like everyone warned us) was definitely more interseted in the bows, boxes, and paper than he was in any of the presents inside the wrapping. It was really cute though and we snapped lots of pictures to commemorate the event. Someday when he wonders if we even celebrated that first year we can pull out these pictures and prove we did, in fact, sit around in our pajamas and open gifts... and eat cookies :)

After Christmas morning at our house we headed up to Norwalk to hang out with Nanny and Papa Schimpff. We got a picture in front a beautiful tree (unlike ours which never got decorated this year!) and Aiden made off his more than his fair share of gifts. It was a great day which will probably only get better as the years wear on. I can only hope for many many more happy Christmas celebrations to come.

Who needs all these new presents? I've got a new hat, an old binky and a stinky sock...

Aiden's 9 Month Birthday

He sleeps! We looked and looked for something wrong with Aiden to explain why he wasn't sleeping and in the end it was just acid reflux and some good old sleep training - training him to get up every 2 hours by his parents! The first big step was the Prevacid. Within 8 nights of starting him on it he was only getting up twice at night. So we took the next logical step and cut out one of those two feedings. It took a couple of weeks to get him to agree that he needed to give up the feeding but eventually he saw it our way. We do still need to work on that one last feeding...

Aiden's new party trick: pulling himself up to standing! Yay - one step closer to walking. This too has a story... at his 9 month check up we saw a new pediatrician and she was really worried that Aiden wasn't pulling himself up yet. I had not met anyone else that had a concern about it but of course all it took was that one person to get me worried. So we pulled out the Leap Frog table toy that we bought a couple of months ago. Within two days he was pulling himself up on the toy so that he could play with all the cool buttons!! I was so happy, and Aiden was happy too because he really loves that toy. It is one of the few he plays with every day.

Aiden is eating a bottle really well. He eats five 6-8oz bottles a day. He is also doing really well with solid foods - he eats a breakfast of yogurt, lunch is a jar of food and lots of cheerios, and dinner is 2-3 jars of food and as much solid food as we can get him to eat! Oh and Jason likes to sneak him Hershey's Chocolate Syrup whenever I'm not around...

Mobility!

Aiden is 8 1/2 months old and he finally found the forward gears! He started crawling just a couple of crawls at a time but now he's got it down pat. He seems to only want to crawl for things that aren't necessarily good toys - electrical cords, remote controls, diaper changing supplies, Playstation stuff - so we are alreading redirecting him a lot. But boy is it cute. Its hard to believe that he is finally moving!

Nanny and Papa came and stayed with Aiden while Mommy and Daddy went to the Honda Christmas party. And they brought their new puppy, Frank, with them. Aiden had a great time playing and they are the two cutest little things I ever saw so we had to snap a couple of pictures.

Aiden's 8 Month Birthday

I'd like to say that Aiden started sleeping this month but miracle of all miracles he is sleeping worse now than ever. For the last two weeks he has been getting up ever hour and a half at night. We switched his formula to soy formula and started some Zantac for acid reflux so we'll see how all of these changes pan out. We haven't seen any improvements yet but we're keeping our fingers crossed.

Aiden also got ear tubes this month. At first it was alittle difficult because his left ear tube got clogged with blood from the surgery, however we got it unclogged a couple of days later and he hasn't had an ear infection since. As a matter of fact I don't think he's had a cold since then either...

His newest trick is eating Daddy's hat. Whenever Jason holds him he immediately reaches for his hat and eats the bill. Jason says its hilarious because Aiden sticks his tongue out on the underside of the hat! I wish I could see that!

What a wonderful little boy. Although we complain about him not sleeping I wouldn't trade him for the world. He has really turned into a lot of fun in the last month. He has always been pretty happy but since he's been feeling better he has been all giggles and laughs. Everytime we go to the mall all the women flirt with Aiden and he flirts right back. He laughs constantly and loves to play. He is really fun to play with!

Happy Halloween!

Aiden's first Halloween was fun! His costume was a monkey suit and boy did he love wearing it! I don't think he smiled once while he was all bundled up. He had a look of total defeat on his face. He was just humoring us :)

We spent the evening at Uncle Nicky's house handing out candy. Aiden did trick-or-treat to a couple of houses but he didn't get any candy.

Of course he was just getting over a double ear infection so we had his ears bundled up with an ear warmer Jason wears for snowboarding. I'm sure that added to his enjoyment - he could hardly see!

Aiden's 7 Month Birthday

Happy 7 Month Birthday! Lets get caught up on the biggest month so far! Aiden got two teeth this month! Right around his 6 1/2 month birthday Nanny felt his first tooth and now you can see it pretty well. Right beside the first one (the bottom center tooth on the left side) is his second (the other half of the pair on the right side). Can you see them?

Not only did he get some teeth - he started moving! Do you see his awesome crawling stance above? He has all the motions right but he seems to only go in reverse! If we put a toy in front of him he sees it and still crawls backward to 'get' it. He gets pretty frustrated that he can't get where he wants so I hope he figures out the right forward gear soon! He has even been standing up on his own for a couple of moments when we put him up to the ottoman. He'll be cruising before we know it! I can't believe how quickly they learn so many skills!

He has been refusing to drink from a bottle (except in the middle of the night - of course!) for over a month now but he finally got the hang of the sippy cup! Yesterday he had about 4 ounces of (seriously diluted) juice. I hope this is a skill he decides to use often. He likes to play with it whether he is drinking from it or not.

His appetite is still really good. But we have to hide milk in oatmeal or anything just so we can get him to drink the 20oz a day minimum. He isn't sleeping yet but he seems to be making some improvements - he is only getting up four times a night (instead of every hour and a half) and only eating two of the four times he wakes. The doctor said maybe he'll start sleeping around 10 months - I hope we can make it that long!

He is just getting over another ear infection - it looks like that is going to be a common occurence since both Jason and my dad got lots of ear infections when they were kids. I'm just hoping the antibiotics don't give him thrush again! And the stranger anxiety has set in. Aiden didn't recognize Jason when he got back from a week long business trip to Japan. He makes a very convincing pouty face and then starts crying when strangers get too close.

Aiden's intensity these days is unmatched. I think he was trying to set this rattle on fire with the laserbeams coming out of his eyes! He is definitely trying to figure out everything around him!

He is outgrowing his 12-18 month onesies and pants to we have the 18-24 month stuff ready to go. I think we will probably transition to that size before we hit 8 months.

We'll keep you updated about other cool stuff we do!