Tumbling out of bed

Aiden had his first tumble out of bed last night. He woke up crying at 1:30am...a nightmare, we suspect. Erik got him to go back to sleep pretty quickly. He woke again at 3:30am (these nighttime wakings are VERY rare). This time I went to check on him. He was sitting on the floor next to his bed looking very confused. I put him back in bed and sang him a song, holding his hand. He fell right to sleep as I was singing to him. This morning, he didn't even seem to remember anything. I am amazed that he could fall out of bed past the railing. He must have been sleeping right at the very bottom of the bed. When I check on him at night, he is frequently lying across his bed; it is always so funny to see.

Picking-up toys

I was on the phone when Aiden began talking to himself. He said something to the point of, "I have my bristle blocks out, but I want to play with my Little People. I need to put away my bristle blocks before I take out my Little People." Without any help, he cleaned up his toys and got out the new set. I switched toys again about 15 minutes later. I was amazed and so impressed. Great parenting or fluke? A little of both? :-P

Great sentences

Aiden was playing with his garbage truck toy and action figure. He frequently gets frustrated with putting the action figure into the cab of the truck or trying to put the garbage cans into the loader. Typically, he'll cry out for help, but not really say what he needs help with. This time, he said, verbatim, "I can take the man out of the truck, but I can't put him back in. Can you help me?" I was so impressed, I asked him to repeat himself. He did!!! Wow, langauage develops so fast!

Aiden is growing so fast!

Aiden is doing well and still sleeping in his twin bed. I actually took out the crib today and I'm going to put it up in the nursery. Aiden and I talked about what pictures we were going to put up in his room. He wants airplanes so I'm going to mat some pics this weekend for him. He is so amazing!

Today he came up to me and said, "mama, I can take the man (action figure) out of the garbage truck, but I can't put him back in. Please help me." That is the most coherent and detailed set of sentences I've ever heard him use! I am so amazed!

Aiden's Big Boy Bed

Last week, 2/22/09, Erik put together Aiden's new twin-size bed. Aiden has been excited to look at it and sit on it, but he has not wanted to go to sleep on it. We spent a week just getting used to it. We'd read stories while we sat on it, frequently covered by his new "cars" sheets. Yesterday, however, I began telling him that he was going to sleep on it when he went to bed. At first, when he was going to bed he cried, but within a few seconds he was singing along with the songs I was singing to him. I spent about 20 minutes lying next to him and singing (usually, this is about a 2 minute process). He spent the next 50 minutes talking to his stuffed animals before finally falling asleep (this usually takes under 20 minutes). A few hours later, I went in to check on him and get a picture. As soon as the camera started to go off, Aiden began to sit up and asked, "won't you sit down?"--See the bottom picture. I apologized and told him to go back to sleep, which, thankfully, he did. The top picture is from this morning when he was calling to me, "ma ma, I'm awake!" Today he took his nap in his big boy bed (it only took me a few minutes to get him down this time) and Erik just put him to bed tonight (again, it only took him a few minutes).

I'm expecting and not looking forward to when he decides to climb out of bed on his own. So far, he's treating his bed like the crib. He calls or cries when he's ready to get up. I'm not expecting this to last. Any thoughts on when and how this will happen would be appreciated!

Dinner Blessing

While sitting at dinner, Aiden grabbed Erik and my hands and said, "I want to say a blessing." Erik and I looked at each other and at Aiden and said, "Okay." He held our hands, lowered his head, and squeezed his eyes shut and said, "Thank you for the baby...my baby brother...my big boy...my big boy bed...thank you for my baby brother...Amen" He did this several times. I had just told Aiden an hour or so before this point that I'd ordered him a "big boy bed." Apparently, he's excited both about his bed and his coming baby brother :-)

Airplane No-No

Aiden and I were flying to Minnesota for my Grandpa Molvik's funeral. As Aiden was eating a snack he began pretending that it was an airplane. We commonly do this. Sometimes when we play this game, the "airplane" goes behind the clouds, sometimes it is about to crash and we make sound effects. Well, this particular time, Aiden decided his snack airplane was going to crash. He said in a loud voice several time, on the airplane, "Oh, no the airplane is going to crash!!!" I was mortified. I worry about the white-knuckle fliers and undercover airplane marshals. Thankfully, I was able to distract Aiden from his snack activity and keep him from continuing his announcement!

(our plane landed safely)