Emily & Aaron

Before tennis. Emily totally loves Aaron.

Snoozing on the go

Driving lunch date

While Kyle & Emily were at school, Jeff and I had a lunch date. Aaron too. He enjoyed the avocado and egg from our salad. Oh and he liked driving the car too! 

Aaron swinging 6 months

The weather finally broke from the 100+ degree temperatures we've been having so it was a fine day to go to the park for a bit. Aaron had a good time on the swing, clicking his heels in delight! 

Thinking about crawling

Aaron isn't crawling yet. And that's fine by us! But he can get in the position. He was baited here by his water cup, which he loves, but took his time inching his way there. Fine by us!

Asleep in car

See, I really can pass out in the car now! 

Aaron growing

Same baby, same changing table. My how he has changed!

May 5, 2012 (~2 months)

July 14, 2012 (4 months)

September 29, 2012 (6.5 months)

Feeding time with Emily

As mentioned previously, if you don't feed Aaron fast enough after he gets milk, he can get crazed. Thankfully, Emily is a fabulous sister and loves to feed her baby brother. This is from breakfast when he didn't like that I was getting breakfast ready for Kyle and Emily instead of feeding him. Emily to the rescue!

Aaron 6 months

Aaron's stats at 6 months: 

27.25 inches 75%

16 lb 4 oz 25%

September 29, 2012 (6.5 months)

http://thetwinklesinoureyes.blogspot.com/2012/09/aaron-growing.html

He's still a string bean. They think they may have over measured him last time. Or he's just normalizing since neither Jeff nor I are 7 feet tall and the chances that our progeny will be are very slim. 

He's a busy little guy these days. He's rolling over in both directions. He sits up very well. Not crawling, though he gets up on his knees and elbows so he's got in inkling of the idea. We're not super eager for him to crawl since that makes things more challenging. 

He plays with toys and has a good time. He does, however, like to be entertained more than just playing on his own. He gives hugs and big, wet, drooley open mouth kisses. He seems to be waving at people to greet them though I'm not entirely convinced. 

He babbles, mostly just vowel noises. He can scream though. If you don't feed him his solids fast / soon enough, he can shriek like some sort of crazed, wild banshee. As for food, he has the green light to eat anything other than nuts, honey, sushi, shellfish and straight cow's milk. So he's been pretty much eating what we eat with just those few exceptions. It's amazing how different it is this time around from just 5 years ago. With Kyle and Emily, feeding was such a gradual process. Now it's give them mostly anything. And Aaron sure loves his food. He is a machine. He gets breakfast and dinner solids. He's still getting milk at all feedings (breakfast, lunch, snack, dinner, & pre-bed)

He still sleeps very well at night. A good 12 hours most nights with the rare exception of 11 if we have a later night (like going to bed at 8pm instead of 7pm). He takes 3 naps, though we've gone through a few miserable weeks of the "45 minute intruder" where he woke after 45 minutes of a nap. Apparently that is when the sleep cycle changes over and some kids wake then instead of going into the next level of sleep. But at time of writing this (2+ weeks later) it is getting much better and he's taking a great morning nap of 1.5-2.5 hours; a shorter, but good afternoon nap; and a catnap before dinner like he was doing before the interruption. 

He's also gotten better in the carseat. He can now put himself to sleep in the car whereas before he'd scream his head off instead of just going to sleep. 

He's a smiley, wonderful little boy. He loves his family and gives HUGE smiles when he sees Mommy, Daddy, Kyle or Emily. He loves going to pick up the kids from school and gives Emily big smiles and goes right for Kyle's head to feel his hair to greet him. 

Purry lost his first tooth

Today Kyle lost his first tooth! Congratulations Kyle!! That tooth was hanging by a thread for several days and he wanted to lose it at school so that he could fill in a square on a tooth graph in his classroom. But as it turned out, he managed to lose it outside of school and not even know it, a la Freddy Thresher from the Ready, Freddy series. We were having a snack in the car on the way to karate (and a gooey snack at that since we had just come from Sprouts and their bulk candy barrels of fun) when I handed Kyle a cinnamon gummy bear and noticed a gap in his mouth. I asked him where his tooth was, he felt for it and was surprised and excited for his tooth to be lost. But really lost! He swallowed it without even knowing it! Crazy! So now he is hoping the Tooth Fairy will come tonight and will write her a letter telling her that he swallowed it, but that she doesn't want the tooth should he eventually find it... ;-) 

Chicago

We went to Chicago for a family get together and to meet Karen's new baby. It was a great time for all. 

Kyle wearing a baby hat that we found for the 1 cold day we had there. 

Little Maestro!

Bike riding

Kari, Emily & Aaron

Kyle comforting Aaron

Daddy and baby daddy

Aaron with Aunt Kristin. She used to suck her thumb just like Aaron does with the finger over the nose. As she told Aaron, you need a place to rest your finger and the nose is a perfect place. 

Jumping in the bounce house with Ryan

Aaron pretending to sleep on Grandma. 

Aaron loved petting Olivia. Olivia had other ideas about it. 

On the flight home

On the flight home

Sweet brothers

I know I've said this many times, but Kyle is a wonderful brother to Aaron. It's amazing how at first when he saw Aaron, he was ambivalent and was ready to go after he laid eyes on him. But now, he is the first to comfort him, to greet him, to play with him, to help with him. Here he's giving Aaron a piano lesson. 

Brothers

Reading

During Kyle's tennis lesson, Emily, Aaron and I spent the hour in the library where Emily read him some stories. 

First day of school - 1st grade!

Kyle & Emily started 1st grade today. They were in separate classes to start the year, but on the 3rd day we had them moved to the same classroom. So far so good! 

Festival of Sail

It was the Festival of Sail this weekend. And it was also crazy hot out too. We got to enjoy the many boats that are already in San Diego and others that came in for the event. We went out on a pilot boat for a tour of the harbor. It was pretty cool to see the city from the water and learn about the city skyline being known as "the Toolbox" where each building represents a different tool.

First some breakfast

On the boat. The waves put Aaron to sleep. 

Some shave ice to cool off

Still asleep

Second stripe

Kyle got his second stripe in karate today. He was very proud to accomplish the requirements for the second yellow stripe. He works hard at karate and loves to practice the katas at home. And his sensei is a wonderful teacher. 

I love this video of Kyle and Sensei Lynne doing the chops together

Kyle & Sensei Lynne

Aaron's Playdate

Well, actually he had a babysitter who has a baby 2 weeks younger than him so he had a fun time playing with his friend W.

Toy commander

Jeff has taught the kids his favorite video game - Toy Commander. He used to play this game with his Dukies and has been playing it this week with Clark in town. Kyle has been hot to play it with them this week and so Jeff taught both Kyle and Emily how to play. And Aaron was very keen on watching them play too. So here is Jeff with his little proteges playing a rousing game of Toy Commander. Jeff couldn't be happier!

Just cute

Just a cute pictures

Hard at work

Aaron has discovered screens. He checks out the tv when it is on and seems intrigued by what is going on. And he also checks out the computer screen. We put on the Baby Giggles game for him that Kyle and Emily played when they were young. You can basically hit anything on the keyboard and something happens on the screen. Aaron didn't quite get that relationship - he's got plenty of time - but seemed somewhat amused by the screen. 

Toes or Toys...

Aaron has discovered his toes. He loves that he can get them in his mouth too.

He's conflicted here. He can now reach the dangling toys on his bouncy seat, but his toes are just so tempting... Toes in one hand, toys in another.

Yummmmm toes...

Activity box

Aaron had fun playing with the activity box today. Kyle and Emily also loved playing with this when they were babies as well. 

First Tooth!

Aaron turned 5 months old today. As many a parent before me has remarked, it's hard to believe 5 months can go by so quickly!

On top of that, Aaron got his first tooth today! You can see it just breaking through his gum. Funny thing is that at his 4 month check up which actually occurred at 4.5 months, I asked the pediatrician if he was teething since he was drooling everywhere and putting things in his mouth. She said he was nowhere near teething... 2 weeks later, we know better or "nowhere near teething" actually only means a week away... But really what does that matter. It was just a surprise seeing and feeling that little whitish, clear dagger starting to poke out of his gums. And perhaps gives him an excuse for poor napping yesterday on Saturday. Gotta love hindsight.

The nub of his tooth - very hard to see, but his lower left tooth is a little clear / white nub stabbing through his gums. 

The scoop on Aaron at 5 months

So at 5 months, he's 27 inches and 14 pounds 10 ounces (well those are 4 month stats). He's very long and reasonably lean, though he does have some good baby leg rolls. He reaches intentionally for many things. He will grab things and put them in his mouth. Everything goes in his mouth. He found his toes the other day and enjoys sucking on his big toe. Guess a baby will teeth on whatever he can get! 

He sleeps well at night, giving us 12 hours of sleep. He takes 3 naps a day - a morning, afternoon and early evening nap. The morning and afternoon are usually decent, about 1.5-2 hours. The early evening one is hit or miss and is about an hour at most. His nap times sure do fly by though. Just when I think I can get something done, the time is up. 

He has certainly found his voice and likes to make lots of noises and has also found his scream. Awesome. But he will chatter to himself in his crib sometimes when he should be sleeping. Or at 5am if he rolls over and sees his monkey mobile. A quick flip over to his stomach typically fixes that. 

He rolls from stomach to back (the easier of the two directions). He has rolled from back to stomach just a handful of times, but seems to be getting the idea that he can do it. He's just not an expert at it and doesn't quite yet see rolling as a means of getting around. He loves sleeping on his stomach and scoots to a corner of the crib. He seems to like having his head cradled in the corner. Put him on his back to sleep and he is a very unhappy baby. Ask him to sleep in his carseat and that takes some effort on his part. We think he just doesn't know how to turn off because he doesn't want to miss out on anything - very much like Kyle. At least with sleeping on his stomach, he doesn't have as much stimulation in front of his eyes. 

He recognizes each of us and really loves his brother and sister. Kyle greets him every morning as a natural a part of his morning as brushing teeth. Emily loves to soothe Aaron and is sweet with him always. Aaron gives each of them sweet smiles aplenty throughout the day. But he does get overwhelmed at times and just needs to hang out in his exersaucer (aka baby jail) and do his own thing. 

He is still nursing, but seems very interested in our food. He has sucked on watermelon, apple and cucumber and seemed to enjoy those. We are aiming to wait until 6 months for his first solids ingested. Hopefully we can make it that long, but only time will tell.

Some pretty amazing gains in just 5 months. Crazy how babies develop so many different skills and grow just so fast! It really is fun to see life unfold right before our eyes.