Aiden's first solid foods

(from the jojos archive)

The next installment in my series of soon-to-be-award-winning movie shorts: the first solid foods, with a little help from Ernie & Bert.

Christmas in NC

(from the jojos archive)

I hope we haven't lost all of our audience from negligence of this sight. I'll try and remember what has gone on in the life of Aiden this month. In early December we resorted to letting Aiden cry to sleep. The important part is not the crying but the falling asleep without us helping. The only way we could let him do that is to let him cry it out. It was awful and I don't feel like going into the details, but it worked. Nonna was here and helped us get through the first few nights of crying. He is still swaddled when he sleeps and he still needs the pacifier to fall asleep but now we can put him down drowsy and 2 out of 3 times he falls asleep without a fuss. Even when he does fuss its not the drawn out hours of rocking him to sleep it used to be. Now when he wakes up we just have to pop the pacifier back in his mouth to have him back to sleep. He has also moved to his own crib in the nursery. This helps Jon sleep much better. I am still up making trips to the nursery but it's not really any different than before. Now we can get ready for bed without tiptoeing around the co-sleeper trying not to wake him. Soon we will be getting an evening sitter and actually going out for dinner without him!
Aiden's first Christmas was at the beach in NC. We rented a house near Wilmington for 10 days with Grand-Dadgle, Grammy Gayla, and Uncle Chris. Chris swears Aiden is the first baby to not immediately start screaming in his arms. We bought a tree at Food Lion and decorated it with popcorn, cranberries, and tinfoil. Aiden enjoyed ripping open the packages and shoving the paper in his mouth. That was more interesting to him than what was inside the boxes. It was cold and windy most of the time we were there, but we had the beach to ourselves and the house was comfortable. Jon has this way of getting Aiden worked up and ticklish so that he goes into a giggle fit. It's the funniest thing ever!
Aiden is getting close to being able to sit up on his own. He gets on his belly and swims and grunts and tries to crawl. He makes raspberry sounds most of his waking hours. He is drooling like crazy. We keep thinking that first tooth is about to appear but I've been saying that since before Thanksgiving. Jon was making squash soup and Aiden was eyeing the pureed squash so I gave him a few scoops with my finger. Boy did he get excited! A few days later I gave him a bit of watered down sweet potato and he loved that too. Now we have started giving him a bit of oat cereal each day and I’ll probably start adding some other foods in once we talk to the pediatrician next week. Here comes the end of the innocent breastfed baby poops!

New photos at the December ofoto link.

December Pictures

(from the jojos archive)

check 'em out on ofoto.

Warning: jumper causes excess drool

(from the jojos archive)

Aiden is now 16lbs and 26 ½ inches long. He grew and inch and a half in November and only gained a pound so our son is on his way to being long and thin like his parents. He is wearing clothes mostly labeled 9 months, which seems ridiculous. But on the plane to B-ham we were sitting behind a baby who was the same size as Aiden. We found out he was 9 months old- so who knows.
He loves his doorway jumper and laughs like a crazy guy when he is in it. Yesterday he figured out the fun of peek-a-boo and made me laugh so hard at his laughing that I cried! Jon just sat there smiling and declared that Aiden inherited my ability to have a laughing fit for no apparent reason. He is rolling like a pro. Only to his right and only back to front. But he's good at it!
He has also become a Nuk-aholic. Right after we get rid of the nighttime swaddling, we will have to start working on removing the pacifier from his life. When it falls out in his sleep we have to quickly replace it to keep him sleeping. Bad habits. We haven't kept up with giving him bottles and now he won't take one anymore. I am the only one who has had success recently and if he will only take it from me it sorta defeats the purpose. I got a sippy cup that we have been giving him with breast milk in it. He seems to like waving it around and gumming on the spout but I'm not sure how much he is actually swallowing. It"s a start though and at least he is not screaming as we practice. He seems to like holding it himself better than being fed. I can already hear him saying, "ME do dat!"

Movie & more pictures

(from the jojos archive)

Hello everyone. Another movie for your viewing pleasure: Aiden's mad new rolling over skillz. word. We've also posted more pictures in the November Ofoto album. Enjoy!"

Thanksgiving

(from the jojos archive)

On Jon's first Thanksgiving there was a picture taken of him next to the turkey. He was about 3 weeks old and the turkey was bigger. We re-created that shot with Aiden. The turkey was huge and still out weighed him at 4 months.