Happy Birthday Aidan

I waited a long time to have Aidan. We had been trying for over 18 months to get pregnant. Plus all the years before I was married and the nine months I actually carried him it seemed like forever. So when I was 37ish weeks my friend Caity had her baby 5 weeks early. That week I decided to take Friday off, go to my Dr. appointment with Matt and get some last minute stuff done. At my Dr. appointment she said she wouldn't check me until the next week unless I wanted her too. Thinking of Caity, I said "check me". She jokingly said, "let's hope for 4". Then she said, "you are 4! I was just kidding, but you really are 4. I stripped your membrane. See you this weekend. But try not to make it Saturday night I have theater tickets."

Well, of course we were surprised. We went to Walmart to get the oil changed and get some baby things we didn't have yet. I was having a contraction here and there, but nothing serious. Then I went home and cleaned and set up baby stuff and called my family and friends. Then around 7 pm Matt left to go get us dinner. I remember having a contraction, laying down in the bed and looking at the clock. 7 on the nose. My Dad and Pam stopped by with a pack n play for us and my Dad and Matt gave me a blessing. I was continuing to have contractions, but they were regular in strength or length so we waited. Just as Matt was finishing putting our stroller together, I felt something weird and decided to head to the hospital.

I won't go into all of the details. I will say that with almost every contraction I managed to get to pushes in. My epidural only work on half my body. I still think I should send a note to Dr. "not so feel good" and apologize for my death stares. I kept my eyes closed most of the time and every time I opened them there were more and more staff in the room. I know my mom and Matt stood by my bedside and Beth was behind the staff at the back of the room. Every now and then I would yell to her about something. I remember one time I opened my eyes and there was an intern that was way to good looking to be assisting in the birth so I just closed my eyes again.

When Aidan was finally born they put him on my chest (which I thought I wanted). Then I looked at him and thought "wow" and "yeah I am not kissing him. He is covered in yuck". At that point I was a little worried about my maternal instincts. I mean look at this: (viewer discretion is advised)

But here is a better picture and isn't he just adorable. By this time my maternal instinct had kicked in.

Here are just a few things that I come to love about Aidan in the last year.

His vocabulary has just exploded. He now tries to say everything we do. Which has proved to be a wake up call for me. For a while he picked up on my "dingus". For some reason it didn't sound like anything coming out of my mouth, but when I heard him yelling at a toy and calling it dingus I was not happy.

He has a wonderful imagination and I love to listen to him play with his toys. Just recently he has begun to give voice to his toys. They argue and yell for help and last night Thomas was having trouble sleeping. Poor Aidan he tried to console him and then brought him to me to hold for awhile. I guess he isn't ready for parenthood yet.

He loves to have books read to him and he really loves the library. But he also loves to read books to me or to himself.
That was John Grisham. Most of the time he sticks to picture books.

He is making friends. He really looks forward to having people over and going to nursery and playgroup. He even told me he wanted to marry his friend Hannah. (that was after he found out he couldn't marry Daddy or his cousin Helena)

His very best friend is Savannah. I am so glad she came back. On the morning of his birthday we were laying in bed and I said "I want to sing you happy birthday". Then Savannah jumped up and I said, "I think Savannah wants to too." So I started singing. About half way through he looked at Savannah and said, "Come on Savannah. Sing!" As though she would actually break into song.

Last night we had to give her bath because the neighbor cat sprayed her. (that will be another post). Anyway, Aidan was yelling through the door, "It's okay. It's just a bath. You'll be fine Savannah." Then he went to the closet and got her a "nice" towel for when she got out. Once out, the soaking kitty went behind a chair to lick herself dry. While she was doing that Aidan got out a Curious George book to read to her.

And finally, for his birthday I was just enough on the ball to send in a picture and message and to Sprout. Go to sproutonline.com to see why I did not make a birthday card. Anyway, of the many choices they had he made it on TV. Sorry for the poor quality. I had no idea how to get it off of DVR onto the computer. Also sorry for the excited Aidan. This was only the 10th time he had seen it.