And We're Back

We're back from Tennessee, and Christmas was.........interesting? On Wednesday night I got sick, and by sick I mean throwing up every 30 minutes. Simultaneously, Aidan was getting sick in the same way. Heather got sick later that night. It lasted about 12 hours for us. Today was Aidan's first day of not getting sick. He couldn't keep much down and he lived off of baby gatorade for a few days.

Aidan was so pathetic, he would lay on us and just sort of moan. On the bright side, Aidan would lay on us. If he tried to walk he would look like Frankenstein's monster and wobble around eventually falling. He ended up losing about a pound, which looks like 20. Again, pathetic.

April and Ali braved infection and brought their families up. Right now the sickness(some have called it the plague) seems to be working it's way through April's side. Sorry!

Other than that, we had a fantastic time. And as always Gary and Ann were great hosts and we owe them a carpet cleaning.

This is a video of Aidan before he got sick. I'm taking suggestions for what else we can teach him to put on his head. I'm serious, this took him 5 minutes to learn.

10 Months!

One of Aidan's new favorite games is to lift up my shirt and stick his finger in my belly button. He really gets a kick out of it if I move my stomach so it looks like his finger is getting eaten. There will NOT be any videos or pictures of this act. If you need a visual, think of the sand monster in Return of the Jedi.

He turned 10 months old on Friday, it's strange to think about him creeping up on a year. Heather and I went out last night and our friend Rashan watched Aidan. Thanks.

I hope everyone has a happy holiday season. See you in the New Year!

Mark is back from Asia.
10 month old remote picture!

To show that having Aidan isn't all fun and cute, this is his throw-up in my hat.

This video isn't remarkable and similar to another one. You can tell by my voice that I missed something pretty cool. My bad.

Aidan is 10 months tomorrow, and those pictures will be posted over the weekend.

We had to take Aidan to the doctor's for a bad case of diaper rash. Poor guy. The cream we got at the pharmacy was $275 without insurance, $30 with. The guy in front of me had to have his surgeon call his insurance company because the company needed an explanation from the surgeon why he prescribed a certain medicine instead of what the insurance company wanted to pay for. To quote General McAuliffe, "Nuts!"

We leave for Christmas in Tennessee in a few days and we're very excited.

Random Pictures

Bedtime. Notice Aidan's little gut.
This is a picture of Aidan's crib. If you can't tell, the wood has worn off from where Aidan has been gnawing, and the other side looks the exact same.

If he wasn't so cute he'd look like a Gremlin.

He's got little piranha teeth. Seriously, it hurts when he bites.

Aidan Eats His Puffs

My dad was in town over the weekend and took us out for steaks. Aidan got puffs. Actually, the video is from tonight. Remember when he refused his puffs? I missed the stage when he was still wary of them but ate his puffs anyway. Now he does this......

What We've Learned

Aidan had his nine and a half month check-up yesterday. He's a healthy boy.

I'm going to use this post to show(in some instances with pictures) what we've learned about Aidan.

First, we learned strangers think Aidan is a girl. This is going against my idea of him being a linebacker for Penn State, or the dynamic central midfielder America has been lacking. Everyone that talked to us in the airports called him "she," and at the doctor's office yesterday it happened again. Not sure what to do about this.

When Mark and I were growing up we couldn't talk about Christmas until we saw Santa at the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade in NYC(on tv). Heather's been in the Christmas mood since Labor Day. We saw Santa and learned Aidan is ready for Christmas.

We learned Aidan is slightly larger than our 22 pound turkey.
We also learned, that like the Griswald's, Aidan wanted to cut down his own tree.

We learned that Aidan looks funny with just his socks on his legs.

We learned that Aidan is a flirt, and my friends seemed to like him.

Back from Oklahoma

We're back from Oklahoma. It was a fantastic trip, I think Aidan completely charmed my parents. In fact, I'm now behind my mom(and Heather) as Aidan's favorite. It may have something to do with the fact that if Aidan made a peep while napping Grannie would make sure to pick him up and comfort him.

Aidan did great on the flights except for the projectile vomiting on the way out. That was fun.

There will be plenty of Thanksgiving pictures, only one in this group. Aidan decided to help with cooking.
You can't tell here, but he's got two new teeth coming in on the bottom. 4 on top, 4 on bottom.

It's hat season again and this might be my favorite.

Aidan celebrated a Big Ten title a few weekends ago. And if anyone comments on the Big Ten being a weak conference I will end you.

Aidan now gets rides around the house.

9 Months

Aidan turned 9 months old today. We had a doctors appointment, but it was canceled at the last minute which means there are no new stats to share.

Some random thoughts:
*Grandpa Joe is winning the "comments" award. Well done.
*With Aidan closing in on a year(at light speed it seems like), I've been wondering how long I should keep the blog going. Thoughts? I love doing it, and I think it's good for the Grandparents and other relatives and friends.
*Mark stopped over for dinner on Sunday. We're heading to Oklahoma for Thanksgiving, but Mark will be in Asia. That's what happens when you participate in some winning campaigns this fall. Actually, he's in the 10th hour of a 14 hour flight. He'll be making stops in Thailand, Cambodia, and Nepal.
*What was for dinner? Chili. But for those of you who attended Edmond public schools it was frito pie, however, we didn't include the cinnamon rolls.

I think Aidan is looking at Mark, not George.
This could have been election night.
The remote picture!

From now on this might be the way the picture is taken. Getting the above picture was too much work.
Or not.

Since it's almost Thanksgiving I thought I would post the Halloween pictures. Aidan wasn't in a great mood that night, thus the lack of "quality" pictures.

I told the guards that the new Secretary of State was here, they didn't believe me.

So we went and hung out with the homeless people in Lafayette park.

Tennessee

We were in Tennessee for the long weekend. Everyone else was there too. All told, when we were all in the same room there were a total of 12 people, 8 adults, 4 little ones varying in ages. Gary and Ann must be exhausted.

Aidan can walk around the room now as long as he has something to balance on. He's making progress in taking little steps without an object to balance on, I'll try and get footage.

If he's upset now, and Heather is in the room nothing can calm him down except being held by Heather, including me. He actually reaches for her. It kind of makes me feel bad, but then when he wakes up from a nap and Heather brings him downstairs and he sees me his entire face lights up. It makes me feel like there's a rainbow in the room with a pot of gold while kittens are playing on clouds and I'm holding a bag of Doritos. Of course, when Heather gets home from work he squeals and speed crawls over to her.

And if anyone is wondering if having an 8 month old helps when your favorite team in the entire world loses a game that they shouldn't....I'm not sure. It certainly doesn't hurt, but he had no idea why I was in a bad mood for 24 hours. But then he smiled at me when he woke up and I thought the Iowa game was in a week. Sorry Gary and Ann, but I'm never watching a Penn State game at your house again. Ok, that depends.

Sorry, long post, on to the pictures.

Not sure who's happier. One of the few quiet moments.

I sometimes think Aidan thinks Heather's sisters are Heather.

This was after his cousin Lily ran away with a toy he wanted, and he couldn't keep up.

Election Night

Since it's election night, I'll give you an update through bullet points.
*Aidan stands now without help. However, he still needs help getting up.
*He's eating puffs and Cheerios...finally. Sometimes, he can't find the item in his hands. It's hilarious.
*Aidan believes it's funny when he pulls Heather's hair.
*His flu shots are updated.
*Halloween was fun, pictures are coming.

It's been awhile since a big eyed Aidan picture.
Yep.

Thank goodness it's not Pepsi.

He climbed into this position, and is able to balance himself there for a long time.

This is taken from Heather's cell phone this morning at our voting station. I've stayed away from politics on this blog, but I'm pretty sure everyone knows where I stand. All I'm going to say is that I'm thrilled in the first year of my son's life I get to vote for the first African-American candidate for president of the United States. Hopefully, when Aidan has children this choice will no longer be something to.....blog about. I hope everyone voted. We should be thankful we get to.

Aidan's Close-Up

I'm still learning how to edit these videos, there's only a portion of the video that's entertaining. Over the next few days I should have some Halloween pictures up.

Random Photos

Aidan's sort of like a puppy now. He knows his name, he's cuddly, he slobbers and he follows you around the house. This is one of my new favorite things. For instance, if he's playing in the kitchen, we're able to get him to follow us out. Also, it makes me feel like a dad because I can tell him what to do and he does it! Just wait, I know.

Here's Aidan with his Great Grandmother.
Four generations of Waners, and only one sock.

This is last week when he was all bundled up.

8 month remote picture. To us, he looks like a little boy.

He's almost able to drink out of his sippy-cup without help. He bites it when he's not drinking, see, just like a puppy.

Back in Business

Instead of majoring in ancient history I should have learned how to fix cameras. We got a new camera.

As I said in my last post, Aidan has been a lot of fun lately. We took him down to the Mall this weekend and watched him try to eat grass. I'm a little behind in getting some photos up. There are a couple from Nanticoke I still want to post and yesterday Aidan turned 8 months old so we all know what that means, a remote picture is on the way.

This is the last photo taken with our old camera. He didn't find anything good in there.
He wasn't sure about being bundled up.
I know where Aidan gets his "tail" from.
We didn't quit make it to the Capitol.
If he ever becomes a politician he'll have the comb-over down.