Happy Birthday Heather

Heather turned 29 today, and I think she had a great birthday. As I said in my card to her, it's a lot of fun having a little one running around on your birthday. She said he's the best gift ever which made me feel much better about my gift to her.

We also laughed because we're sitting down to watch Mamma Mia the movie and thought one day Aidan will laugh at us for being "square."

Mr. Brian stopped by last weekend for a visit.
The places you'll go.

Let me out!

Welcome home Dad.

Happy Birthday Mom! Notice Aidan now holding his bottle. It'll be a sad day when he no longer lets us hold him during bottle time.

11 Months

11 months came and went.

Aidan has become much more comfortable with his shoes. We had him walking outside yesterday. It's the first time I've been worried about the street outside our place. The first of many times, I'm sure.

For some reason, I'm having a difficult time of thinking of things that Aidan's been doing. He's pretty much like a real person, any questions I can answer? He understands words now, and is starting to test us when we say no. It's exhausting.

With Aidan's first year coming to an end I've been thinking about the past year and future. But first, a warning, this might get long, and expect more posts like this one. Anyways, on inauguration night they interviewed a man who was one of the Little Rock students who broke the segregation barrier in high school. I got caught up in the aspect of a high school student living through that experience and being able to look back on it as an adult. Another example I think of is those people who when younger admire someone and end up working with them. It would be like if I suddenly became a rock star and got to tour with Pearl Jam. Where will Aidan's life take him? What will he see? What will be his failures and successes? As this year comes to an end I think that's what is most exciting, Aidan's no longer a baby. We get to see him grow up in a way not measured by weight or height but by contributing to our family and hopefully to society. Maybe this is obvious.

For those of you who are curious, this is as close as we got to entering the Mall on Inauguration Day. There are several pictures like this as we wound our way through the lines. In retrospect, we should have given up earlier and headed to a non-ticketed area.
Here's one remote picture!

This is more about Aidan's hair. It's fantastically awful. I think those who read this blog are pretty aware of SEC football. Aidan's hair is like any quarterback in the SEC, it almost falls over his eyes but is pushed away just above his eyebrows.

Aidan was playing peek a boo by himself. He'd pull the cloth over his head, pull it back, look at me and smile. Awesome.

Aidan Dances

Live Update! Anyone watching the concert? The Garth Brooks segment is fantastic. The mall looks great.

The video is from today, we had the Inauguration concert at the Lincoln Memorial on in the background. As soon as Bruce Springstein started singing Aidan started "dancing." He's a little wobbly because of his shoes but you get the point.

Some random thoughts: As for the next couple of days, I'm pumped. Heather and I both agree it feels really good to live in Washington DC right now.

You might have noticed Aidan is wearing the same clothes from the shoe picture. Strange coincidence.

We've started feeding Aidan meat. Baby meat is the only food that smells like vomit. Serious. Sorry. Speaking of vomit, Aidan's able to gag himself when he eats something he doesn't like, you get the point.

Aidan's 11 months old tomorrow. Pictures will be coming.

Why is this picture important? Aidan has shoes on for the first time, and he hated them. He's leaning on the chair in the picture, because with shoes on he forgets how to walk.
Peekaboo! Usually we play with him, but this time he was putting the blanket over his head and taking it off. Cute.

I've said in the past how Aidan likes his phones. He'll take down Heather to get to one.

Not sure how next Tuesday is going to go, so we decided to get in line.

For a split second we thought Aidan had hypothermia and had passed out. Instead he did something he hasn't done in 5 months(?), he fell asleep in his stroller.

Lincoln

If anyone was wondering, I had planned a fancy/snooty email about Penn State upsetting USC in the Rose Bowl. It would have been brilliant, there would be pictures of Aidan "running" with the ball over downed defenders. A commentary of how the men of Troy had actually lost(in history) and something about it being clear JoePa(he was a classics major at Brown) had read the Iliad before the game. I'm still waiting for Penn State to show up, at least in the second quarter. It would have been brilliant.

We took Aidan out on the mall on Saturday. It always seems really cold when we take him out, but he's a trooper. He just looks at us like we're crazy and carries on.

If you haven't noticed there are a lot of pictures like this, where I'm holding the camera and trying to get a picture of all three of us. There are about 10 of this same picture on our camera, all of varying quality.
If I close my eyes, I'll be back home with my toys.

I don't know about this Lincoln guy, but mommy sure is great.

The reflecting pool was frozen and I think Aidan knew it.

This was from New Years Eve.

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year, I hope everyone enjoyed 2008.

What did we do for our first New Years with Aidan? Heather made pasta we had a nice bottle of wine, toasted the New Year and watched Live at the Kennedy Center. Serious. In fact it was pretty fantastic. I learned that a song I've heard a hundred times is from the opera Carmen, which is sung in French. Who knew? It wasn't that different from past New Years, except for the staying in and watching opera.

These are pictures from Christmas in Tennessee.

I'm not sure when this was taken but I think you can tell he's been sick.

This was a common scene.

Happy Christmas!