The Game Changer

We celebrated Aiden's 1/2 year birthday yesterday with an early morning playdate with dad, adventure to church, and some yummy oatmeal and banana mush. In one sense it's hard to believe Aiden has been with us 6 months - in another, it's hard to imagine how our little boy could possibly have grown so big in such a short period of time.

The game changer for all of us has been stability in sit-up mode... a new feature that appeared during his 6th month and has developed steadily in the past few weeks. Around 3 months he recognized daddy when he'd come home, which at the time was a BIG step... shortly after we had our first trip to the pool, which also seemed like a BIG step; but nothing to-date has had the impact of sitting up. Aiden loves it because he doesn't have to stare at the ceiling 80% of his days, AND he can hang out with his girlfriend Ella.



He has also developed an adventurous dare devil side - especially after watching his girlfriend zoom around the room in crawl mode... he is working his 'lunge' transition from sitting to crawling, resulting in quite a few bumped noggins (big shout out to our soft playmats). He is also working his belly time butt lifts - think he's watching our David Kirsch DVDs... all signs that 'sitting up' won't be the biggest game changer for long!

Mom and dad love 'sitting up' time because you can interact at his level using all those toys we've been stockpiling downstairs... also makes for some pretty cute photos (as you can see)!

Favorite things at the moment are:
1) his walker (which provides a scary reminder of how life will change when he can move around the house under his own power)



2) his rings (still trying to get the teeth to cut through - can see two on his bottom gums, just haven't broken the surface yet)



3) his oatmeal (messy eater - but he LOVES his oatmeal... just like daddy)



4) his night time stories (Good Night Moon, That's Not My Lion, and recently survived the full Cat In The Hat)

Encouraged by sitting up and playing with mom & dad, Aiden's personality continues to blossom... new facial expressions, more frequent laughing, adorable squeals, and joy-filled snuggles. And we all love snuggles!