WHEW!! I'm happy to report that once again, Aidan's recent bout of Jekyll/Hyde syndrome associated with his recent cold has once again turned to simply Jekyll - although his aunt and uncle Paul and Susan may have a vastly different opinion concerning my proclamation.

Paul and Susan were kind enough to come over and baby sit Saturday night allowing Anya and I to go out for dinner with friends. Aidan was doing much better and had been a 'happy baby' all day long - no fussing, no crying and appeared to be back to normal... (queue the erie, stormy weather music).... That is until we until we left the house. Reports have it that once the door shut behind us it was nearly non-stop crying the for the 2+ hours that we were gone. To their credit Paul and Susan overcame the cranky Hyde baby and made it through the evening. Upon our return, Jekyll baby was back and shortly thereafter asleep in his swinging baby chair not providing any indication that it had been anything but a normal, quiet evening with his aunt and uncle.

All day Sunday, we had nothing but Jekyll baby.. happey, smiling, giggling Jekyll baby who is also once again sleeping all night long. 10pm comes and nearly to the second, BAM!, eyes closed, mouth open, and dead to the world . Whew!

Two words... 'Stuffy Nose'. Yes, once again Aidan seems to have come down with a stuffy nose - ironically only hours after having been given a clean bill of health after his medical checkup. The poor kid can't hardly breath - which of course meant that he couldn't hardly sleep at night - which in turn meant that neither did his parents. Right around the 2am mark, I was finally sent to the local drugstore for some infant decongestant, which seemed to eventually help Aidan get some sleep.... didn't help me at all however, now that I was wide awake. I once again familiarized myself with the middle of the night TV infomercial lineup. Tonight's specialty: 600 different knives for only $1.95!, what a deal!

On the bright side, as a result of the doctor visit measuring and weighing, Aidan is in the 97th percentile for height, and the 75th percentile for weight. So he's a tall, skinny boy still - who already has more hair then I do; not that that's any great accomplishment given the low bar my hair follicles set.

First Mothers Day:

This was Anya's first official mother's day as a mother. Aidan was kind enough, even in his short 4 months worth of life, to provide Anya with a nice visit to a local spa, which Anya seemed to appreciate. (Aidan better hurry up and find a job to pay for it.) No other real news to report - other then Aidan may be coming down with another cold and he had a Dr. appt today to get poked, prodded, weighed and measured.

We're currently trying to teach Aidan how to roll over, but Aidan just doesn't seem to get it yet. We even used the dog as an example of technique, however I think the demonstration was lost on Aidan. He's got his legs moving about 90 miles an hour, but hasn't quite figured out that leverage is the key, having your hand out to both sides just isn't going to help.

Aidan has also developed a fondness for T.V. We really didn't want him to notice the TV - other then a couple of Baby Einstein videos... but he found it none the less. Once discovered he'll just fixate on it until he's moved and forced to look at something else, like a book, plant, blank wall, small dog, carpet.. anything but the TV. I'm not really sure where... um, now where is that darn remote... um,.. Where he gets it from.

Ok, not that I'm complaining... But what the hell is going on?? Back in the day - oh, say 4 months ago - newborn Aidan seemed to enjoy my company. He would make a point of it to stay up late, demanding my attention until the wee hours of the morning, and I was almost happy to give it to him. We'd say up late on the couch, watching infomercials about the latest butt of basalt do-hickey, or re-runs of 'The Tonight Show' which come on around 4am. Yes, those were the days...

Now, however, it seems I've fallen out of favor with our number one son (which, by the way, is a fine menu selection at Chang's Chinese Restaurant in Totem Lake). Long nights of father-son bonding have been replaced with a cranky baby starting around 9:30pm - about 15 minutes after I've been given Aidan to hold. This is followed by another 30 minutes of fussing, crying, fidgiting and ugly, bitter beer faces until at 10pm he's suddenly dead to the world.

His head drops back over my arm, his mouth gapes open,his arms and legs turn to limp noodles - there's no waking him now. So much for the happy father-son bonding time - it's time to put mini-me to bed. Walking up the stairs, his head bobbing slightly up and down, side to side as we ascend the stairs to his darkened,second floor bedroom showing only the shadows of his crib fastened mobile projecting against the wall.

I put him in his crib, cover him up with his blanket - and that's it. My bonding time is over - until tomorrow night, about 9:15.

Aidan seems to be doing much better these days, his cold pretty much behind him. I have to say ( and I think I mentioned in an earlier entry ) it's amazing how well Aidan coped with the stuffed up nose, the runny nose, the breathing issues, and the medication. He was rarely phased by any of it - other then being a bit fussy and not sleeping through the entire night again. But all that seems to have passed and he's doing well, sleeping, eating, and is back to being a happy baby again.

We took his monthly picture of Aidan with the stuffed bear that our friends Jeff and Julie delivered shortly after his birth. (Check back for a link to the picture). He just keeps growing. Aidan has a Dr. Checkup up appointment today where he'll get weighed and measured. It will be interesting to see how much he's grown over the past month

Today I'm happy to report that both Aidan and I are both getting over our colds. Aidan is still stuffy in the mornings but is starting to act more like himself during the days and is sleeping through the nights again - whew! for a while there he was waking up every two hours all stuffed up, and unable to breath.

Aidan did seem to enjoy is first overnight boat trip this past weekend. Heading over to Poulsbo for Friday night he was able to experience the locks for the first time and watch his parents scramble around the boat trying to do their best to not hit any other boats in the process. Though most of the ordeal Aidan either seemed to be disinterested in the activity, more interested in his play toy or just snoozing through it. But he had a friend - Mocha, Anya's mothers dog which we were dog sitting for. Once arriving in Poulsbo we didn't really leave the boat too much as Anya and I tried to take turns keeping Aidan entertained and trying to keep him from crying too much and disturbing our neighbors. We did make it into town Saturday morning and Aidan seemed to like the trip as it gave him new things to look at.

Other then running over a mostly submerged piece of driftwood and causing damage to either one of the props or the shaft on our journey back from Poulsbo, the trip was a success and Aidan didn't seem phased by any of it.