Milestone: An important event or turning point.

Aidan’s has experienced a number of milestones since the last January blog entry. He now walks with ease, even over uneven terrain – although he does have the occasional trip up which places him face down in the grass or dirt, but for the most part he’s lifting his feet up, navigating obstacles and is generally ready to start training for the Olympics. This mile stone was reached one evening, just matter of factly. Sure Aidan had been taking steps for nearly a month and a half before this time, but Aidan apparently decided that it was time to just become an upright human. He stood himself up, steadied himself, then followed me around the kitchen island and back to the front room again. From that point on there has been no turning back. It was so fun to watch for the first week or so as he would walk around, sometimes less steady then others, watching him recover from a near loss of balance, walking around with his hands up in the air like a circus performer on the high wire. He didn’t quite make it to the fully walking point before his first birthday like I was hoping he would, but hey, I’ll take a week or so after his birthday, that’s close enough for this proud parent. And he’s making use of the $50 shoes before he out grew them – that’s something of a relief.

Aye, Carumba!

We’ve also discovered that Aidan has a liking for Mexican food. We’ll go out to our favorite Mexican restaurant and I’ll order my usual combination plate number 24. I’m not really sure why I order the combination plate each time – it comes with refried beans and rice, neither of which I’m a big fan of, but it’s easier to say ‘I’ll take a number 24 with beef’ then it is to explain to the waiter that what I really want is two tacos and an enchilada. However, Aidan apparently likes the refried beans and will eat nearly the entire portion which is brought along with my #24 platter. He can’t seem to get enough of the stuff. He’ll crane his neck and head forward while sitting I his restaurant provided high chair, mouth gaping open with his lips doing that cute, protruding outward, baby bird like thing that they do wanting yet another bite of the brown, mushy protein goo. Yum yum. As a side note, he also seems to like the taste of margarita found on the straw I’ll give him out of my glass. Yup, that’s my boy!

Language

Another milestone, or maybe not a milestone but a work in progress which has made progress in the past couple of months is that of communication. I always used to wonder how these new parents all around me knew what their infant son or daughter was saying when some incomprehensible utterance came pouring out of their tiny lungs. Now I know. They make an assumption based on situation. For example, Aidan will use the sound ‘Daa’ to either mean Dad, Dog or Down. You really can’t tell the difference, if there is one, between the three, it all depends on if there is a dog near by, if I’m the only one in the room and Aidan is already on the floor, or if I’m carrying him and he’s simply tired of my mindless dribble and wants down. He his however developing a nearly understandable series of words: (na-naa) Banana, Momma, Da-Da (again could be dog, depends on who’s closer), Maa (More/Milk - again depends on the situation), Craa (Cracker) and of course the one word that is very clear, and sometimes loud, ‘No!’. There are others, I think, which must mean something as Aidan seems very insistant and makes the same exact sound over and over again – I just am not bright enough to figure out what it is that he’s saying. He’ll eventually get fed up with trying to make me understand and moves on to something more entertaining.

Aidan has also started to pick up some basic hand signals –waving bye-bye, waving bye-bye at a 90 degree angle and thus looking like he’s milking a cow for ‘milk’, touching his two hand’s fingertips together for ‘more’. It does make life a little easier with the onset of communication. Limited as it may be, it’s a start.