In the immortal words of Golden Earring…

It’s 3am.... actually, to be more accurate it’s 3:30am that has me so puzzled. What is it about 3:30am? Nearly every night for a week our most recent household addition has been waking up and crying like I just told him that, after watching ‘Supersize Me’, we’re never going to McDonalds again. And it’s always at 3:30am. To be fair, Aidan did start out at 3am, but has progressed to the point where it’s between 3:25a and 3:30a every night. What is it about that time of the morning that awakens the sleeping giant? I’d like to know.

Is he worrying about his college education fund? No point in worrying about that, he’d be better off worrying about how he’s going to get a scholarship as, by the time he’s old enough to go to college, I’ll have long since spent his college fund on fuel for summer boating trips.

Is he suddenly distraught with the earlier then anticipated ousting of the NCAA tourney by the number 1 seeded Washington Huskies? Well, unless he gets that scholarship, no need to worry about a school he’ll be looking at from the outside in.

Maybe he’s concerned about his reputation at the local Mall play land as his hair is looking like a mop and his mother doesn’t want to cut it quite yet.

Maybe he startles himself awake trying to figure out why his parents force him to sleep in what ammounts to a giant sock with a zipper up the front.

I'm not sure why Aidan wakes up at this less then desireable hour but I’m determined to get to the bottom of this issue… which could be the issue itself. His diaper is generally awfully full at this time of the morning. Maybe we should be feeding him more steak and fewer martinis at dinner time.

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.

Back in the saddle again...

I know I had decided to only blog my new fatherhood for the initial year but there always seems to be some new event that takes place or some new milestone which has been reached and should be documented. As such, I’ve decided to add the occasional blog entry if for no other reason then to traumatize my fine young son with during his teenage years.

Here it is, nearly the end of the month of March. The weather didn’t really seem to come in roaring like a lion, and neither did Aidan. March could only be classified as the month of illness at the Stutz compound. Poor Aidan was down the flu for nearly two weeks. The first couple of days our normally happy, energetic, smiley boy was just a lump of flesh sitting on the couch slipping in and out of a fitful state of sleep with one eye while the other tried to keep focus on the television. Television eye generally gave in and joined sleep eye for an hour here, an hour there until both eyes would open half way, Aidan would look around, barely moving his head, then back off to sleep he would go.

Once our poor, little sick offspring seemed to be on the road to recovery, then came the flushing of toxins. I had no idea that any single person, let alone one which was 1/6th scale, could expel so much fluid out of every orifice possible. The eyes were running, the nose was running, there was nothing solid being contained in his stage 5 pampers at all. For nearly a week and a half we tried to simply replenish his fluids as fast as he would expend them. Oh, the joys of parenting.

I’m beginning to understand (not that i wasn't already suspecting this was the case, but I'm more firm in my conviction at this point) why all other parents, be they recent or seasoned veterans, are always asking the newly nuptialed ‘When are you going to have kids?’ It’s not because they have a genuine interest in your starting a family to either carry on the family name or cost you thousands of dollars on a white gown which will be worn for, at most, a few hours – it’s because all those other parents either want you to have to go through and experience the same misery they did. They had to go through all the tears, all the sleepless nights, all the thousands of diapers, all of the fluids being shot out every escape hatch like an erupting volcano or Old Faithful when they’ve passed their pressure limits.

Yes, it’s month 14 and we’re having a ball.

Last Post
When I started writing this blog I thought it would be a fun and interesting thing to do - what did I know, I was still awash in new parenthood bliss. I told myself that I would continue posting until Aidan was one year old - documenting along the way my experiences in dealing with being a new dad, with coping with sleepless nights and the different events that happened along the way.

It has certainly been an eventful first year; one starting out with Aidan's arrival and his having to be brought to life after being born as he wasn't breathing and blue, to tonight where Anya just put him to bed for his last night as a pre one year old. When he wakes up in the morning it will be past the time he was born and he will officially be a one year old. It's been a long road this first year, yet it seems to have gone by in just the blink of an eye. From the tiny newborn who wouldn’t open his eyes to the toddler who rarely closes his mouth - and all the many diapers and milestones in between.

It's been a fun, entertaining, educational, sleepless, many times frustrating but overall very rewarding experience which I thank Aidan for. It's been a great 12 month ride and I wouldn't trade it for anything.

New Shoes
We decided that Aidan was starting to out grow his baby slippers which had started to show quite a bit of wear and tear in addition to starting to be a little too small. My fine wife decided to go out and find him some new shoes, real shoes for his now walking around feet.

Someone $#%@#$^%^ explain to me how tiny infant/toddler shoes can cost more then the cross training/gym shoes I buy for myself??? How does that happen? Sure, little Aidan was provided with his own personal 'nordy' stuffed animal and provided with a picture of him wearing 'baby's first shoes', but come on - I'm sure aidan's parents would be much more pleased to do without the .05 worth of stuffed animal corporate advertisement and memento of a shopping trip in lieu of a lower price on shoes that don't seem to have much more material to them then a Brazilian thong bikini. Is there some 600% profit margin on baby shoes? Are the retail outlets simply preying on the new, insecure partents who feel they must get the best for their children for fear that by not doing so will either hamper their physical maturity or cost them later during pre-teen theropy sessions? That would be my guess.

Hey, Mr. Gates: 'Where do I want to go today?' How about to a store with baby shoes tagged with a realistic baby shoe price? Try writing some software for that will ya?

They are cute shoes though and they'll be great for the next month or so that he's actually able to fit into them.