Life as a toddler

Isaac is really at a fun age. Everything is new and exciting. He seems to be learning a new word every minute! He wants to emulate his big brother in everything (which gratefully Aidan is quite approving of so far...).

Then there's the flip side. The whining and the tantrums as he learns how to control his own emotions in reaction to the world around him. Sometimes thu are downright funny, sometimes not so much!

I have been trying lately to live in the moment and enjoy these years. Sometimes it's so difficult! Isaac was whining the other day so to diffuse his stress and mine I made a joke of sticking him in the trash! (yeah not my proudest moment). But it worked. We were all able to laugh and move on with the evening.

Ahhh the joys of parenting!

New year

A new years resolution: to resume blogging. It's been well over a year since I last updated about our little family. I really want to remember the little things in our families lives. So, we will see how this goes!

I hope your holidays were excellent.

Where are they now?

These boys are growing up so fast! Isaac is 8 months now and Aidan is 3 1/2. Time sure is flying by. As many parents will tell you, the days are so long, but the years are so short! Things have been pretty normal around here lately...well, what's really normal?

We're still traveling back and forth from Traverse City to Grand Rapids every week. It's getting old, really old. I don't actually mind being up in TC during the week, especially now that it is getting nice. The beach is close, the mall is close, everything is close. BUT, I hate our apartment up here (more specifically the woman who lives beneath us that's chain smoked down there for the last who knows how long...; there's no back yard to play in while Isaac sleeps) and the packing and unpacking each week is getting a little more than old.

The boys are troopers though. Both of them adjust to each place well and are actually excellent travelers.

Aidan will be four in June. I've seen such an incredible change in him over the past few months. He's really acting now much more like a four year old than a three year old. He can be more rationale (can being the main word!); he's recognizing letters; his memory is incredible; he can describe how he's feeling or what he's thinking of (for example he can describe a word he's trying to say that we don't understand). He's always been very physical, and that's no different. Running, jumping, bike riding, sliding, sledding, he loves them all! When it comes to sitting still he loves to read. One of my favorite things lately is when he takes a book into our room and will sit in our bed and "read" it to himself. I love to listen to him. He will start preschool this fall, although we're still working out the where.

Isaac's changes are more visible almost on a daily basis. He's teething (two are through) and this makes him chew on anything and everything. His favorite things to chew on...dirty shoes! So, just like with a puppy, we make sure to put the shoes out of sight/reach. He also likes to chew on the edge of the table or his crib. He's moving. He's been crawling for a few months now (since about the beginning of month 7), and now is constantly pulling up on everything. Nothing is safe anymore. He's constantly getting into trouble (although I realize it's my own fault for leaving things around). He pulls up and will pull things down from over his head. He gets into things I don't think Aidan even knows exist. Isaac is much more of a trouble maker already! He's still not sleeping real great. Some nights he'll sleep through, others we're up quite a bit. I often don't have the energy to sleep train, so I often give in a feed him pretty quickly to make sure the entire house doesn't have to get up. During the day we're still working on naps as well. They're pretty unpredictable except for the first morning nap. He's an excellent eater-especially with solid foods; much better than Aidan ever was! We have another Dr. appointment at the end of this month and we'll see where he's at weight wise.

It really is fun to see them interact as brothers as well. I recently posted a video on Facebook where Isaac is giggling the most I've seen him do at Aidan putting a piece of paper on his head. Aidan loves making him laugh. Aidan also can be very helpful in distracting Isaac, getting him a toy, feeding him dinner, and giving him a bath. On the flip side, Aidan is a big brother and his little brother impinges on his space occasionally causing him to get a little rough. We're still working on this. But, overall it's neat to see their relationship start to bloom.

That's about it for now. I'll try to update again soon. But, for pictures and video check out Facebook!

"Reading"

Aidan has been into books lately. So, because he's done so well on the potty train (over one month without an accident!) we got him a new book last week. As you'll see, we've read it several dozen times already. He was reading it in bed the other night and Chris and I just sat and listened. It's the cutest thing ever! So, yesterday morning I got out my camera to shoot a little video. For some reason the video quality is poor even though I uploaded a higher quality one, so I'm sorry. Hopefully you'll be able to read the words that help you understand what he's trying to say. If not, you should be able to get some of it. He's actually pretty close to the actual words in the book. So much fun!

Harvesting Fish

We have the benefit of living minutes away from the Lake and a beautiful river here in TC. This is spawning time for the salmon. They have just done their first harvesting for the year and Aidan and I were there to watch (Isaac just slept...). We spent over two hours there last Wednesday watching. I was more than ready to go by the time we left, although it was fascinating.

So, the next time you buy salmon, it might just be one of these...or it'll just be in your cat/dog food. :)

Fish with lots of slime, some fish sperm, and some fish eggs, and a lot of ice... MMMMMM......Although anesthetized with CO2, some of the fish were still quite rambunctious and occasionally hopped right on out!
Aidan loved watching the fish swim and jump. The men were getting ready to start pushing the fish.
Part of the process that we watched over and over and over and over...

Falling Behind

Hello again. I seem to be falling behind both it taking and posting pictures. We've been busy here in the Conran household...but simply with the daily "stuff" of our lives. We're still traveling on a weekly basis back and forth sometimes together, sometimes apart. Packing up a household of 4 weekly is a daunting task in itself that we've gotten pretty good at, but travel days are still really long days! I'm home all day with the boys alone. Although it hasn't been bad at all, I'm trying to figure out what kind of a schedule Isaac wants. With Aidan I think we just kind of settled into a schedule naturally. With Isaac I've been trying to figure out a schedule since day one. It's hard to go back to no schedule when Aidan has been fairly predictable from what seems like day one (I'm sure my memory has been altered by time and hormones!).

Aidan is still my sweet little boy. We had an interesting week last week because we forgot Bobo's (his security blankets)... No one is quite sure how this happened, but again there is a lot that goes into packing up a family of four. Aidan was watching a movie on my iPod when we left, so he wasn't looking for them. And Chris and I were just distracted with making sure we didn't leave a kid behind! :) Aidan did surprisingly well, but seemed a little more "sensitive" that week to things that wouldn't normally have elicited similar reactions.

Isaac is now two months old and really starting to show some personality. He has been socially smiling for about 3-4 weeks now. He smiles much more than I remember Aidan smiling at first. His whole body gets into it. His face lights up and his legs and arms just start moving like crazy. He is also "talking" a ton, especially in the morning. He sleeps well at night (about 8pm to 3 or 4 am, then back to every 2-3 hours wanting to eat. During the day is a different story, but that's the schedule I'm trying to figure out this week. It will make all of our lives much better! We go to the pediatrician this Friday and we'll see how much he's grown since the last visit a month ago. Isaac will also get his first round of many vaccines (other than Hep B, he's already had two of those), so Friday night may be a long one!

I'm going to try to get some more pictures of Isaac this week to show all of you how he's really growing and much more of an infant now than a newborn. But, the days seem to go so quickly just getting the normal stuff done (cooking, dishes, showers, etc) that I forget to capture this time before it quickly changes again!

The picture at the top is Aidan picking a flower for me from our back yard. He's been into picking "pretty flowers" for me. It's really so sweet...although these ones seem to want to stay in the ground and are quite hard for him to pick. We're seeing so much of Aidan's personality too in the conversations we can now have with him.

This was a conversation Chris and Aidan had the other day:

A: I'm going to give Isaac a kiss because he's so cute!

C: What about me?

A: No, you're not cute. You look okay, but you're not cute.

Emotional Child

I just love this picture of Isaac. It's kind of pathetic really, but I love the pout. Aidan had a similar one, but I never did catch his on camera. This is about the extent of Isaac's emotions right now. Pout, cry, content, sleeping...and the cycle continues. :) Still awaiting the smiles.
Aidan on the other hand is making me contemplate so many things, particularly in my parenting style and my past. He is becoming increasingly independent (note the eating cereal with milk and even drinking the milk too...) which is wonderful, but that also means he doesn't need me quite as much. He's not interested in playing with me anymore. I think it's because I'm not much of a "player" anyways. I've always been better at the daily "stuff" and Chris has always been an excellent playmate for Aidan. He growls, plays hide and seek/tag mixture that Aidan so loves, and is so creative (go figure!).

But I think what makes me think the most at night is Aidan's emotional health...his "feelings". Now that I'm watching him understand more about the world around him and his relationships/interactions with others I am becoming increasingly concerned that he's not getting hurt. I still worry about his physical well-being, but overall he's doing well in that arena, but this emotional stuff is all new to me in the game of parenting.

I watch him interact with other kids at the park. Some are older and are actually teasing him (running away and hiding in a way that only kids can do), although I don't think that Aidan has caught on yet. But I worry about the day that he does realize the way others can hurt him, and I hope I've given him the tools to be able to handle these instances.
I'm not much of a writer and these posts always sound better in my head at 2 AM then they actually appear to me on here, but this is what I've been thinking about right now. I just hope that my silly little sweet boy can stay that way for a long time and enjoy the friendship and relationships he has for years to come. Someday wearing your underwear on the outside of your shorts might be just the slightest bit embarrassing! :)