The Amazing Aaron

Aaron has suddenly become quite accomplished at sitting up on his own!



And at pushing buttons.



And at getting most anything into his mouth for a good chew (no, there's no sound on the video below).

Solid Food

We celebrated July 4th by giving Aaron solid food for the first time. Well, you know, formula with a little rice cereal mixed in so it's a hair thicker. And served with a spoon instead of a bottle. He did pretty well for a first attempt and I think we might have even gotten more down his throat than on his face.

Since then he has become a cereal fiend. He just loves it! We have tried both rice cereal and oatmeal, and he seems to love them both. We make it fairly thick now, and he eats a respectable amount at one time. Sometimes he even cries when you take the spoon away for a moment. Sometimes he also tries to get a hand in his mouth and sing at the same time, which is kind of funny. Look at my happy guy!

Yesterday I tried to feed him mashed bananas. He made the most horrible faces (contrast pix above and below). Same thing when Genevieve offered him applesauce this evening. I guess he's not a fan of fruit yet.

He always manages to smear it all over his face. Those long eyelashes can get pretty gunky. We are stepping up the frequency of baths.

Aaron's first camping trip

As soon as school let out, John wanted to take Genevieve camping. At first it was just going to be the two of them, but she very sweetly entreated me to come too. I wasn't sure how Aaron would do but I figured I'd give it a shot. The first time we took Genevieve camping, she was 2 years old and cried all night. John ended up driving her around until dawn. Aaron did great, though. He seemed to really enjoy the outdoors, and at night he curled up with me in my sleeping bag.

So we had a great time. We went to Stony Brook State Park, which is only a little more than an hour away, and the park was beautiful. It's near Letchworth, which is bigger and more well known, but this was just as pretty and much less crowded. We even managed to avoid the rain for the most part (it's been raining nearly constantly all summer so far).

We did all the usual stuff: cooked over the campfire, made s'mores, read Harry Potter...

The next day we went hiking. The trail runs right along the river with numerous waterfalls and bridges. It was great. It reminded me of Watkins Glen, or Taughannock. They even have a section dammed up for a pool (it was freezing, though) and a marvelous playground.

Luckily Aaron enjoyed the backpack carrier. He spent at least half the hike dozing on John's back, and the rest of the time he just looked around and sucked on his hand happily.

The rain started just when we were ready to leave. If only we had packed up the tent earlier, it would have been perfect. As it was, we ended up stuffing a wet tent in the car as usual. At home we pitched it in the backyard to dry out, but of course it has rained practically every day since, so I'm still waiting...

Just make yourself at home

This morning I looked out the window and saw this in the backyard:
She stayed for a long time and seemed to calmly look right back at Genevieve and me. I started outside to see how close I could get, but then the kid shouted "No, don't!". Of course then the doe got up and walked away. We each blamed the other for scaring her off.

7-year old, continued

Genevieve is the bounciest kid I've ever seen. Trying to read a book to her is like trying to pin down Tigger. (It seems like she's totally not paying attention, but oddly enough she always does get the full story, can answer complex questions about it and comes up with interesting connections...go figure!) So what do you suppose we got her for her birthday? She immediately started doing tricks on it, of course. Before I could even tell her not to attempt certain things, she was doing expert flips. She's learned a lot in gymnastics over the past year. This summer she'll be going to gymnastics camp for 5 weeks. That should be fun!

One of her teachers told me that she asked her what she got for her birthday the next day. She didn't mention the trampoline or anything else from the pile of gifts. She replied, "my brother gave me the biggest smile!"

This year I told Genevieve that we couldn't have her birthday party at our house because of the kitchen renovation project. We have always done it at home and had a ton of kids running around in the backyard. She was disappointed, and we had a hard time coming up with a venue that we both liked. Finally we settled on Sweet & Sassy, where the girls all got updos, nail polish, makeup and costumes, plus dancing. At first Genevieve wanted a princess party, but then she changed her mind to "fashion diva"... In the end half the girls wore princess dresses and half wore "high fashion" ones. A few of the girls opted for "princess" hairdos, but most went for the "rock star" look (which was pretty funny with the princess dresses). They had a blast.

I always make a fun cake of some kind for parties. When we were thinking princesses, we were going to try to make a castle cake or maybe a doll cake. Then Genevieve looked through my books and found a treasure chest. So that's what we did. It came out pretty cool, and it was actually one of the easiest ones I've ever done. The girls of course went wild for it because they all got candy with their slice of cake. I even thought to bring extra ring pops so everyone could have one.

Overall it was a smashing success!

I have a 7-year-old

Wow, how did that happen? She is getting so grown up. She's so beautiful, too. How did I get such a special kid?
Genevieve was lucky enough to have Field Day at school on her birthday. And I was lucky enough to get the chance to tag along. What fun! Here are a couple of the events.

Genevieve's class lost every event. But these days the schools try really hard to play down the importance of winning. It's kind of weird, because every event was a competition and they were encouraged to try to win, but then they were told it doesn't matter. The tug-of-war was the really big event of the day, and they probably lost because the biggest, strongest kid in the class was out sick. One of the other big boys started crying when they lost. It made me remember how young they still are after all.

As part of the birthday celebrations we brought in a book to donate to the class. I was expecting that I or the teacher would read it to the class, but Genevieve surprised both of us by declaring that she was going to do it herself. The teachers all say that she keeps everyone in line and that all her peers listen to her. It was so cute to see her sitting up there in front of the class, and to see how she really did command respect from everyone. I was so proud of her for being able to read that book by herself. She's come a long way this year. She's really turning into a reader now...she tries to read everything she sees (signs, labels, etc.) and she doesn't get frustrated like she used to.

At home we had a mini-celebration with a cake from Stone Cold Creamery. Yum! The party with her friends was on Saturday...I'll post about that next time.

Make me proud

A couple of months ago school sent home a picture to color as part of a bike safety awareness campaign. We sent it in, never expecting to hear about it again, but then one day we got a letter in the mail saying Genevieve had won second place for her grade. The prize was a personally fitted bike helmet. Wow, how cool is that? She was SO amazed and proud of herself.


Aaron hit a big milestone yesterday. Lately he's been trying really hard to roll over from back to front but hasn't had too much interest in the other direction. But yesterday he was lying on his tummy in the crib crying and was holding himself way up on his arms, so I was like "come on, you can do it!" and all of a sudden he flipped himself over. He looked stunned for a minute, then broke out into a huge grin.

Of course this means I can't leave him anywhere he could roll off anymore. So starts the "mobile baby" phase... They grow up so fast!