Sibling Reunion

I absolutely love my family, and now that we siblings are all adults, we have the most wonderful time when we are all together. We got one such opportunity over the weekend in SLO because THE WATTS HAVE MOVED BACK TO CALIFORNIA!!!! Yes, after 6 years of living la vida isla in Kauai, Shawnie, Andrew and Alina are back on the mainland and we could barely wait a single day before reuniting all the siblings for a family get together. Although Andrew stayed in Kauai for a few days to close out life in the tropics, Shawnie and Ali flew into the Bay Area on Thursday, and bright and early the next morning, we loaded up the munchkins in my car, which felt particularly small with two carseats in the backseat, and we hit the road.


It has been a few years since we were all together, and the first time Aiden and Ali had all their Hessler side Aunties and Uncle together... we had a wonderful visit, with all the laughing and drama that accompanies big family gatherings.

The most awesome part for me was seeing how Ali and Aiden are carving their own wonderful niches in our big, crazy family. Alina, at 2 1/2, is talking up a storm, obsessed with the Little Mermaid, and (I may be biased here) completely hilarious. She already is following in her mom's footsteps as the queen of the one-liners, not to mention the life of the party;).


My favorite Alina anecdote from the weekend happened at the park. Sam, Sara, and Nonni were sitting on a bench while Ali was swinging. Hannah was standing next to the bench. Ali was giving shout outs to all her relatives, "Hi Sara! Hi Sam! Hi Nonni!" She paused, and Hannah asked, pointing to herself, "What about this one?" Without skipping a beat, Ali chimed in "Hi This One!"


Aiden impressed and amused everyone with his non-stop jumping. Jumping for joy, jumping for frustation, jumping for his dinner - this little guy can't keep his feet still:). I forget how cute and unusual it is, since I see it all the time everyday. It's nice to be reminded of the exceptionality of your child sometimes - haha;).


But while he was in nearly perpetual motion as usual, Aiden also had his thoughtful, peaceful moments, like the time spent investigating creepy crawlies with "Critter Hunter" Uncle Sam! Aiden was absolutely mesmerized by the little salamander, worm, and pill bug his uncle captured for him, and was actually fairly gentle with the specimens when he got his chubby little paws on them. Another nature lover is born!


To round out the weekend, we had a great time visiting our favorite pumpkin patch, the Avila Valley Barn. We made it through the hay maze this year without any panic attacks (progress!), and we got a few pics of our serious kids in a pile of pumpkins.


We were sad to say goodbye to everyone, but are already looking forward to a trip to San Diego to visit with the Watts... and everyone else as well. Even though SD is still pretty far for driving often, it's a much shorter and cheaper flight! Welcome back guys!

A Golden Birthday

16 months old on the 16th of October! Crazy to think in a short while we probably won't be measuring Aiden's age in months anymore. But right now it still seems like every month that passes is a whirlwind of changes! I thought maybe development would start to slow down after the first year, but now that the major "movement" milestones of rolling over, crawling, walking, etc. are mostly behind us, we're on to the really exciting stuff - language!

Just today we were driving up to San Francisco for dinner with Auntie Darcie, visiting from San Diego. As we were getting ready, I told Aiden we were going to go "outside," to which he replied, "Outside! Outside! Outside!" Clear as day. So I told him we needed to get ready first and brought over his shoes. He sat down by himself and grabbed them from me and said "shoes" quite clearly (it sounds a little more like "soos", but the meaning gets across just fine). In the car, he was mimicking our words perfectly - we were practicing manners in several languages by having his say "thank you, toda, merci." We know his repertoire is just going to grow exponentially! We are really excited to finally understand what all his babbling is really about!

A few highlights of Aiden at 16 months:

Measuring up to 33 inches (90th percentile) and 23 pounds 10 oz (30th percentile), Aiden is still lean and tall - 12 months size tees are still fitting, but the pants have to be 18 mos and up or else they are capris;).

First Pony Ride at the pumpkin patch in Half Moon Bay

Favorite book: Goodnight Gorilla
Favorite song to sing: "Froggie Went A'Courtin'" - he loves to sing along to the "uh-huh" part
Favorite song to dance to: Still "Wheels on the Bus"
Favorite TV show: it seems to be Barney. Unfortunately for me. I really don't love you too, Barney.
Favorite independent words: hot, dance, shoes, outside, Elmo, toda, atah. Though what this last word really means, we aren't quite sure... you can help judge in the video below, of his...
First puddle stomping!

Our little sailor

I was just reflecting today how parents spend so much time thinking about their kids' developmental milestones. It feels like we're always keeping one eye on the future and then one day the future suddenly arrives, and we forever more have a baby who - crawls/walks/jumps/fill in the blank. Well this week we reached one such anticipated milestone.

We now have a baby who repeats swear words.

Now, Itay and I are not the biggest potty mouths around, but we're known to use a few choice expressions from time to time. And actually, my discovery of Aiden's new skill occurred when I was simply recounting a story about someone else's bad language...

Here's how it played out. Hayley and Hannah made a last minute trip to the Bay Area last week, so we were driving to get some dinner and I was telling them a story about something that made someone yell "holy s-". I was pretty into the story, so I said it pretty loudly. That's when a little voice from the backseat piped up.

"Zzzhhhhttt! Zzzhhhhttt! Zzzzhhhttt!"

We just about lost it. It was totally hilarious and cute and awful, and of course, seeing our reaction, he just kept repeating it. I quickly launched into a rendition of "The Wheels on the Bus" and those wipers hopefully swish swish swished away any memory of the word.

And now we will have to watch much more carefully our word choice around our little parrot, so that when we arrive at the milestone of his first independent sentence, it isn't peppered with profanity!

Grumpy babe

Aiden had a fussy weekend. He wasn't his usual laughing joking self, at least not constantly. His nose was running and he was making a funny face. He has this funny expression he makes where he juts out his lower jaw and clamps his mouth shut - we call it his "Michael Douglas face". Well this weekend it was especially prominent, and eventually we discovered why - his first molar tooth popped through and OMG is that thing huge! I feel so bad for the little guy - it must really hurt to have those suckers popping through! However, I am looking forward to his increased chewing capacity... I am tiring of the choking/projectile vomiting routine that is fairly common at our house during mealtime. Yuck.

Fall is here...

The last few days have brought a chill in the air and some serious gusty winds - fall is undeniably at hand. I find myself realizing that we don't have quite enough cozy outfits for our little guy this year. Last year it was fairly easy to keep him warm: we just needed to bundle him up in a blankie in his stroller. However, it is no longer quite so easy to bundle our perpetual motion child into a blankie.

We'll need some good cozy clothes because Aiden is just not satisfied with experiencing the change in seasons from the comfort of our home. Yesterday when I picked him up from daycare, the wind was blowing fiercely and the trees were swaying wildly above us. Aiden was mesmerized, couldn't take his eyes off the chaotic dance of the leaves. I stopped to watch them too, and I have to say, it was very relaxing and meditative.


So of course we spent the afternoon outside enjoying the blustery weather, listening to the leaves rustling, and feeling the wind tickle our faces and ruffle our hair.


It's such a gift to be able to see the world through Aiden's eyes. He has helped us slow down and literally smell the roses. And the falling leaves. We are so grateful for him:).

15 months! 15 months!

Well, I have officially dropped the ball as a working mother - I forgot to schedule Aiden's 15-month check-up until, oh, the day before he turned 15-months. As a result of my procrastination, and our newly constrained schedules for timing doctor's visits, we weren't able to get in to see Dr. Brown until well into October... it will be more like a 16 month checkup by that point, but I'll post the vital statistics when we do make it in.


In reality, it is probably good we weren't able to schedule something on Aiden's actual 15 month bday, since he was getting over his first daycare sniffles and cough at that point. He dealt with this unfortunate milestone like a champ - I, on the other hand, spent last weekend whimpering into my pillow, complaining of a stuffy head and sore throat. Miraculously, I felt almost healed when I woke up Monday morning. Funny how that happens - an illness always waits for me to have a few days off to really set in, then clears up just in time for me to have no excuse to miss work;).


Aiden is more of a little boy everyday - today he walked down a staircase at our complex all by himself - no railings, no hand holding. I would have tried to capture it on tape, but even I, the queen of careless parenting at the hands of the video camera, wouldn't let him tackle the cement steps without me very, very close by. Still, he did an impressive job on them:). This is probably due to his freakishly over-developed quadriceps, a result of his hours of daily jumping training - he still loves his jumping in bed, but now he doesn't need to hold on to anything, so will just bust out jumping in the middle of the room. Especially when his favorite rocking tunes are playing for him

Aiden's talking is taking off... he still is mostly happy to copy words that we say (chalk, cheese, cat, dog, dance, yeah), but he also has quite a few words he blurts out on his own - "ba-ba", "wa-wa" or "juice" being high in popularity. According to our lovely Persian daycare provider Kathy, Aiden has also decided to pick up some Farsi. He apparently cruises around the house shouting "Na! Na!" which is Farsi for "no". Also, he has been heard telling his older friends "Nakon" which I understand means "Don't do that." He definitely knows his family members by name, and I have to say, I think he's even trying to communicate with written words - is it just me or did the kid write "SAVE" on his chalkboard this morning?


OK, I AM a teacher, so I totally appreciate the obnoxious factor of parents only seeing their children through the "genius lens". But now I also totally appreciate how easy it is to think your own child is simply BRILLIANT. Because really, watching this little baby develop into a rip-roaring, running, talking little boy is nothing short of mesmerizing. And absolutely miraculous.

Mama's boy, at last

And our bright little boy knows that the best way to use his "mama" calls is sparingly... and in moments of real need. He has recently started to call for mama when he wakes in the night, when he is sad or hurt. It is heartbreaking and of course I come running:).