Tuesday, May 29, 2012

Ack! Time passes too quickly!!

Seriously, could I be a worse blogger?  I look back on the posts I did when Dashiell was a baby and I've recorded every single milestone up until he was at least 2. Poor Aurelia won't have any record of the cool things she's doing because I keep forgetting to blog and heaven knows I don't write anything down anyplace else!  Thankfully most of the pictures I take are on my phone, which records the date they were taken!  And I nearly always remember to snap a photo of Aurelia's cool doings, so the baby book isn't doomed yet!

Anyway, of course lots of things have happened in the past month+.  Aurelia now barrel rolls!  She's so proud of herself when she does it, it's just so dang cute!  And she can laugh now!  She loves laughing at her brother, who of course loves making her laugh.  It makes me so happy to see them actually interacting now!  Big steps, people, big steps! :)

Oh and look, I have a picture of her finding her toes! 

Ha!  Seriously cute.  She can also manipulate hanging toys with her feet.  She's like a little monkey.

Aurelia has finally moved into her own room, even though her room isn't actually finished yet (once again, the second child gets the short straw - Dashiell's room was finished months before he was born.  We refinished his floors and everything.  Aurelia's room?  Unfinished floors, a dresser that still needs assembling, and not a single picture on the walls, and she's almost 5 months old...).  She's doing great in her big crib!  That bassinet in our room was getting just a bit too cozy.  I was hoping that she'd be sleeping through the night prior to the move, but there is no indication that she's planning on doing that anytime soon.  Thankfully we're only getting up once a night with her, so it's not too bad.  We were just so spoiled with Dashiell - I swear he slept through the night at about 1 month! 

We tried giving Aurelia rice cereal the other day, and it was not a big hit!


She's been showing signs of being ready to eat solids, but I don't think she knew what she was getting into!  Blech!  We'll try again in a week or so.

And Dashiell - oh Dashiell!  He is a complete joy yet he makes me want to pull my hair out on a daily basis.  He's too smart for his own (and our own) good!   We received a glowing progress report from his preschool teacher last week, telling us how he regales everyone with his stories of how the Boott Cotton Mills work, and how he's a sensitive child which seems to serve him well as he is always concerned about his friends.  We will miss his teacher dearly next year - she was the perfect fit for him.

We've visited a small municipal airport a few times recently since they have a cafe and an outdoor picnic area and we can watch helicopters and small aircraft take off and land, which is always exciting!  However, no matter how exciting the planes are, he always finds time to pick flowers for me.


Sweet boy!

We went to the annual Memorial Day Parade in Stoneham yesterday, which happens to go right past his Nana and Grandpa's house - so handy!  Dashiell decided he needed to play the xylophone as the bands went by:


Of course, he only knows a couple songs and none of the bands happened to play "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star".  But that didn't deter him!  He was happy to play regardless. :)


Alright, that was the condensed version of the happenings of last month.  Up next:  preschool graduation and a trip to Minnesota!  Stay tuned!

Sunday, May 6, 2012

So What'cha Want?

In honor of the passing of Adam Yauch (MCA of the Beastie Boys), I wanted to share a couple of Dashiell memories from a couple of years ago when he had a serious thing for the Beastie Boys.  For a while when he was about 2, they seemed to be his favorite band - anytime they came on the radio he would jump around and sing.  It was super cute.  In fact, the first time I noticed Dashiell actually singing along to a song on the radio was when he was about 20 months old on our way to play group.  (You Gotta) Fight for Your Right (to Party) came on the radio, and while I was singing along I heard "Fight! Right! Party!" from the back seat.  It totally cracked me up to hear this not-quite-two-year-old singing to the Beastie Boys!

Dashiell doing his best Beastie Boys impression, circa Jan. 2011


Then came the obsession with the song "So What'cha Want?".  This was when he was just a little older than 2, and whenever that song played he would run to the radio so he could hear it better and sing "What'cha Want?  Want?" and make me sing to it too.  We also had a period of a few weeks when he wanted me to play the video over and over and over again on the computer (a concert video of it, actually) - "Can we watch the computer song?"  If I didn't like them so much I would have quickly grown bored of it, but it was the Beastie Boys - how could I object?


The actual video, not the one we watched :)
 
I'm not going to claim that I've been a fan from their hardcore days, but I have liked them for a good long time (I distinctly remember listening to them with an ex of mine, which would have been right around 1995).  I'm happy to have shared this band with my son, and only wish that we could have had the chance to see them in concert together.  Rest in Peace, MCA.  You'll be missed.