Porterfield Family

Here is a belated 11 month update!

I guess the biggest thing is that Aidan is walking very well now. The truth is neither Jason nor I had anything to do with it. All child development books are right – kids develop at their own pace. Yesterday Aidan climbed on the wood bench that we have in the family room. It is the same height as the couch, but it has bars in the back that allowed him to hold on while pushing himself up. I guess the couch is next!

On Sunday we walked to the grocery store, which we do often, but this time I let Aidan walk and he did a very good job. He refused to walk on his own, so I had to hold his hand all the time. He was the happiest camper ever! He was laughing and trying to catch up with Jason who was walking in the front with the stroller.

I swear Aidan’s arms and legs have gotten longer this past week. All of the sudden he can reach all the ‘unreachable therefore safe’ items. Yesterday he was trying to put one of his toys up on the side table (he was standing on his tippy toes); it was not an easy task, so he got frustrated and just threw the toy up there. Now he thinks throwing toys up on furniture is very funny, because you may knock some new stuff off and toys always fall back down anyways.

He figured out that he can open and close doors now, as long as he can reach the handle. Several times he locked himself out, which was pretty funny. Once he realized he could not open the door he laid down on the floor to see if I was still there. Of course being a good mother and all I hid away, so he started banging on the door going ‘ba ba ba ba’. It was funny and hopefully a lesson for him, like he would remember. I learned that he will let me know if he was left behind and that he does not like to be by himself even in most interesting places. For example, if the room is dark (storage room, master bathroom) no matter how much he wants to go in there he will not. He will open the door nice and wide and sit in front of it, but will not step in. That until he can reach the light switch.

Speaking of light switches – Aidan’s most favorite trick in the world. He loves switching the lights on/off, could probably do it for hours.

Aidan is super cute with the dog. Every now and then we have to protect one from another. When Aidan wants to play with Charlie, he picks up any random object and throws it at her head, while standing right next to her. Most of the time the random object is a heavy plastic toy. Needless to say Charlie is not always happy about that.  Other times when Charlie abandons her chew bones, he picks them up and brings them back to her. Most of the time they do pretty good together. They play with her tennis ball or follow each other around the couch (by which I mean Aidan follows her around thinking that they are playing, while the dog is just wondering around). Sometimes he thinks that she is following him, so he giggles and runs away. Those two are figuring it out little by little.

Food is still a struggle. Aidan has no interest in solids at all. We can probably feed him anything as long as it is stage 2 consistency.  Same goes for self feeding. He will play with food but not eat much, little bits maybe. He loves his cup with a straw. Will drink gallons of water but not formula. Formula only from the bottle! He is eating yogurt now. I don’t know why we have not given it to him earlier – he likes it! Have not started on milk yet, but offered cheese. He hated cheese; I think it’s the texture – chunky – therefore, not good.  May be he is waiting for more teeth, I don’t know.

On the verge of 12 months some children say ‘mama’ ‘dada’ discriminatively and may even use a third word like ‘cup’ or dog’ or whatever – so the books say. In Aidan’s world most of the things are named ‘dada’ or ‘da’ ‘ga’.  In the morning when I walk in his room he greets me with a huge smile and happy ‘Dada’! When we were looking at my childhood photos, Aidan pointed at a large picture of me at the age of two in a red dress and a big bow and happily screamed ‘Dada’! When I told him ‘mama’ he got up said ‘dada’ three more times and walked away.

Once in a while we catch Aidan having a very interesting conversation with his toys. Conversation that we do not understand. I like to think that he speaks Persian, a language his care provider speaks with her family and a language her very old mother was teaching Aidan. Of course our provider just laughed when I told her about it. Books say that this is just another step towards speaking.