Mommy and Daddy were trying a new strategy—let Aiden fall asleep on his own in his room. This didn’t go so well.

He was standing at the gate to his room crying for a few minutes. Then we heard some bangs and noises. Then we hear him coming down the stairs. We assumed he knocked his gate over, or maybe climbed over it.

Turns out, he took the little stepping-stool we gave him to climb into his big-boy bed and moved it over next to the gate to assist in his escape. He’s already a criminal mastermind at 30 months!

Aiden had his two-year doctor visit the other day.  We switched to a new pediatrician, who we like better than the prior ones.  She runs a small office, and we feel like we get much more direct attention than at the larger office.

He weighed in just under 30 pounds, at 33 inches.

We were mostly concerned about Aiden’s vocabulary.  We made a list of all words he has ever said, and it came out around 30.  Add in another dozen or so animal sounds, and we were bumping up on 50.  She said that’s perfectly normal.  The fact that Baba (Grandma) speaks to him in Russian all day, while we speak English to him all night and weekend may be a bit confusing, she suggested, but in the long run, it will be a great advantage to him.  She knows of kids who were raised bilingual, and they were slow to start talking, but once they did, they quickly picked up both languages.

Our other concern was that he isn’t eating very much.  Turns out it’s all the juice he drinks.  We’ve cut out juice (well…now we heavily dilute it with water at 10:1.  He doesn’t like it as much.) and he has become an eating machine.  He snarfs down two to three pancakes at a time.  Some oatmeal.  Lots of fruit.  Not so many veggies, though.  What a difference that juice makes!

He had to give a blood sample, which was painful to everyone involved.  Two more shots (DTaP and MMR) didn’t help either, but we’re horribly behind on the vaccinations, and we have no hope of getting Aiden into any activities without being up to date.  Six months until the next round of DTaP is due, so he has a bit of recuperation time now.

Aiden has added two more words to his vocabulary: “Bad”, which is pronounced “baaahhhhd”, and “stick”, which is pronounced closer to “ick”.

And he knows that the cats are “bad”.

Aiden has picked up a few new words: Box, Cat, and Hello.

And here we were starting to wonder when he would increase his vocabulary. Pretty quickly!

Aiden had his 18 month checkup on his 19 month birthday. He’s right on schedule as far as his vital statistics go: 33 inches, 28 pounds. He has slowly migrated toward the 50th percentile over the last few months. Basically, he has grown into some of the baby fat he had.

He currently knows about 8 different words: daddy, mommy, ball, balloon, hi, bye bye, fish, and bubble. And a whole slew of animal sounds. He hits all of the milestones as well: climbing stairs, building with blocks, responding to simple commands, and opening doors.

Yep, he’s a big boy now.

Aiden said his first sentence yesterday. We were halfway around the block on a walk when we passed a house for sale with balloons on the sign. He kept pointing them out as we approached, and once we passed, he started saying “bye bye”.

Then he said “bye bye balloon”. Pretty darn cute.

Aiden LOVES ”Finding Nemo”.  It plays practically on a loop all day, every day.  And he likes the sharks.  Every time he sees them, he points and makes a growling sound.  Even when he sees them in his books.

He has a pretty good memory, too, because he knows when the scene with the sharks is coming up.  He starts pointing and growling, even before the sharks show up on the TV.  

And he has a shark shirt.  He points to the logo on his chest and growls.

That makes for our third animal sound.  Dogs go “woo woo” (supposed to be “woof woof”), cats go “awwww”  (supposed to be meow), and now sharks growl.   Next up, giraffes! 

Aiden has passed a milestone in American life–he ate a Happy Meal today.

Mommy had to work late, so Daddy got to spend the evening with Aiden.  We went shopping for a monthers day present, we went to the park, and since sans-mommy is the only time Daddy eats at McD’s (probably a good thing), we went there for dinner.

Unfortunately, Aiden fell asleep on the drive from the park to dinner.  So, we went through the drivethrough, and only Daddy got food.  It was, after all, nearly sleepy time, and Aiden had refused his second nap.  Waiting for the food, he woke up, so we went inside for this rite of passage.

Aiden got the chicken nugget happy meal (which costs nearly what an adult meal does).  I tried to rip most of the “skin” off of the nuggets and feed him the “meat”, and he ended up eating about 3 nuggets worth.  The fourth ended up on the floor.   A few fries, and some water, and he was set.   The toy is some strange American Idol creature that aiden liked to bang against the table.  I try to encourage inflicting damage on American Idol paraphernalia whenever possible.

All in all, it went pretty well.  I think he liked the nuggets and the fries, but I doubt we’ll be back soon.  He needs more veggies.