Tales of a Newbie Dad

2 year Photos

2009-07-08T22:09:00.003-05:00

Today was the day of Aiden's 2 year photo shoot. Mommy scheduled the appointment for 1:30 this afternoon. Aiden, of course, fell asleep on the way to the studio, and was a massive grump when we arrived. It took all we could do to get him to be interested in golfing (his favorite thing and thus the theme for the first round of pictures. Once we changed his shirt for the second outfit, he LOST IT. There was no way he was going to get photos taken. Fortunately, the studio was having a slowish day, so we were able to leave for a little bit and come knack and try again. After getting some Chick-Fil-A into him he seemed to cheer up, and the second round of photos went much smoother.

Thankfully Dan, our Photographer was very patient with us. I am sure they get bad kids all the time, but it just sucks when it is your kid who is bawling. All of the Staff at Portrait Innovations were really nice about it, and at least outwardly smiling, though they may have been inwardly gritting their teeth. The second time out when it was time to pick out the pictures we wanted, he thought that was high time to be running all over the place, which was probably almost as bad for the staff, as they watch a 2 year old zooming around everything, but again, all smiles.

Once again we purchased enough pictures to give one to the entire world. And we got the CD with all of the "proofs", so I can share some of those with you now. They are in reverse order as to when they were taken. Fortunately, even though he was upset in the beginning, the photos in the orange outfit came out just fine!

ENJOY!

The New Swingset

2009-06-29T23:42:00.003-05:00

Gallons of water, liters of sweat, eight hours and two exhausted guys later a swing set emerges in Aiden's back yard for him to play on. Saturday was rough as the temperature topped 95 degrees. Humidity was stupid. I started inventorying parts at about 7am, and just taking the parts out of the boxes and checking them off on the parts list I was sweating. At 3pm when the swing set was finally finished, Aiden was ready to have a blast, daddy and papaw Danny were ready for some Air Conditioning and a nap.

But the smile on Aiden's face when he tested out his new slide and swing were well worth all the effort. Word to the wise, if you are going to build your kids a swing set, do it in March or September when the temperature isn't quite so bad. Sheesh.

Ultimately we are well pleased with the swing set, it looks great, and Aiden seems to love it. Thank you to all of the family who have contributed to Aiden's birthday money so we could purchase this for him, it will provide years of entertainment for all of us!

Couple of pictures and a video tonight. The first picture is from Father's Day, with all the kiddos. Aiden was having a really hard time sitting still for pictures, but this big giggle was worth sharing. Then of course on to the exploration of the swing set! And of course proud daddy when the little man grabs his Ohio State ball cap and puts it on his head! Woohoo!

Crusher of Eggs

2009-06-25T21:35:00.002-05:00

So A couple of funny (in hindsight anyway) things Aiden did today.

This morning when mommy was getting ready to make her breakfast, she got the eggs out and set them on the counter. Aiden wanted the egg carton, so he reached up on tip toes and was able to just get a finger on the carton. This was enough encouragement for him to start pulling. I saw this from across the room and took off running to stop him. But too late.... I ALMOST caught the carton on it's tumble down, but almost doesn't count when the eggs hit the ground. 3 eggs smashed outright, 4 cracked but were intact enough for us to get into a bowl to scramble, and 2 made it out unscathed. Clean up, on aisle 3.

Later in the day somehow Aiden decided it would be a good idea to start a yelling contest with daddy. He yelled at me and waited expectantly, I made a noise back at him and he cracked up, then yelled again. So we yelled back and forth for probably ten solid minutes to Aiden's infinite delight. Hope none of our neighbors were around hearing all the screaming and wondering what was going on.

Tomorrow mimi and papaw are coming for a weekend visit, should be lots of fun, and lots of work, as Papaw and Daddy are going to spend Saturday assembling a new swing set for the back yard! Good times, and pictures to come!

Pictures

2009-06-20T21:55:00.002-05:00

Yes, I know they are a long time in coming, but we finally have some new pictures for you.

And A video of Aiden on the drum. He's getting really good at drumming.

Mommy and Daddy did a lot of housework today, so we're pretty tired, and I am going to just let the pictures and video speak for themselves. The "Parents" musical set we got for Aiden's 1st Birthday really has been a huge hit, along with many of the other gifts from his first birthday. That was 11 months ago already. Our little man is almost 2, it's crazy!

keeping up

2009-06-14T22:47:00.003-05:00

Trying to keep up with Aiden becomes more challenging as each day progresses. He's mastered terms like "Come" "Go" "outside" etc. So he is becoming more adept at letting us know what he wants, and less willing to take No for an answer.

One of his new tricks is to come up and literally try to force us off the couch if we do not immediately get up to follow him when he asks us to "come". Typically this either means he wants us to go outside, or run in circles around the kitchen in a "race".

The golf clubs are still the greatest thing ever. He has gotten pretty adept at taking a full golf swing, he still slams the balls from time to time, but most of the time he uses a half way decent golf swing. Leftie. I dunno how I am going to teach him to golf as a leftie, since daddy is rightie, but we'll figure that out later.

Another new game is the desire to climb into mommy & daddy's bed to watch tv. He will ask us to pick him up and put him in bed, where he begins to play with the bed covers and get his legs tucked in and then ask for either Dora or Elmo.

Trying to work on him not always getting his way, the wails that come out of this child when he doesn't get what he wants are awful, but we need to get him learning that he doesn't always get what he wants, so we have to deal with the decibel level.

We've been bad and haven't taken any pictures this week, so I don't have any to share, but will work on making sure I have some for next time.

Till then!

Baby Growth Tracking on the iPhone

2009-06-08T21:59:00.002-05:00

Every once in awhile I will get an email from someone representing a company, charity, or what have you wanting me to post a blurb in the blog about their product or service. For the most part these are things I have never heard of or used, and I pass on giving a mention of something I really can't vouch for. But I do want to take a moment to mention one product that I can vouch for, because my brother created it.

Aiden's Uncle works with Apps for the iphone/Ipod Touch. Mostly he is scripting something the company he works for is creating for the market, but he is also allowed to work on some of his own stuff and release it. He has released a product that I think will be wonderful for parents who own Ipod Touch or Iphones, Unfortunately, I don't have either, so I really can't test it out for you, but you can see a pretty good demo on the website http://apps.yellowpop.com/BabyGrow.html

Since I can't test it and tell you what it does, I am just going to copy the description from the website. And maybe Aiden's Uncle will stop in and make some additional comments. There is a banner link for the site at the top of the blog, so you can find it anytime.

"Track your baby's weight, length, and head circumference as he (or she!) grows. Charts for the measurements help you visualize your child's progress. Keep an eye on your baby's percentile rankings using data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) or the World Heath Organization (WHO).

Monitor the progress of an unlimited number of children, from birth to 36 months.
Produce growth charts for Weight for Age, Length for Age, Head Circumference for Age and Weight for Length.
Understand your child's growth patterns with accurate percentile information from the CDC and WHO.
Instantly obtain percentiles for measurements for babies of any age from birth to 36 months.

If you would like any additional information, there is a really good little demo on the website, and I am sure if you post questions in the comments section on this posting that the author himself may be able to come by and help out!

Here's the Website link again: http://apps.yellowpop.com/BabyGrow.html

The Great Computer Crash

2009-06-07T23:04:00.003-05:00

So things have been quiet here at the Newbie Daddy sight. I've been fighting a non-stop drag out fight with my computer for the past week. I've had a Compaq desktop for a couple of years now, and last week it started to get some Stop Errors (the Blue Screen of Death). For a couple of days it was an annoyance but once the computer restarted I was okay. But over the course of the week things got progressively worse, and the errors were always different. I used to Supervise a computer Upgrade Center, so I kinda know my way around a computer. But when the BSOD is different every time it is a tough glitch ti figure out. Everything was pointing to hardware problems, so I progressively replaced every component of the computer to eliminate each in turn. nothing solved the error, I finally came to the conclusion that the errors were coming from the mother board. So it was time to either find a motherboard that was compatible with all of my other components and hope it all worked, or upgrade to a new computer.

I found a little eMachines box that will do everything I need the desktop to do at a reasonable price at Best Buy, so we went ahead and did the upgrade. This means I will have my picture storing computer back and can get my posts in. LOL

in the meantime, on Wednesday, Aiden's new cousin came into the world. His new Cousin Desmond was born Wednesday night. Aiden got to meet him yesterday and the results were about what you would expect. He was a little hesitant and anxious about daddy holding this little tiny baby in his lap. A lap that belongs to Aiden. hehe.

Here are the pictures from that encounter to tide you over until I have the new computer all set up and ready to go.

Down with the Sickness

2009-05-23T22:33:00.002-05:00

So it has been a rough week around the household. First Aiden, then Daddy and finally Mommy all came down with a bit of a spring cold. We're actually going on two weeks since the symptoms started for Aiden and myself. Mommy has been sick for about a week. It hasn't been much fun, although none of us has been well and truly put out of commission.

Aiden being an active 22 month old shook it off during the day for the most part, playing and running around like his normal self, occasionally stopping to sneeze up huge gobs of yuckiness. At night though it was a different matter, with Aiden not being able to breathe very well he often woke up with coughing fits in the middle of the night. Fortunately he is pretty cleared up now and is sleeping peacefully once more (knock on wood).

All this illness was unable to put a damper on a little trip we had planned for Aiden and Daddy to go up and visit mimi and papaw Danny. It was looking like Aiden was not going to be well enough to head up on Monday night, with a planned departure for Tuesday morning. But after a full night sleep on Monday night, Aiden was up and acting much better Tuesday morning, so we made the decision to hit the road and go for our visit.

Aiden had a very nice visit with his grand parents, got to visit lots of places in the small town, and spent a load of time playing in the back yard and helping papaw put up his new shed.

The biggest drawback of the illness, aside from everyone just feeling crummy, is that Aiden had to miss the last two weeks of his ZooBabies class. While I think that Aiden was really too young to fully enjoy and appreciate these classes anyway, I think the animal interactions were a great experience for him, and it is unfortunate we were unable to attend, but we didn't want to expose a sick Aiden (or daddy for that matter) to a dozen other little boys and girls.

Haven't gotten many pictures through the illness, now that Aiden is on the mend, we will break out the camera and make sure we have some pictures for you for next time!

TOES! OUCH!

2009-05-14T22:53:00.002-05:00

Okay. Another week, another ouchie. Aiden is a little Boy after all.

Aiden had been feeling under the weather over the weekend, and daddy was feeling a little poorly himself, so we did not attend our zoo class this week, not wanting to pass germs on to the other kids in the group. So when we should have been in class, instead we had another accident.

A couple of weeks ago Daddy got a Wii and Wii Fit to try to use it to lose some weight (2 weeks and 4 pounds gone so far, but that is another blog). Daddy decided to get his work out in early and was doing a free step class. About 5 minutes in I thought it might be good to use mommy's little dumbell weights along with the stepping, so I grabbed them. Well here comes Aiden wanting to participate. He grabs one of the 2 pound weights, then promptly drops it on his big toe.

I didn't think it was much of a big deal at first, didn't even realize he had actually hit himself, just thought he was angry because he couldn't hold the weight. Then I saw that his toe was bleeding. Then there is the rush to get the bleeding to stop and see the extent of the injury. He was an unhappy camper all the rest of the day and did not let me clean up the blood all day, so it looked pretty horrible when mommy got home and she wanted to take him to the doctor, thinking it looked swollen.

Well, thanks to Aunt Dawn, who is a doctor, we saved ourselves a trip to the doctor's office. There really wasn't much swelling, he could move his toe around, and had put weight on it, so the cut seems to be the worst of the damage.

No pictures of this particular injury. But we should have some good pictures coming soon.

Boo Boo

2009-05-02T22:37:00.003-05:00

Well. We have a Big ol Boo-Boo to display tonight. Last night while playing around in the living room, Aiden managed to trip and bonked his head on the tv. IMMEDIATELY his little forehead swelled up with a big old goose egg. Amazingly, this was the first time he got a bump like that. Our injuries tend more the the scratch and bruise variety. So we were a little concerned at first. But he was acting normal and after having a good cry and playing with the ice cubes, he went back to his normal playing routine. This morning the swelling was almost gone, and unless you knew he had hit his head you might not even notice the injury.

So we have a picture of the goose egg for you, taken about 5 minutes after the fall, once he had settled down and was happily playing with his teething rings while we just tried to get one cold thing on his head for 30 seconds or more.

Yesterday was an eventful day. He took 1 nap of about 15 minutes and that left him pretty grumpy. Grumpy enough to throw a couple of temper tantrums at me. One of which lasted over an hour of non-stop crying with no source of comfort, I held him, rocked him, offered food and drink, and tried to get him to sleep, none of which worked. Ungh...

It certainly didn't help that it rained ALL DAY and he couldn't play outside. He LOVES taking his toys out into the yard and playing outside. But with the rain he was a little confused. He got out onto the deck and took a look at the rain (images below). Eventually he did go out and run around on the deck and get a little wet, he even tried to go down into the yard, which is when I stopped him. I expected a more negative reaction to the rain, but he took it in stride and just enjoyed being outside for a bit.

At the bottom is a short dancing video from a play date Aiden had this morning. Also a picture of Aiden and his cousin playing at his Aunt's baby Shower for the new cousin who is due in about a month!

Enjoy!

Golf Outing

2009-04-23T23:04:00.003-05:00

Mommy's work had a spring outing tonight and the venue was a putt-putt golf course. Talk about a perfect setting for our new little Golfer. We got out to the course at about 6:30, Aiden had a golf club and ball in hand by about 6:45, and aside from a mandatory food break of about 20 minutes, he was hitting a golf ball from before 7pm until 9pm this evening. He would probably still be golfing now if we hadn't tricked him into sending his ball down the chute on the 18th hole that made it go "all gone". And boy was he mad when we turned the putters in. He got a kick out of putting the ball in the hole though. We stayed at one hole for quite awhile, he would hit the ball in the hole, pick it up, set it about 3 inches away from the hole and hit it in again. We went through that for probably about 20 minutes or so. After dinner when we decided to play as a family, after about 9 holes Aiden was getting pretty good at putting the ball in the hole, picking it up, grabbing mommy or daddy's hand and walking to the next hole.

How cute is that? Of course then there was the betrayal of turning in the golf club, which we may never be forgiven for. But then we went and looked at the shiny lights on the arcade games and all was well.

Here are some pictures and a short video. We didn't get to do a lot of pictures since we were too busy chasing Aiden around, but here is what we caught "on film".

Golf Pro

2009-04-21T22:46:00.005-05:00

A few new pictures to share with you tonight. Aiden is really digging using his new Golf Clubs to hit any ball he can find. We took his clubs and Daddy's wedge out in the back yard so that daddy could play too. Ultimately he just had to have daddy's golf club, and here are the pictures. Later grandpa came over and Aiden taught him how to golf.

We also got him to "wear" his drum and play that tonight. We'll see if the video of that will load up for us.

We had another weekly session of ZooBabes. This week we met a groundhog tortoise and a Scarlett Macaw. While I really thing this class is a good thing for Aiden to experience, it is sort of tough with a little boy of 21 months. The class is very structured, and the children are expected to sit still for the majority of the time. This doesn't work so well for the boys. For the most part the little girls are willing to sit and listen, but most of the boys (Aiden foremost amung them) want to be up and wandering around. I understand the need to have the children in the laps when the animals are out and amung the children, but when the animals aren't right there, letting the kids wander around and enjoy themselves shouldn't be a bad thing. While the instructors don't really say anything about it, you kind of get the sense that they want the kids to just stay right there with mommy or daddy. For us, I either have to let Aiden wander a little bit or he is going to start crying and squirming. So I let him wander a little bit, but close enough that I can grab him. It isn't ideal, but it is the best we can do. After 2 weeks, I am glad Aiden is getting this experience with the Animals, but I am not sure if we will sign up for another session next summer.

Anyhow, here are the photos!

2009-04-14T22:23:00.004-05:00

Got a few pictures here for you of the little man going all GQ for Easter.

Alas, Aiden did not participate in the Easter Egg hunt. Mommy took the new golf set with them over to the party, and Aiden was too involved in golfing to go looking for Easter Eggs.

There is a picture there of him up on the table with the dominos. And yes, he got onto the table himself. Climbed up into the chair and from there onto the table. Yikes!

This week we started a ZooBabes program at our local zoo. Every week we get to go down to the zoo for a little fun, crafts, and animal interactions. For the first class we got to meet a millipede, and a bunny rabbit. True to form, our little guy didn't just pet the millipede, but tried to grab him from the instructor. But when the Bunny came around he was suddenly shy and didn't even want to touch the rabbit.

pictures....

2009-04-05T21:43:00.005-05:00

Well as I type this I am once again trying to load some video onto blogger, and it once again seems to be giving me a hard time. Ungh.

Anyhow. We'll let it sit for awhile and see if it decides to cooperate if I just let it sit for awhile. In the meantime, here's some pictures, and if we are all lucky a video or two from our trip to Indiana. Also a couple of pictures of Aiden with his new toy that mommy bought him today, a golf set! Yeah Daddy is happy. Aiden has been using his drum sticks to hit balls around the living room, so we figured we would get a real golf set for him to play with, and maybe learn. So daddy has a golfing buddy now!

Weekend with Mimi and Papaw Danny

2009-03-31T22:20:00.002-05:00

Well this past weekend we have a nice little trip to see the grand parents, and Great Grandparents.

With my mom living less than 3 hours away it is a nice easy drive to go up and see them. This past weekend mommy was getting ready to start vacation, and we were going up for a visit. We had an opportunity to have a nice night out just mommy and Daddy, so on Thursday afternoon I took Aiden up halfway to my mom, and she and Papaw Danny met me and took Aiden the rest of the way up to their house, while I headed back home. Mommy and I had a nice dinner and stayed at a hotel, and had a nice breakfast before hitting the road up to mimi's house. It was odd not seeing the little guy for 24 hours, but it was nice to kick back and relax a little bit without constantly checking up on a 20 month old.

We had a good visit, Aiden's Great Grand-Parents came down as well, they had planned the trip down to visit for awhile and had no idea that Aiden would be there, so a nice surprise, although maybe a bit more tiring a trip than they had expected with as crazy as Aiden gets.

We had a little Easter Egg hunt in Mimi's living room (there were thunderstorms so we couldn't do it outside) Aiden wasn't really sure what to make of the eggs, but he did like the white part of the hard boiled eggs once we cracked them open.

I'll load a few pictures soon, once the camera makes it upstairs.

We made a list of words he could say while we were up there, and it is over 30 recognizeable words now. Once we figure out where the list wound up we'll post a new updated list. Perhaps the funniest word he has learned so far is "elmo".

More soon!

pictures and videos

2009-03-19T22:58:00.003-05:00

Aiden had a har dtime falling alseep tonight. As in he went to bed at 10:45, Finally. But I promised myself I would post some pictures and a video tonight, so here you go. It was supposed to be two videos, but blogger is being tempermental.

Hope you enjoy a few of the more recent captured moments.

Words Words Words

2009-03-02T23:35:00.003-06:00

Well... since our little jabber box is starting to make some legible words and illustrate that he knows what they mean, I thought it would be nice to chronicle the words he has mastered. So here it is, the official list of words Aiden knows.

bye-bye
momma
dada
go
dog
ball
book
hola
ni-ni (night night)
foo (food)
papaw
uh huh (yes/affirmative)
uh oh
Map (working on it, thanks to Dora)
Slide (pronounced sly)
hello (working on it, kind of a mix between hola and hello at the moment)

There are probably more, but I can't think of them at the moment. He is really working on mimicing what we say if we ask him to. So the list will expand shortly.

Boat Captain

2009-02-26T21:59:00.003-06:00

Well... two weeks again since my last update. Time flies around here I guess.

Well Aiden has been doing pretty well. Going to sleep around 9pm and waking up about 7am. Of course 7am is too early for Daddy, but I'm getting used to it.

We've had some warm weather in middle Tennessee, so I have had the opportunity to take Aiden to the park a few times over the last week or so. He really enjoys the park, and I enjoy the nap we usually take afterwards.

At 19 months Aiden is so super busy. He's always up to something, and keeping daddy on his toes. The last couple of days he has actually managed to escape the house. We have a dog door for our golden retriever, which is of course ample size for a 19 month old to get through. He has gone through it once before, but that was months ago and he really wasn't steady on his feet at that point, so he went right over and banged his head on the deck outside, so we didn't try that again very soon. Well on Tuesday the dog started barking emphatically and I went to see what it was she was barking at. As I walk into the kitchen I see through the sliding glass door, my son, wandering around the deck. The same scenario played out again on Wednesday, but instead of the dog barking the house went REALLY quiet. I usually have a pretty good idea what Aiden is up to just by hearing what activity he is doing. When I don't hear anything I have to check on him in a hurry. And sure enough, wandering around on the deck. Brilliant.

So now we're going to have to either keep the dog door closed, or find some other alternative to keep the child in the house where he belongs.

Got a couple of pictures for you tonight. Last week mommy had to go in to work on her day off for just a few minutes, so I took Aiden on the boat ride. It was a slow day, so we got Aiden up in the captain's chair and taught him a few moves. Enjoy!

First Haircut

2009-02-11T22:58:00.004-06:00

Yeah, we finally went and got Aiden's hair cut. Sort of.

We took Aiden in for a trim, and were lucky to get that much hair off his head. At first when we put him down in the seat, he seemed curious more than anything else, so we thought we were in okay shape. But as soon as the stylist started spritzing water on his hair, the tears and bawls started streaming. Aiden Bawling at the top of his lungs while other folks are in the salon trying to relax during a hair cut or pedicure or whatever. It was not very pleasant. Eventually, we moved back into the back hallway, and mommy and daddy took turns holding Aiden while the stylist trimmed a little more hair off.

Aiden's curls are still intact. She might have taken a half an inch of hair off, and even that she didn't manage everywhere. Since he has about 6 inches of hair and it is all in big old curls, it is hard to notice any difference. But picture #1 is the before, and the last picture is the after.

I guess the videos will have to come later, as blogspot has been sitting on "processing" on my video for close to 30 minutes, with no response, so I will try those again tomorrow.

Reactions

2009-02-07T22:17:00.002-06:00

I want to take a moment and thank everyone who has offered their kind words and sympathies this week as I said good bye to my dear pet.

One of the things a lot of people have asked about is Aiden's reactions, if any, to Skywise not being with us anymore, so I thought that would be a blog worthy topic.

In truth, Aiden has probably not noticed the change in the count of animals in our house at all. Aiden's "pet existence" is dominated by our 90 pound Golden Retriever. She follows us from room to room, and when the dog enters a room, the cats make for the exits, or the underside of a bed. Which means except for the rare occasion that a cat would brave the downstairs while the dog was outside, or we would come upstairs and find a cat on one of the beds, Aiden rarely sees or interacts with the cats.

Aiden did pet Skywise a few times, and she tolerated it with dignity. But in hindsight, I can't recall a single instance in which Aiden has seen both cats in one place at the same time. So in his little mind, he might not even realize there were two different cats. So he still catches glimpses of Chessie, so there is still a cat in the house and all is well.

When the dog goes, that will likely be a different matter entirely, as he has bonded with the dog. Fortunately, she is only 5 years old so with any luck she will be around for many years to come.

The dog does seem to be missing Skywise on the other hand. There are all sorts of theories on animal grieving, and Leetah has been with Skywise for all of her life. When we got Leetah as a puppy, Skywise outweighed her, that VERY quickly changed, but it seems as though the dog does sense the loss and is a bit sadder than her usual self this week.

In other news, we have had WONDERFUL weather here in middle Tennessee over the last few days, and yesterday Aiden and I went out to the park and spent an hour running out some of that pent up energy from being cooped up inside during the cold days. It is bound to get chilly again soon, it is only February after all, but in the meantime we are going to try to get the most out of this wonderful weather that we can.

Good Bye Kitten

2009-02-02T21:53:00.002-06:00

I hope everyone reading will pardon me for taking one post out from talking about Aiden to say a few words about my cat Skywise who passed today.

I adopted Skywise from a shelter on July 24th 1993. I filled out the adoption papers and agreed to have her fixed while during the same operation having her front claws removed. I was able to pick her up 3 days later, on my birthday. Since I never had any idea when he actual birthday was, I just always celebrated her birthday right along with mine, since that was the day I got her.

I was just going into my Sophomore year in college, and Sky was my first big responsibility for something other than myself. I nearly lost her in the first week, as the tolls of two massive surgeries on her little kitten body made her susceptible, and she got a pretty bad urinary tract infection. While in my mind I know that during that first week with her I spent a lot of time prying her mouth open to try to force medicine down her throat, my keenest memory of her as a kitten is the very first night I brought her home, I woke up in the middle of the night with a little ball of fur curled up on the bed right in the space under my neck created by the incline of my head being on the pillow. She had curled herself up so tight against me, it was a tremendous bond with this tiny little creature.

She gave me a kitten's share of difficulties, one time knocking an entire glass of orange juice over onto my computer keyboard, desk, and phone. But she was always there for me, always loving to lay in the sun, and my constant companion through all of my misadventures.

A World traveller, Sky made homes in Kentucky, Virginia, Florida and finally Tennessee. From day one she was a great traveller, No car crate for this one, she preferred to explore the car as we went, finally picking a spot on the floormat and calling that home, even for the 12 hour trip from Florida to Kentucky. At the same time, it was Skywise who stopped my travels after graduating college. I had decided that I wanted to move out to Las Vegas to pursue my career in live entertainment, so I packed up my bags and my father and I started driving to Las Vegas. Since this was to be Skywise's first major trip the vet recommended giving her a light sedation, which made her lethargic, but didn't put her out. We had her in a crate for the trip and she was not pleased with that idea at all. Already nervous and doubting about the trip in the first place, my heart broke with my poor kitten crying and not even able to stand up because of the sedative. We made it five hours out of Lexington before I broke down and we went back home. Who knows where my life would have gone if my kitten hadn't been there to test my resolve. Two weeks later I had a job offer from Carnival Cruise Line, an offer I no doubt would not have been in a position to accept if I had gone through with the move to Vegas.

For a time while I worked on the cruise ships Sky had to spend her time with various other family members, my mother and brother to be precise, and had various feline roommates. She wasn't thrilled with sharing her space with other cats, but she eventually came to an arrangement with them to leave each other be. Finally coming to even be willing to share space on our guest bed with Chessie as the sun soaked through the windows and both girls settled in for an afternoon nap.

3 days ago Sky started to act very lethargic and weak, prior to that she was as active a cat as you could hope for being 15 years old. She had lost a lot of weight, but I read over and over that this was common in senior cats and unless accompanied by other symptoms was no cause for alarm. So, with her attitude and behavior being intact, we let her enjoy a little less weight to carry around. I am not sure what exactly it was on Friday that clued me in to how events were unfolding, but she was not acting herself, and I woke up Saturday fully prepared to find that she had gone to sleep Friday night never to wake up. But she was still with us Saturday, and Sunday, but Monday morning found her behavior even worse than it had been the previous days. This afternoon we decided to take her in to see the vet and our concerns were confirmed, in the vet's opinion she had renal failure which is what eventually takes most cats at this late stage in life. As inert and unresponsive as she was and with the dr's concerns that if we brought her home to "die in the peace of her own surroundings" that she may progress to siezures, vommiting, and overall a suffering end, we decided that the best thing to do was to let her go.

As the doctor gave us a few minutes to discuss our options and I sat there with my kitten, she gave one huge sigh, as if to say "I'm done fighting daddy" and we knew. There was no fight left in her. She had had her run, and was ready to cross the rainbow bridge and nap in the sun constantly. The doctor graciously agreed to administer the shot out on the deck where Sky could be in the sun one last time, and a few moments later she was gone. Gone but never to be forgotten.

Unfortunately, the only digital images I can find this evening are the two attached. I have more in photo albums, but I don't know if I am ready to go through those yet.

She was a sweet kitten, and I loved her dearly.

Good-bye Skywise, and Rest well!

photo update!

2009-01-31T21:57:00.004-06:00

Some New Photos for you. Here in Middle Tennessee we didn't get hit with the snow and Ice as hard as some of our northern neighbors did. Our "ice storm" ended up being a consistant rain at above freezing temperatures. We did get a smattering of snow though, and we got a chance to get Aiden out to enjoy it.

So we have a few pictures for you today, of Aiden enjoying the snow (what little there was of it), His application photo for "Future DJ's of America" and some just showing off how cool he is.

Enjoy!!

Sick Little Guy

2009-01-24T22:42:00.002-06:00

Yes I know...

I promised to do better on the blog, and here it is another 2 weeks since my last posting. No excuses other than life getting in the way. Every time I try to type while Aiden is awake he wants to help and we type a bunch of gibberish.

Sleep has been getting back to normal. That's the good news. Going to bed between 9-10 at night and up no earlier than 4:30-5, the other night he stayed in bed till 6. We were impressed. Flannel PJs seem to have helped some, or it may just be coincidence that the day I bought flannel pjs for him he stayed in bed till 5am. Who knows with toddlers.

He's chatting up a storm, but we still don't know what he is saying. His newest "word" is Uh Oh. It is the funniest little sound, and sometimes daddy says "uh oh" even when nothing bad has happened just to get Aiden to repeat it. We know this little guy is trying to communicate, he is sooooo emphatic with his gibberish. It just hasn't become full fledged words yet.

We had a minor heat wave here toward the end of the week, and Aiden and I took full advantage of it. On Thursday we paid a visit to the local park and he played with a bunch of other kids for quite some time. He's really good at checking out what the little girls are doing. Not sure if that is good at this early age, but what can you do. On Friday it was 60 degrees, so we made the treck down to the Zoo since we had not been in a couple of months. We only saw the Elephants, Meercats, and Lorakeets, because we discovered the Jungle Gym at the zoo and their "toddler bounce" area. They what is probably a 40x40 "room" under a gazebo that is basically wall to wall gym pads. so the little ones can go careening all over the place and not have any concern about getting hurt because everything is padded. Aiden LOVED this, and went tearing around that room for close to 45 minutes.

Unfortunately, with all of this going out and about the little guy picked up a bug from one of the kids he played with, and last night he came down with a bit of a fever. He's been a bit of a grumpus over the past 24 hours. But hopefully it is something short lived and he will be back to his normal rambunctious self in no time.

I'll work on getting some pictures as soon as he gets to feeling better. :-)

Christmas Pictures

2009-01-10T07:38:00.003-06:00

Updating

2009-01-06T13:43:00.002-06:00

Well the holidays are over and time is working on freeing up some. I still have some touches to put on the annual Aiden DVD which is taking much longer than expected. The Blog is getting a little bit of a facelift, some things will change over the course of... well however long it takes me to get it the way I want it. Gone are all of the various links to blog networks. I am not going to worry about trying to drive traffic to the blog other than from friends and family. So there goes a lot of the clutter. Hope it also helps some of the pictures and videos load quicker for those of you who are not on broadband.

Christmas was quiet around the house. We had done our gift giving with most of our family prior to Christmas day, so on Christmas morning we got up, opened the few gifts that remained, had breakfast, and just enjoyed a quiet day for the most part. Aiden is starting to understand the concept of openning gifts, we put a little hole in the wrapping paper and he took care of the rest.

Sleeping is an issue again, we are on our third week of Aiden getting up in the middle of the night. We can't really figure out what is causing his wake ups. He could be cutting more teeth, or just the adjustment to the colder season, or. or. or. or. hehehe. It's hard to figure out. A lot of the other parents we know report that their children are having a hard time sleeping right now as well, which essencially means we aren't the only ones who are really tired.

No new pictures today, mommy has a new system of labeling the photos and I need to make sure I load them onto the computer the way she wants them loaded before I upload to the site. They'll come soon!