Aaron's Blog

Can’t believe Aaron is a year old on Friday, already! Where has the time gone and what happened to our baby?

Well, it appears he is growing up, way too fast for my liking!

He is getting steadier and steadier on his feet now and quite happily makes his way around the room holding on to the furniture. Once he has a bit more confidence he will be taking steps on his own, i don’t think it will be long! He still has no interest in crawling but can sit himself up from laying down and somehow bottom shuffles along the floor to get to where he wants to go. He has also started to venture up the stairs now, so we have to keep a real eye on him.

He cut his two top teeth last week, one on 24th and one on 27th April, so that now makes four! We were hoping this may have helped him settle and sleep better, but no such luck. Obviously his brain and developmental skills are making him restless, which is not so much fun for us! Hopefully we will get a good nights sleep soon.

Aaron is learning lots of things and seems to pick them up quite quickly. The other night Ben was going up to bed and came and gave me a kiss goodnight. Straight after, Aaron walked over to me (holding on to the sofa) and planted an open mouthed very wet and sloppy kiss right on my mouth, very sweet and it made my day! He also knows how to cuddle and squeeze.

Aaron also likes to pretend to play the Wii, he always makes his way over to the controllers, picks them up and waves them around whilst making a whooshing sort of noise, hehe.

He is very very cheeky!

The little man is getting bigger and bigger all the time now!  He is growing very well and doesn’t have any problems with eating at all. He would eat non-stop if he could though!

He now has two teeth come through, the second making an appearance on the 2nd March, and they are both the ones on the bottom at the front. They are quite big now and very sharp so you don’t want him to bite you!

He is walking aided really well now, and seems to prefer walking around more than anything else.  It isn’t as bad now as before as he has growing that little bit taller, so its not as back-breaking as it was to start with. It won’t be long before he lets go and toddles off on his own.  Because he is taller and can stand up now, his walker is getting a bit small, so it won’t be long before that will be put away. He has already broken the vent in the kick board in the kitchen by ramming into it though. tut!

His favourite shows on TV are Ben and Holly’s Little Kingdom and Peppa Pig. Probably because Ben watches them all the time! You can put the Ben and Holly theme music on at any point and Aaron will immediately stop and turn around to face where the music is coming from. Even if he is in a fit of tears, the music will cause him to stop and be quiet! lol  Kelly has some episodes on her phone for the car, just in case! He also likes the two bedtime songs that are played on Nick Junior just before 7pm.

Sleeping -wise, he has been on and off a lot recently. Teething hasn’t helped really but there has been several times when he has caused us to have hardly any sleep. Being in a room with Ben doesn’t help though, as Ben is a nightmare sleeper, so when he makes a noise, it wakes Aaron up. Ben is suffering from night terrors at the moment which means he is waking up lots crying and shouting, which obviously keeps Aaron awake as well.  Hopefully they will grow out of it soon as we are all desperate for a good night’s sleep!

While we were up in Weymouth recently staying with Kelly’s family, we took Aaron to the beach for the first time. He loved it playing in the sand and even tried to eat it!! We bought him a little bucket and spade which he enjoyed playing with, and was digging out the sand with his spade. He seemed to enjoy it loads.  Hopefully the weather will stay nice this year and we will be able to go a bit more often than the past few years!

He has had several colds this year (we all have actually), but is OK at the moment though a tad snotty still!  Not sure how he is getting them all the time but it coincides with Ben starting School, so we think he has been bringing all the germs back with him.  Aaron has had a couple of heat rashes though. The first time we thought it was Chicken Pox (it was going around the pre-school) but it turned out it wasn’t with the doctor saying it was just a virus. In a way we were hoping it was Chicken Pox as it is a lot better to get it out of the way now than when he is older.

Aaron was weighed yesterday and he is now 19 lb 13 oz.

This is an increase of 6 oz in 3 weeks which is good as he was slightly dropping below the ideal weight for his age, though there was nothing to worry about.

In the last couple of days, Aaron has had his 1st tooth come through, and it is one of the teeth at the very front of the mouth. We have been waiting for it to come through for a while now, as his gums have been quite hard for weeks.  It also explains why he has been such a nightmare sleeping recently! So you have to be careful now, as he can bite you properly (which he likes doing!).  The tooth next to it is also close so shouldn’t be too long now before they all start coming through!

Aaron has also decided in the past couple of weeks that he wants to walk now!  He seems to much prefer being stood up that sitting down and it has caused much back ache for myself and Kelly. He reaches out for your thumbs and pulls himself up to his feet and then starts toddling off around the house! He has very strong legs and he has taken to walking with ease.  You can put him up against a chair or something now as well, and he will quite easily stay stood up with no-one holding on to him.  It seems it won’t be long before he will be walking on his own!  He even tries to pull himself up in the bath!

Oh yes, he has also learnt how to wave to people which is funny as he sometimes gets mixed up with clapping and waving and kind of does both at the same time!

Aaron had a great first Christmas with lots of presents from friends, family and Father Christmas!

The boys both had a small present on Christmas Eve which was some Christmas pyjamas to wear to bed which made them look very cute, especially Aaron.

Typically, Aaron and Ben decided to sleep on Christmas morning so I had to go in and wake Ben (at which point Aaron woke as well) to get them up.  Aaron seemed to enjoy opening his presents, although he was sometimes more interested in the wrapping paper! He got a good selection of clothes, toys and some little chocolates so thank you to everyone who gave him something!  As he was a good 7 months old, he was aware of what was going on, so he knew exactly what was happening!

He had his morning nap as normal (he was exhausted after all the excitement) and then ate all of his mushed up Roast Turkey.  He even had some grapefruit for starters and attempted to pull a cracker! The rest of the day he played with his new toys which included a lion ball bashing game and an electronic learning ball, whilst stopping for a nap at mid-afternoon.

He had a great 1st Christmas and enjoyed it all!

Here are some photographs -

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Since Tuesday this week, Aaron has been very poorly indeed.  He has had a very high temperature with it reaching 39.5 degrees at one point! Kelly has hardly slept as he hasn’t wanted to sleep in his cot so she has had to stay up with him. The poor little man still had an appetite but was sooo hot all the time and just didn’t look very well at all. On Tuesday night Kelly got hold of NHS Direct for some advice as we were quite worried due to his high temperature, and they said that if it got to 40 degrees, then we should call a doctor.

Luckily, it didn’t reach that high, but stayed high enough for Kelly to call our normal Doctors on Thursday but they were useless as usual. They had no appointments so a doctor called her back and basically said the opposite to the NHS direct doctor. Our doctor said it was probably viral and it would pass in 7 to 10 days – no offer of a check over just in case or anything! In the end, the little man started to lose his high temperature during the day but still wouldn’t settle on his own to go to sleep even though he was absolutely shattered. In the end, I took him out for a ride in the car at half 10 last night to see if that would make a difference, and it did thankfully. Aaron feel asleep in the car but unfortunately woke when we got home. Even so, it didn’t take too much effort to get him back to sleep and he managed to stay in his cot and slept most of the night – not getting up till about 8am. Phew!

So, it looks like the worst of it is over now so fingers crossed he will make a full recovery in the next day or so and that we will all, finally, get a good nights sleep tonight!

A couple of weeks before Christmas Aaron suddenly started to learn things very quickly. Within the space of a few days, he learnt how to clap his hands and sit up on his own. The clapping hands is especially great as he has a big smile on his face when he does it! He also started babbling as well saying mamamamamam and dadadadada and laughing to himself.  It is very funny to watch!

In the last day or so, I have managed to teach him how to nod his head for ‘yes’ though he obviously doesn’t know what ‘yes’ means yet! He was doing it whilst sat on the bed last night, and nodded so much he nearly fell off the bed!! Lucky Kelly was next to him to catch him!

He is growing up real quick!

Aaron has been on solid (well mushy) food for several weeks now and he is really enjoying it and usually eats his little bowl full all up!

He mostly has either mushed up Rusk with milk, or Butternut Squash and Sweet Potato mixed together, but he has also sampled Roast Chicken, Stew and Spaghetti Bolognese. He has also been partial to a bit of Prawn Cracker and Toast!

He is also having Mummy’s milk still, just to top him up but he seems to be wanting proper food more and more now!

This food is certainly doing him good as he is growing into a big and sturdy strong lad!

Aaron has and is still getting over his first proper illness which is Croup. This a virus in the respiratory tract and has caused Aaron to struggle to breath. In fact one night this week he woke up in a panic and he was really bad and we were on the verge of calling for an ambulance as he was really struggling to breath. Luckily he calmed down but Kelly had to stay up with him all night, just in case.

The following day we took him to the doctors who diagnosed it as a moderate case of Croup and gave us a prescription for a steroid table to give to him. After he took that, he cleared up really well and didn’t struggle to breathe any more, which was a major relief! Croup can get so bad that it can stop babies from breathing!

He now still has a bit of a cold and a chesty cough but nowhere near as bad as it was.  Hopefully he will get over it in a few days!

Here is a lovely picture of Aaron and Daddy taken at Lappa Valley Railway at the end of August.

Aaron and his Daddy