Did I Mention He was a Big Helper?

My Constant Companion

Do any of you have one of these? You know, that thing that's always underneath your feet, following you throughout the house, even to the bathroom. Nope, I'm not talking about my kid. I'm talking about my sweet girl, Reagan. Actually, I don't really mind it. Even when she wants to sit in my lap on the couch, underneath the pillow which happens to be underneath my dinner.

Reagan's had a pretty rough week this week. Last Friday I took her to the vet for what I assume is the equivalent of a yeast infection in humans. Nice, right? The problem is, the vet blamed this on her being so fat! Apparently, fat rolls were preventing air from getting to certain places so things weren't drying out properly, which led to a painful, itchy infection. So, $280, daily antibiotics and one week later, I think it has cleared up. In addition, Bill and I have decided we have made it to third base with Reagan and have almost pretty much rounded to home because, oh yeah, we had to CLEAN IT three times a day and put ointment on it as well.

The moral of the story is, we now have Reagan on reduced calorie food, obtained from the vet no less, to try to get her weight down. I honestly didn't think her weight was that bad. Pugs generally should weigh between 14 and 18 pounds, and Reagan weighed in at 22 pounds last week at the appointment. I guess four pounds does matter, though, when you're talking about a small animal. I hate it that she's probably hungry all the time, but I'll do whatever it takes to keep her around for as long as possible. Even if I do find myself tripping over dog about forty times a day.

He's a Big Helper

Necessities of Desert Living

I finally broke down and bought Aaron a pair of sunglasses. I've always been against buying things for him just for the sake of cuteness (Stop laughing! I'm being serious!), but, holy crap, the sun here was giving me migraines after running because I had to be so squinty! So I finally broke down and bought myself some running sunglasses. After that, I figured I better get Aaron some sunglasses too!

How awesome does he look in them?!? The problem is, how do you keep him from taking them off after five seconds? Auugggghhhh!

Big Boy Bed!

It's here!
It's pretty tall...
Now if he could just figure out how to sleep on it the proper way...

Why It's a Poo

O.K., maybe the name of Aaron's pacifier requires an explanation. We call it a "poo" which is actually a derivation of "Pooh" as in Winnie the Pooh. My sister and I have called them this ever since my cousin Meghan was born back in 1986 and had pacifiers with Pooh Bear on them. That's how they got their name and it has stuck ever since. So hopefully we're not confusing him when we say "No more poo poo" because that could lead to constipation and that's never good.

Speaking of the pacifier situation, it's going pretty well actually. So far we have only had problems with naptime in the afternoon. It's hard to get him down and then he only sleeps for about an hour and a half. This is a boy who used to kick out three hour naps, no problem. So that's hard. However, it is now SUPER EASY for him to go to sleep at night due to the tiredness and he actually sleeps all night long. For the past couple weeks, Aaron has been waking up every night between 1:00 and 2:00 in the morning. Every single night without fail, needing comforting before he'll lay back down. He hasn't been doing this the past couple nights, though, so that's good. I fear this is the beginning of the end of afternoon naps but I figure it's got to happen eventually anyway, so it may as well start now. Hopefully my nerves will be able to take Constant Aaron all day long! Until bedtime, at least.

So When Exactly Does It Start Getting Easier?

Today is the first day of "Operation Turning Three." There are three huge tasks that I wanted to accomplish before Aaron turns three next month. They are:

1. No more sleeping with a pacifier.
2. Move to a big, BIG boy bed.
3. Potty training.
   

Daddy left today for a conference and will only be gone a few days, so I thought I would take this opportunity to tackle #1 up there. I know what a lot of you are saying to yourselves. "What are you thinking doing this by yourself? Misery loves company, baby! You need to let Daddy feel that pain too!" The fact is, I can't do that to him. I feel too guilty. If Aaron keeps me up all night, the truth is he has to sleep sometime and I can sleep when he does. Daddy has to go to work in the morning, though, no matter how much sleep he got the night before. So call me the best wife in the world, or the dumbest, but I just thought it would be better to do it this way.

So this afternoon I put Aaron down for his nap and it was traumatizing. We have always referred to his pacifier as his "poo" and he kept calling for it and BAWLING. "Poo poo! Poo poo!" I finally went into his room and rubbed his back until he was halfway asleep. He only slept for about an hour and is now awake again and acting like I'm forcing him to go through heroin detox or something.

Pray for me tonight. I'll let you know how it goes.

One hour of fitful poo-less sleep.

Did You Miss Us?

Well, hopefully you have Regarding Aaron in a reader or you just care enough to check that I'm actually posting here again after a long absence. Life has been so crazy the past few months. We moved to a brand new house on base, then drove halfway across the country again to visit Daddy while he was in training in Arkansas. But now everyone is back under the same roof again! Yay! Well, Daddy actually left today for a conference but he'll be back on Friday. No biggie!

Stay tuned for more posts!

Hello, My Name is Stubborn

No afternoon nap yesterday = frazzled Mommy nerves. Possibility of no afternoon nap again today = certain death for a little boy. But he wasn't going quietly. Oh no. "Silly woman. Get into bed and go to sleep? Riiiigggghhhtttt. I'll show you! Yeah, I'll go to sleep...on the floor."

Show Me Your Teeth!

This is about as photogenic as I can get when it's forced. I tell Aaron to show me his teeth now because "Say cheese!" doesn't work anymore. And the flash doesn't help either, I'm sure. Oh well. He's still cute.

It seems like we always end up in Aaron's room after dinner to play until bathtime. His new phrase is "Sit here!" and he points to the exact spot on the floor where you must plant your behind. Daddy is out of town right now (he'll be back Friday), so I've been taking pictures during our playtimes for him. Here are some of the best:

Oh, How I Love Him

As I'm sitting here blogging, my son has now been in his room for an hour and 45 minutes without falling asleep for his afternoon nap. However, he has not gotten off his bed. All those toys in there and the only thing he has been doing is talking to himself, with an occasional kick to the wall (not maliciously. I think he plays by putting his foot through the slats along the back of his bed and he occasionally hits the wall behind.). He does this every morning as well. I wake up to the sound of him talking, but he does not get up from the bed until I open his bedroom door to go get him.

I guess I should enjoy this while it lasts.

The Boy, He is Traumatized

Daddy and I took Aaron into town last Saturday for a haircut and to run some other errands. The haircut lady asked us at the end of Aaron's cut if we would like her to just comb his hair or if we would like a spike 'do. I thought the spikes would be cute so I told her to go ahead and do that. She then stuck her comb into a vat of styling gel and came out with, to me, seemed like an abnormally large amount for his little nog. She ran the comb with the gel blob through his hair and his hair responded by spiking quite nicely.

I wasn't too sure about his new hairdo at first, it sort of made him look like a hoodlum, but as time wore on, it grew on me. I starting thinking about if we had just a regular old comb at home so that I could replicate what our stylist had done.

That's when all hell broke loose. All that hair gel started to dry and turn hard and flake and the boy realized something was a little different up there. He finally reached up and felt what was going on and started to wail. "No spikeys! No spikeys!" He did this all the way home. People, it takes us 45 minutes to get home from town, so you can imagine the frazzled nerves. Before we put him down for a nap, Daddy had to wipe his head down with a wet washcloth because it was bothering him so badly.

The weird thing now is, out of the blue, he'll turn and look at me with sad, expectant eyes and ask, "Spikeys?", as if, any minute now, I'm going to strap him down and do that to his hair again. So I reassuringly say, "No spikeys. Never, ever, ever again. No spikeys." And he'll ask at the craziest times - dinner, bathtime, grocery shopping, Reagan walks.

Very strange.

Laundry Day

I think it's about time, don't you think?

I was playing with the settings on my camera again today with this shot. The above shot is my favorite. It was taken with a White Balance setting called "Shade." I also took the shots below:

Auto mode:

See how bright it is in the front with the shadow in the back? I hate that. And it so doesn't mimic the actual lighting situation that was occurring at the time.

Then there's the Incandescent mode:


I suppose there's a situation where this will look good but, so far, it just looks blue to me.

How Aaron Helps with Chef Salad Dinner

What!?! He's the spinner!

Mmm... Chef salad dinner...

My One-Man Band

For funsies today before lunch, I got a saucepan out of the cabinet for Aaron to beat on along with a wooden spoon to do the beating. Hey, this used to keep his attention when he was very little, why wouldn't it work now? Silly Mommy. I got distracted with something in another room and came back to find what you'll see in the video - about six pots and pans, all laid out perfectly like in his very own drum kit. Add a cutting board and a couple of glass (!) pots and you're on your way to some mad music skillz, yo!

I Can't Help It

Bill makes fun of me for feeling sorrow for people that I don't even know, but this just breaks my heart:

Heath Ledger found dead in NYC at age 28

Step Two to Big Boy Bed

Take the side rail off his crib and put the safety rail on. This essentially turns his bed into a daybed. A daybed that he can crawl out of. So far, between bedtime last time and naptime this afternoon, he has been really good about staying in the bed and going to sleep. We've only caught him out of bed and playing with his toys once, and he went right back to bed when Daddy told him to. Thankfully he doesn't know how to open the door to his room yet, so I don't think that we'll be getting midnight visitors anytime soon.

Aaron's crib is one of those convertible kind that changes from a crib to a daybed and then finally into a headboard and footboard for a full size bed (that he, in theory, could take to college with him, if it makes it through all the moves). We are waiting until we move to turn it into a full size bed (We're eventually going to be kicked out of the base house we're in right now so it can be demolished. We're hoping to move into a new base house later in the spring, if they don't run out first. If that happens, we will be buying off base.). Hopefully, our good luck with this transition holds out!

Folding AROUND the Dog

What? You don't have to do this too?

Stupid Camera That's Smarter Than Me

Well, this was my attempt at playing with the camera settings on my new Nikon, trying to get the pictures that I want. So far, the only setting that I like is No Flash. How lame is that? And they mostly come out blurry. I know, I know. I need to read the manual. My head just really hurts between the camera and trying to figure out all the bells and whistles on our new van.

I know, I'm so sad with all my new toys, right?

P.S. Isn't my little boy really starting to look like a little man? He's so handsome and growing up so fast. O.K., there's the brain trauma freeze I spoke of earlier.

Because Two Pugs Are Always Better Than One...

This long holiday weekend, we are puppy-sitting for our friends while they are down having fun in L.A. Bauer is quite a bit younger than Reagan, and it's really weird for us to think about Reagan being the old lady in the house now. We're so used to her running circles around other dogs (like Bauer does to her), but you can definitely tell that Reagan has calmed down in the past couple years as she gets older. She's only six and a half years old, but it kind of makes me afraid for the future when she won't be around anymore. But then I get brain trauma freeze and everything is O.K. again.