Aaron Update

Oh, this little monkey! He is so adorably rotten and I love him to pieces. He's definitely been my hardest little one, but he's also so much fun.

Still hasn't really added anything to his vocabulary, but his comprehension is great. Tell him it's time to brush his teeth and he'll stick out his tongue. Tell him to go read books and he'll head to his room and pull them off the shelves (he LOVES reading--I'll find him in his room sitting in a pile of books, happily turning pages). He also understands "lay down" and "num num" (he heads to the high chair for food). 

Ah, the lightswitch game.

He can't turn them on--only off.

Guess who gets to turn them back on for him?

Favorite books include: Hush, Little Baby; Doggies; Freight Train; The Very Hungry Caterpillar (or Aaronpillar, which is how I read it to him); Goodnight Moon

Possibly (possibly!) he can say "Seth" ("Seh!"). Not sure about it, but he says it all the time when he's with his siblings. Still won't say Mama or Dada, of course. 

Aaron likes to do things on his own timetable. Didn't sit up until almost 9 months. Didn't crawl until around 12 months. And wasn't in any hurry at all to walk. Seth and Catherine were both late walkers (14 months), so I expected that. But when 14 months passed, then 15 months, then 16 months...I started to wonder.  Finally, at a little over 16 months we had a walker! And he wasted no time: he took his first steps one day, then was walking around the kitchen the next. He just likes to keep us guessing!

Aaron's favorite place to be:

In the pantry, begging for food

When happy, he'll crawl around and tilt his head from side to side while babbling and cooing. We call this the Bobble-Headed Baby. 

I used to think Catherine was going to be my strongest-willed child. Pretty sure Aaron is going to win that title. There are few things he enjoys more than pestering his sister (by destroying her Magna Tile princess castles, by shrieking at her repeatedly, by following her around, etc.).  And he's not afraid to go on the offense. Here they are fighting over dirty Roomba parts (why, children? Why?):

Aaron won this battle by climbing up her face and pulling her hair.

He also scratches.

He LOVES the outside, which has been really rough with this miserable cold weather. I'll catch him heading out the door in bare feet when it's below freezing. He's going to be one happy boy this summer!

Now that he can walk, he loves playing chase with Seth and Catherine. He ends up getting knocked over quite a bit, but not enough to deter him.

This kid and the dishwasher. I have no explanation for the overwhelming draw he feels toward this appliance. Our loading and unloading has to happen while he's asleep now, because he can hear us opening it from any level of the house and will come running:

We went through a horrible phase where he was taking only one nap a day at NINE IN THE MORNING. Gratefully we are now on the regular afternoon nap. Aaron may be hard in some ways, but he loves his crib and (generally) goes right to sleep.

Lately he's insisted on bringing all his doggie stuffed animals out of his crib when he wakes up. Very adorable .

He loves his shoes and will hold out his feet for you to put them on. He's still pretty terrible at walking in them, though. 

He loves baths, although he prefers to bath alone so he can play and splash without being yelled at. On this particular day he figured out that sitting on the drain means the water never goes away:

I can't believe this little guy heads to nursery in less than a month. Where has the time gone!?