Wednesday, March 20, 2013

Best birthday present… ever


As Mommy B stated in her last post, we’re finally the same age again. That’s right Followers, last Monday (March 11th) I celebrated my first annual 29th birthday. I’m hanging strong to my twenties – because after this, it’s all downhill… just kidding (kind of). Once you hit 30, there are just certain things you shouldn’t do anymore. No more late night partying, no more mid-week happy hours, no more wasting the weekend away lying on the beach soaking up rays. Oh wait – I haven’t done that stuff in years anyway. I guess it’s true that age is just a number and even though I’m still in my twenties, I’ve probably acted like I’ve been in my thirties for a long time.

Anyway, my birthday started off the same way every weekday does – a 5am alarm and getting both kids up, dressed and off to school by myself. Work was work, although at my new job they celebrate every team member’s birthday with cake a six-pack of the birthday person’s favorite beer. So I came home with a sixer of New Belgium’s spring seasonal “Dig” and a couple leftover cupcakes – which was a nice way to end the workday. It’s not my all-time favorite beer, but I figured it’d be a rather tall order to send my boss searching for Great Lakes’ Christmas Ale this time of year (and in this part of the country).

When I got home that afternoon, I received the best birthday present I can recall in a very long time. Aiden decided that my birthday was a good day to start walking on his own. And I’m not talking about taking a couple steps here and there then falling down… I’m talking walk-across-the-room-without-help walking. He’d been taking a few steps and steadying himself then taking a few more in the past few days but today the training wheels came off. The minute I saw him do it, I flashed back to the week before Alli’s first birthday when she did the same thing. And just like that day, I stood in the kitchen in awe of the arms-out-front-zombie-walk that Aiden was doing right in front of me. And just like when Alli did it for the first time, his smile could have lit up New York City for a week.

In the weeks previous, I had told Mommy B that once he started walking he’d be so happy. He’s already Mr. Smiles (most of the time), but I knew that once he was able to walk after his big sister we would see a brand new kid. Much like his father, he has an older sibling that he looks up to and wants to play with. Also much like his father, he pretty much skipped crawling and went right to walking to keep up with said older sibling. To be honest, he actually started crawling on all fours a couple weeks ago but didn’t enjoy it as much as being up furniture surfing.

Aiden has basically gone from hurdler-scooting to full-blown walking in a matter of a few weeks. That’s what has surprised Mommy B and I so much – he’s learned and developed so much in such a short period of time that I’m sure he’s having a heck of a time keeping up with it all. Here’s a comparison – Alli started crawling on all fours at about 6 months old, but didn’t start really walking on her own until a week before her first birthday; Aiden on the other hand didn’t start crawling until he was about 9 months old, but is walking on his own before turning 11 months old. He’s gone from pseudo-blob to being completely mobile in about 2 months – holy. crap. And to think we were starting to worry that he wasn’t developing fast enough… looks like he had other plans. We just thought that Aiden was going to be on his own schedule (which boys typically are) and was going to get there on his own time – and here he is, beating his big sister to the biggest milestone a child reaches.

I guess we both got a little older that day. And I couldn’t be happier for my big boy.

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