End of October 2013

I'll start this blog with the punchline; a photograph of Aldo as the Halloween bear cub:

I realize that Aldo is a bit young for Trick or Treating, but he looked so cute in his costume that I wanted to share the love.  Aldo had a great time.  He carried his own treat bucket, the (plastic) head of a black cat, and had no problem taking candy from the giving baskets and transferring it to his cat bucket.  Typical for Aldo, he enjoyed the socializing; he not only had no trouble going up to strangers' doors, but he wanted to go inside their homes.    Aldo mostly held my hand, but often enough he pushed my hand away and wanted to run down the busy street.

We trick or treated at the "Highlands", the neighborhood on the way to the nordic center, just above our condo.  This is the happening, place-to-be for trick or treating in Tahoe City.  We also have a friend who lives on the block and socialized with them for a while.  My favorite part of the evening was the several times Aldo held his face or mouth against my hand when he got excited, as if to say, 'thanks mom, this is great'.  I was surprised to hear the kids and tweens refer to Adlo as a baby, 'Ahhh, look at that cute baby'.  He is still, technically, a baby but he sure looks like a little boy to me.  On the walk home I was able to draw Aldo's attention to the beautiful night sky (just like the night sky in his 'Baby Galileo') and tell him, 'stars', which he likes.

The few days leading up to Halloween were also exciting and fun-filled.  First, I have to thank Sally for taking a day off work from her other job to watch Aldo while I was in Sacramento for a meeting.  On so many levels, her flexibility was helpful.

I enjoyed watching Aldo 'speak' to his new bath toys; flat, foam sea animals which, once wet, can stick to the side of the tub.  Well Aldo had them all stuck to the side of the tub and then preceded to take roll call.  He pointed to each, pausing in turn, and said  "Goy-yai-ya.  Goy-yai-ya.  Goy-yai-ya".  Then, satisfied that everyone was present, he quickly spread his arms out, declared "Rrr-rah" and slapped his hands into the water and returned to his other toys.

Aldo is getting better at feeding himself and he's eating more variety.  No doubt, having eight teeth helps.  Two days this past week we did not use any jarred food!  I gave him a toddler fork and he's enjoying it.  On one night, he fed me my dinner of broccoli with cubed, baked potato.  I let him know how proud of him I was and he couldn't stop himself from smiling a bit, with pride.  Tonight he fed me again with his fork, this time from his dinner plate.  When the meal was over, he remained in his highchair, arranging his bowl, plate, sippy cup, spoon and fork.  He looked so adult; this was serious play.  I'm excited to think that Aldo might soon be feeding himself.

 I'm so thankful for these pictures because otherwise, amazingly, I would have forgotten this day.  The day before, I stopped in Truckee to buy Aldo some needed cold-weather gear, like the boots in this picture.  I was surprised, but Aldo loves these boots and let me spend 20 minutes figuring out how to get them on his feet.  The boots are a size too big and super clunky, but Aldo had been practicing walking in my shoes, so he was ready!  Oh, and we were almost out the door when Aldo suddenly remembered something - to bring his scoot outside with him.  Too cute.