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More of life with Jaeden

This has been a busy couple of months. We are just about finished with the basement, which we are finishing so that we can hopefully adopt a sibling for Jaeden, In the meantime, Jaeden has been learning and having fun at every turn. First, he still loves animals, and though he cannot have his favorite animal (a cat) due to allergies, he's still happy with his chickens. They will escape from their coop and follow him all over the place, and when Jaeden realizes that they are following him, he'll immediately talk to them, and pet them, and have a great time, as you can see below:


Also, Jaeden is really into games right now, and the funny thing is that ANYTHING interesting is a game. To see what I mean, here is a video of Jaeden intently trying to figure out the legos, and telling mom that he's playing a game. So cute!

What is Jaeden like when not a picture?

I just realized after posting last week that Jaeden is just a picture to many of you!  We have so few videos showing what he's REALLY like.  So I tried this week to capture a couple of moments ad hoc in Jaeden's everyday life.

The first is Jaeden watching cars.   No, I didn't replace him with a doll.  That is really Jaeden.  It's the only time we can guarantee that he'll be completely silent, still, and calm.  period.  Just watch, and you'll understand.

The second is our pre-church talk.   Jaeden actually talks a lot.  And I mean A LOT!  I tried to get him to talk for the video, but he didn't talk to much.  Must have been distracted by that foam/sponge thing in his hand at the end.  By the way, WHERE did that come from?  He's like a little magician, pulling that out and eating it!

A few fun pictures

Yes, it has been forever. From dealing with the court hearing, to having our car break down (today) we've had very little time to ourselves, let alone to blog. Sorry. Form here on out, we're going to try to do better. Rather than try to catch up on hundreds of fun times, I'll just post some recent(ish) pictures of our not-so-little-anymore baby boy...

Did I mention that he loves to eat? Must get that from daddy.


Sitting in his chair with his friend Chloe. I think he asks for her 5 times a day now that she's moved to Utah.

Jaeden loves to help moma cook; it's just that not much ends up in the bowl by the end!

And here is Jaeden cheezing it up for the ladies.

This one's actually for me... who buys a Prius, only to decorate it with anti-global warming/liberal bumper stickers? Seriously???? Too funny!




And Jaeden, who was too afraid to go on any rides by himself went on the "car ride" with mommy and Daddy at Kennywood. (the local amusement park, kinda like Lagoon). However, far more fun to him was the "ride" of swinging on the railings while waiting in line. Who needs expensive tickets to amusement parks... let's just buy this kid a pull-up bar!




Jaeden for his 2-year old birthday party got a Lightning McQueen pinata. He is absolutely obsessed with cars and trucks, and the movie cars sends him into 7 fits of ecstasy. We literally have to try hard to keep him from watching it 6 times a day!


We went to an airshow, which Jaeden loved (he now makes all airplanes fly around fast and loud, like the F16's we saw) and he got to sit in an old WWI car.


And, did we mention our son's addiction? This is him with "Finding Nemo" on the iPhone. He didn't move from that position on the bed for a full 1.5 hours. Well, we know how to keep him happy and quiet, at least...

Poor Jaeden

Those of you who know Jaeden know that he LOVES animals. His clear favorite has come out in the last couple of months however; Jaeden loves cats. Any time we show him pictures of animals, he'll humor us with saying their name, and then will immediately say "No, more cat! Meow!" Every time he sees anything even remotely resembling a cat, he'll start yelling "Cat! MEOW!" at the top of his lungs. So, after much thought and consideration, Renee and I seriously considered getting a cat in a couple of months (a couple of months because our good friends the Wilson's have mild cat allergies, but they're moving away in a couple of months). We finally committed enough that for Jaeden's birthday we took him to the pet store to see (and test ride) a few different cats. Well, poor Jaeden, he will probably never get to own a cat. He was in heaven for a while, but after 10 mintues of being with the cat, Jaeden began to have severe allergic reactions. His face got red and splotchy, he developed hives, and his eyes were swollen and watery. You can see from the pictures that he looked absolutely miserable. What made things even worse, however, is that he is not even slightly less interested in cats. Even as we left the pet store, he started begging for more cats. Poor kid. Never even considered that he might be allergic to his favorite animal. So, if any of you have suggestions, please let us know what we could do!

We love summer!

We have several pictures and videos for you today so you can see just how much we all love summertime. Especially Jaeden. Although to be honest, a large part of his summer love was visiting my parents. For weeks before we left, he was continually saying the names of all of his cousins, aunts, and uncles (which, considering that there are 25 of them, is no small feat for an almost 2 year old). His favorite family member, however, was not any of those people.

Nope.

It was my brother's dog. He was at Grandma's house for the whole time we were there. At first, Jaeden was terrified of him. He'd cringe when Conan got too close, he'd cry if Conan licked his face, and he'd run away loudly repeating what dad hoped would be soothing: "He's nice! HEEEE'S NIIICCCEEE!!!!!" It didn't take long, however, for Jaeden to realize that Conan was a great friend to have. In fact, you can see here just how much fun they had, and this is only the first DAY! (again, I apologize for the shaky camera. I was laughing quite a bit during many of these videos, and the shaking is the evidence!)



We took Grandma and Grandpa some Graeter's Ice cream to enjoy. I guess it was still a bit frozen from the flight over there.



Jaeden rode his first merry go round with his cousins Landon and Leah. I didn't think he liked it, since he was so stoic the entire time, but apparently it was fun, because when I tried to take him off hi said "No no no no no!! MORE!"




Jaeden got to meet his new cousin Ethan (who he is STILL talking about)



And he had lots of fun with his cousin Leah (even though she didn't always like him not doing everything she told him to).




Here's Leah sporting her chocolate goatee.


Jaeden was so happy to get back to our house, however, that even the laundry basket was a favorite spot to hang out.



And as an added bonus, we've started getting 3 eggs a day from our chickens (only 3 because the day we flew home a Fox got into the coop and ate one.)


And finally, after two years, Renee and I were able to experience why people call the Pittsburgh cityscape "Spectacular". It was indeed quite the view. Yes, summertime is great!

So much has happened...

Okay, so I'm not going to fall into the trap of many bloggers, and give excuse after excuse of why I haven't updated in so long. That's not why you're here. Suffice it to say, I've been busy. And now, to what you really care about... Jaeden!

We got the new baby chickens in February, and Jaeden was so excited. Every day he'd want to go see the "chickies" and some mornings, he'd wake up and his very first word wasn't mom, dad, breakfast, or even up... it was "CHICKIES!!!!"


We got the coop a little while later, and Jaeden was in love... he was convinced that it was a little house for him. In fact, we had to work hard every single day to teach him that it was for the chickies, not for Jaeden.


Well, we failed. One night while Renee and I were cleaning up the basement, we let Jaeden play in the back yard. At one point, I realized that Jaeden hadn't come in to show me any new rocks for about 15 minutes, so I got worried. I went outside and couldn't see him anywhere. That made me quite concerned, so I started calling his name. Much to my relief and consternation, he quickly made his wherabouts known: he was inside the chicken coop. I tried hard (and failed) not to laugh, because he wasn't supposed to be inside the coop, but dang, how'd he get there? The entrance is tiny! And, he was just so darn proud of himself! It wouldn't have been so bad if he wasn't covered from head to toes in chicken poo. Yuck.



Grandma and Grandpa Clark came to visit last weekend for Easter, and Jaeden was in absolute Heaven. He hasn't had so many people in one house paying attention just to him in his whole life. He would walk around the house looking for "Grama" or "Grampa" (who he also sometimes called Clowmet... who knows where in the world he got that from) and just laugh and laugh and laugh when he found them.


While they were here I made a surprising discovery: Jaeden can read!!! Full on, complete recognition of words! I found this out because he has little flash cards that Renee got for him a while back, and when I was moving them, apparently the word on the top card (head) was at such an angle that he could see it, and said "head" while grabbing his head. Sure enough, as I flipped through the cards, he knew about 90% of them, and said them without any hints or prompting. Wow, I'm a little worried about this... he is going to be way too smart for me, isn't he?
I'll have to get it on video for you guys to see next week. It's pretty unbelievably amazing!

Jaeden's love of animals

Sorry this is a day late... I got home from my meetings yesterday, and I went to relax "just for a minute" on the bed. Next thing I know, it's morning and I have to get up to go to work. So, I'm going to post a quick note now about Jaeden's recent animal loving. After chasing our friends' cat all around the house last week saying "Cat, Cat Cat..." over and over again, we decided it was time to get him a pet. This was further confirmed after watching him do this:



It was a present from my parents, and it barks and moves its ears whenever a coin is put in the slot (it's a bank). Jaeden loves it! He'll go back and forth between putting coins in, and cuddling with it, as you can see from the video.

The problem: we can't seem to agree on a pet... Rodents are too small and fragile, cats are out because Renee doesn't like them, dogs are out because we can't yet agree on a breed.

The solution: we went exotic and ordered chickens. We'll see how that turns out, but Jaeden already says "ba ba ba baga" every time we ask him about chickens, so I think he'll like it. Plus we get eggs... win-win!

Jaeden is a snow baby!

So, I guess it's like father like son, but Jaeden LOVES the snow. I went out to shovel the walk earlier this week, and after continually begging mom to carry him "side" (outside) to watch the snow falling, she relented to letting him come hang out with me. So she got Jaeden all bundled up (the Christmas story comes to mind... "I can't put my arms down!!!") and then we went out through the garage. I opened up the garage door, and Jaeden practically died from excitement. At first he thought he wasn't allowed to go in the snow, so he just looked at me, then crawled a little closer, then looked back at me... repeated a few times. Finally, when he looked at me the last time I said "Yeah, go ahead Jaeden!" and he giggled, then plowed right into the snow. This video takes over from there... he's so happy to be outside in the white stuff!



Yes, our baby says "no way". Renee said it once, and Jaeden thought it was so funny that he now regularly says "no way!"

Yesterday we went out sledding in our back yard, and Jaeden really liked that too... until daddy accidentally bonked his nose the last time, and that was the end of that. But I'm happy he likes the snow... we're going to have lots of happy skiing days together, I think! :)



(and yes, Jaeden says "no" for everything now, even when he means "yes"! Kind of confusing for us sometimes... :)

Renee was right!!!

... not that I ever doubted her, but Renee was absolutely totally and completely right... Jaeden starting walking over the break. Christmas at Grandma and Grandpa Memmotts was so indescribably awesome! From the nerdery (yes, there were 5 laptops in the family room at one time) to the skiing, to the game playing, to the chillaxing with family, life was good and slow for 3 weeks. And, Jaeden, being motivated by not crushing the bugles in his hands, started walking for long distances.



We also got to visit our friends Tania and CJ, which was wonderful. Their daughter, Clara is just a few months younger than Jaeden, and they were instant friends. I happened to capture their first real greeting time together, and though this looks staged, it's completely spontaneous. What a nice kid Jaeden is, right? Too bad he can't touch girls from the ages of 8 to 24, but who's counting, right? :)



And just as a funny aside, one afternoon, my sister Heather thought her daughter Camille was napping. Any guesses as to what she was actually doing? :)