Look Who's a Big Boy Now!

I am still in shock over this, but it has been a whole year since Aiden was born! The year went by so quickly, probably because time does that when you never get a moment to sit and contemplate your navel anymore. Aiden's birthday party was more like a whole birthday weekend (lucky boy!) since a lot of Andy's family came up to spend the weekend at the camp on Lake Champlain. Grandma Chris, Grandpa Dan, Uncle Kenny, Aunt Mary, Uncle Mike, Dan, Paulette, Micah, Becky, Jeannie, Allison, and Alex all made the trip, and for the actual b-day party we also had my parents, Aunt Chris, Uncle Preston, Sarah, and Joe! So it was a full house for a full weekend of fun.

Late August in Vermont can tend to feel a bit like Fall already, but not this weekend... it was H-O-T!!! The good thing about the heat was that almost everyone was convinced to take more than one refreshing plunge into the cool lake- about 10 minutes after getting out though, it felt sticky and sweaty again. The highlight of the water activity came on Friday evening when Uncle Kenny, sauntering down the dock, removed the towel around his waist to reveal a tiny green speedo! What a treat for everyone, especially Jeannie! Hopefully I will post a picture soon so that everyone in cyberspace can also enjoy Uncle Kenny's speedo!

Mom and Jeannie enjoying the lake. Timber being a pain.

Clockwise from top left: OCD and ADD (the pooches) go for a swim; Kenny, Jean & Chris relax on the porch; Paulette enjoying the lake; Andy's famous ribs

It was so hot that Aiden could not wear any of his cute birthday outfits and was forced (much to his delight) to wear his true birthday suit for most of the day. There is nothing he loves more than to be entirely unclothed. And sitting in a pool of water, if possible. And so, his fondest birthday wish was granted.




Aiden's new birthday tunnel

Um, can i get in another pool? Someone's hogging this one!

Grandpa Deegan caught the largest smallmouth bass we've seen come out of the lake in a long time!

Dan & Paulette trying to catch that bass again...



Goofing around with Uncle Dan...


Mommy is not nearly as fun as Uncle Dan...

The pile of presents that was set before this little one-year-old boy to open was truly impressive. Andy and I have up to this point been working under that oft-repeated theory that, "you can't spoil a child under a year old." When we saw this mountain of presents, I think we both had the same thought: We're screwed now. He was definitely spoiled on his first birthday, but we're at least trying to rotate the toys so that he doesn't get bored of all 1,000,000 of them at once.

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I love my Daddy!

And I love BLUEBERRIES!

Of course, there has to be a chocolate cake involved in every first birthday party. Actually these were brownie cupcakes, but the desired effect was achieved. I think Aiden actually had more fun mashing and squeezing the cupcake with his fist than he did eating any of it. A big thanks to Jeannie for letting Aiden sit on her lap during the whole ordeal, and thanks to my mom for the yummy cupcakes!

Remembering my Wonderful Grandma

In mid-August we had some very sad news- my Grandma Dean passed away. She did not suffer long, and she was surrounded by family and friends in her last days, which I know she appreciated. But that doesn't make it any easier, and we will miss her greatly. The entire extended Dean family gathered at the farmhouse in Parishville NY (where Grandma Dean grew up) to celebrate her long and full life, and honor her passing. We shared lots of stories and memories which alternately brough tears and laughter until we were all quite physically and emotionally exhausted (at least I know I was).

Grandma Dean's children and their spouses (left) and grandchildren and spouses and great-grandchildren (right). The entire family hadn't been together at one time for at least a decade.

I know one thing I will miss most about Grandma Dean is her storytelling. In her later years she was very hard of hearing, which could make sustained two-way conversations trying at times, but if you could get Grandma started talking about her childhood or the escapades of her own children she could talk and talk and talk for hours with no real nead for you to do anything except sit back and enjoy the ride. Her stories unfolded slowly, but they were always entertaining. She could recall the sequence of events in a single day of her youth or adulthood with remarkable clarity. One of my favorites was the story she told me while I was in the hospital on pregnancy bedrest last year, about how each of ther 3 children got their names, and the stories of their births. It was a long story (I'd say a good 2 hours plus), but to quickly summarize, my Uncle Larrie was named after a children's poem (Larry the Lamplighter), Aunt Memorie was named after a contestant my Grandma heard on a radio game-show, and my dad was named Steven (without a "ph"! much to my grandma's chagrin) after my Grandfather finally put his foot down and declared that his last child would not be named Lance! My grandma's doctor at the time always seemed to be unavailable when she went into labor (he was usually out hunting wild game on some remote Adirondack lake), arriving at the last minute in his wool checked hunting garb (sterile, I'm sure) too late to make it to the hospital. This timing had some interesting consequences - my dad, for instance, was born on the family couch! I definitely appreciated the distraction and humor of her stories while in the hospital stressing about my own upcoming labor. :)

Grandma with Aiden on the day he was born

We will all do our best to remember Grandma Dean's stories and we will definitely keep her in our hearts. She was a feisty lady but she was always kind-hearted, even at the height of her feistiness, and she loved her family more than anything. We will all miss her very much.

Addison County Fair

Luckily we did not have any run-ins with airports or emergency rooms last weekend. Aiden recovered nicely from his croup (as you can see he's enjoying the garden bounty above) and we headed to Lake Champlain to do as little as possible all weekend.

We did visit the Addison County Fair though, since it's right down the road and happened to be that weekend. Aiden loved "petting" the farm animals (a.k.a. grabbing fistfulls of fur, wool, hide....we're still working on "gentle") and watching the crowds of people and the bright colors of the carnival rides and games. He had his first ride on a merry-go-round, and he wasn't quite sure if he enjoyed that or not. He definitely did NOT like the lumberjack's contest - every time one of the lumberjacks would fire up a chainsaw (just one particular chainsaw though, others that were way louder did not bother him), Aiden's face contorted into a big frown and he started to wail! Andy was worried about Aiden's propects for cutting the family firewood in the future!

Come here little sheep! Let me squeeze your nose!

Aiden is not fond of chainsaws apparently.

The Addison County Fair is Vermont's largest agricultural fair, so there were lots of 4-H demonstrations, livestock judging, and horse events. We watched the six-horse draft teams for awhile, and it was impressive to see these massive horses all high-stepping in unision. Everytime the audience would clap, Aiden would go nuts because he'd never seen so many adults clapping at once! He thought only babies and mommy and daddy clapped! What fun!

Aiden discovered that his Uncle Danny was actually a horse. Poor Uncle Danny horse did not win any ribbons at the fair.

Here is the horse next to Uncle Danny horse.

Umm...I'm glad mommy's enjoying this.

We finished up the weekend with a dip in the Lake, which was chilly but still enjoyable for a few minutes.

Aiden in his floaty contraption. So far it has avoided being popped by the zebra mussels.

The Worst Weekend...ever?

Sorry I have taken a short hiatus from blogging... I think the Iceland posts really wiped me out on blogging for awhile! So, most of August has passed by now and it's been a definite mixed bag of a month for us. The first weekend of August was completely unreal- and not in a good way. We were headed to my friend Allison Lefrak's wedding in Washington D.C. on Friday afternoon, and we made it as far as our first leg at JFK airport in NY (though the flight was delayed 2 hrs). It was hard to tell what was happening outside JFK airport in our makeshift, windowless, "while-we're-under-construction" Jet Blue terminal, but sometime after we arrived I guess they completely closed the airport due to dangerous thunderstorms and had to divert all their planes to land in neighboring states. So... to make a long story short, our flight was basically cancelled (after 12 hours in the airport they could not even estimate when an appropriate plane might arrive to take us to DC). At about 3AM, there was a flight that was leaving back to Burlington, so having reached our limit of tolerance and patience we called it quits and went back home.

Allison and Malcolm's wedding (thanks for the photo Whit)

We made it back home to VT just as the sun was coming up at 5:30AM. I was really sad & disappointed to be missing Allison's wedding and a rare chance to catch up with all of my friends from Colgate at once. But we were also exhausted so we asked my mom to watch Aiden so that we could get some sleep.

I'm definitely upset I missed this moment...

As it turned out, it must have been fate that we took the flight back to Burlington. By the time we met up with my parents, Aiden (who had been totally fine at 5:30 AM) was having real trouble breathing. We called the pediatrician who said that she didn't think we needed to take him in (yet) if he was still eating and drinking and smiling once in awhile. But by about 8PM on Saturday night, he was really struggling for air and his little tummy was heaving in and out with each breath. So we rushed him to the emergency room at the hospital and spent several hours holding him on a small gurney while they tried to administer different inhalant steroids that only seemed to do any good for about 10 minutes at a time.

Hospital Emergency areas are always a nightmare. It was a BUSY Saturday night at Fletcher Allen Hospital too- on the other side of the curtain from us was a completey drunk man who had had his lip bit in half by a dog and was cursing and screaming at the nurses to bring him painkillers and to "stop eating donuts and hurry the hell up". Also there was a heart attack, and a man who hit a moose on his motorcycle (never a good mix). So you can imagine that little Aiden got quite an education that night.

By 3AM (are you sensing a pattern here?) the doctors told us it was probably just viral croup, but they wanted to admit him to the Children's Hospital anyway for observation overnight. So we were wheeled upstairs (one hall down from the infamous room in which I spent 2 months last summer!) and a nurse hooked Aiden up to about 70 wired gadgets stuck on his chest and toes and plunked him in what looked for all the world like a steel-barred monkey cage at the zoo. Poor little fussa! He did manage to sleep a little, and I slept a little in a pull out chair in the room. Andy found a place to crash in a Ronald McDonald quiet room somewhere.

A bad camera-phone picture of Aiden's hospital monkey cage. Notice how tired Andy looks...

In the morning, Aiden was a little better, and he improved as the day went on. We were chomping at the bit to get out of there by early afternoon - Aiden was definitely sick of getting all tangled up in electrode wires and being confined to his monkey cage. Luckily they liberated us shortly thereafter with a prescription for some steroids and we went home to squeeze a little sleep out of the weeekend before work on monday. At some point you just have to laugh that a weekend couldn't possibly get any worse!

Blueberries!

Last week we had such nice, sunny weather that we decided to take Aiden blueberry picking after work one night. Owl's Head Blueberry Farm near our house has live music while you pick several nights each week, and pickers usually spread out blankets on the hill after they're done picking to have a picnic supper and listen to music. It was hot, but Aiden had a great time picking blueberries (green and ripe) from the backpack carrier and eating them by the handfuls. We had to hide the full quart containers of berries after they were picked so that he wouldn't eat and/or mash them all.

People picnicking on the lawn while listening to bluegrass

Andy with our booty

Watch out for the blueberry monster!

Mom picking berries in the late afternoon sun