Going to the zoo, zoo, zoo

Yesterday we went to the zoo! Caiden was mostly interested in running around, digging in dirt and throwing mulch, but he paid attention to some of the animals too.

He liked the lion, especially since he did lots of roaring.

The indoor tropical forest area was fun, lots of things like crocodiles, anteaters, monkeys and birds to see

The gorillas were interesting too!

Fun weekend

We had another fun and busy weekend! On Saturday morning, I took Caiden to his first swim class. We are doing a 12 week "shrimp" program at the closest Y. I expected tears, and I was right. In his defense, it was kind of cold.  He was shivering the whole time! He was okay as long as I was holding him, but he was not a fan of any activities that involved taking his arms off of me, like floating, sitting on the side, or kicking. He was a happy (but still cold) camper when they brought out balls and rubber ducks to play with. Tossing them around got good laughs out of the little man. One arm was always gripping tight onto me though. I hope as he gets used to the water he will warm up a little.

After we got home, my family came over to celebrate aunt Margaret and Doug's birthdays. We had a fun afternoon with them! And Caiden spent Saturday night at Nanna's house. It's such a treat for Dan and I to sleep in on Sunday morning!

On Sunday, we had a visit from Ian and family. We took a morning trip to drumlin farm with them. It was fun as always but we were sad to see the 6 piglets missing from the pig barn, and even sadder when we saw the fresh pork for sale up at the front desk! We know they had a happy life though.

Back at the house, Caiden and Ian had a fun time playing together, and it is so great that the are getting to the age where they can actually play together! Caiden wants to do everything Ian is doing. He wasn't into lunch until he saw Ian eating his

They did all kinds of running around and playing together. We heard lots of squeals and giggles from them. Ian gave Caiden lots of hugs and liked helping him out. It was very cute!

They had a little wrestling match and were laughing like crazy. Just like brothers!

The boys even took naps at the same time so the adults could have some nice quiet time. What a fun day!

Trip to NH

Dan took Caiden up to New Hampshire a week ago for a grandparent visit. They were gone for 28 hours, which is the longest I had ever been away from Caiden! He had a really fun time up there. He got a kick out of climbing the stairs and seeing all the airplanes in the basement.

Dan brought home these trains from when he was a kid. For now Dan is enjoying them more than Caiden is. Caiden mostly enjoys destroying the tracks Dan creates.

Remembering Bright Horizons

I was hoping to incorporate this into the post I recently made about transitioning to the new daycare, but it took a few extra days to get the photos from Bright Horizons. One of the things I loved about BH was the journal they kept throughout the year Caiden spent there. They periodically added pictures, updates, stories, and milestones in the journal. They were kind enough to send me a bunch of the photos to share. This post is for us to remember Caiden's time with them.

Every day the toddler room had circle time to read books, sing songs, play music, and even take spanish class.

Spanish with Mrs Olivia

Music with Mr Ron

Caiden loved all of the sensory activities that they did. They were always experimenting with different things like water, ooblek, goop... etc.

 Sometimes they did some cooking. Stirring is a favorite activity...

They also did lots and lot of arts and crafts

This picture makes me wince

Playground time was another favorite

All the playing often tired Caiden out. Sometimes he fell asleep early

And sometimes he slept longer than his friends

Caiden discovered his love for dinosaurs at BH

So many good memories there! Caiden will miss his friends the most though.

weekend-o-rama

What a fun weekend! But first, another use of the learning tower- magazine reading! Caiden loves reading Dan's stash of RC magazines. He makes appropriate car/plane/helicopter noises as he turns the pages.

We had a fun weekend. On Saturday Nanna Nan came for a visit after a long vacation- Caiden loved seeing her! Later, Dan and Caiden took a trip to Drumlin Farms. And finally, we all celebrated Grandpa Jack, Aunt Margaret and Doug's birthdays with a dinner at our house. Caiden loved the extra attention!

On Sunday, I took Caiden to Landry's bike store in Boston for the 4th annual BTT time trial. He had a lot of fun kicking his ball all over the place and meeting new people. We killed some time there until the Boston Childrens Museum opened.

The museum was crowed the second it opened, but it was fun. Caiden loved the train table. He had so much fun pushing the trains around. 

Caiden napped on our drive home, and the afternoon activity was a hike in the back woods. Caiden had fun  walking all by himself and throwing leaves and pine cones all around.

A new beginning

This week Caiden started at a new daycare. We were very sad to take him out of Bright Horizons, but I got a new job and it won't be feasible to take him to Natick every day. There are a few Bright Horizons near my new office, but we really wanted to get him closer to home, especially so that Dan can get involved with drop off and pick up. So we found the best place that we could, the Learning Experience in Concord. I was a little underwhelmed at our tour- it seems like there isn't quite as much stimulation there, but we decided to give it a shot.

 If you remember my anxiety over Caiden's move from the infant room to the toddler room at Bright Horizons, you can imagine my state of mind over totally uprooting him to a new center.  I am sure I am taking this harder than Caiden- I was pretty close to tears when we left Bright Horizons for the last time. I took this past week off between jobs, and eased Caiden in to the Learning Experience over the week. So far, so good. He is having separation anxiety when I drop him off, which hadn't happened at Bright Horizons in a few months, but whenever I picked him up he was clearly enjoying himself and sometimes didn't want to go home. Hopefully as he gets to know all the teachers and new friends, he will be happy when I drop him off too.

There are a lot of things they do differently than Bright Horizons. Some things I will get used to, but other things I just plain don't like. So far they aren't deal breakers, but if that changes we will look into putting him in one of the Bright Horizons in Waltham.

16 Months

I realize I haven't been posting much, but it's been hard getting photos of Caiden that don't look like this:

Or this:

By the time we have the camera out to capture a cute moment, it's over and he is off and running! I'll try to get quicker so we can keep you updated. Anyway, back to Caiden's 16th month of life. He has a molar coming in so the past week has been a little rough, but we've had a fun month. We have memberships to both Drumlin Farm and the Acton Discovery Museums, and boy have we been getting the money's worth out them. Caiden loves both places and we spend lots of time at each! He especially loves the pig barn at Drumlin and the ball room at the museum.

Another thing we've been getting good use out of is the learning tower Dan built. Here are some of it's great uses! He loves to help me mix ingredients. He gets a kick out of watching the batter drip off the whisk- it always gets a "wow!!" out of him. We are working hard on learning to keep the whisk inside the bowl.

When I am doing the non-Caiden-safe part of cooking (cooking on the stove), Caiden likes to pretend cook with various kitchen equipment

He also likes having snacks up there

 And doing arts and crafts too. He is really loving stickers recently.

As always he loves spending time outside, which is easier than it should be these days. It's been such a mild winter!

He has been a pretty good eater this month, although his appetite definitely comes in waves. We'll have a couple of days where he will eat like a horse, and others where it seems like he has barely eaten anything. He doesn't seem to like foods with lots of spices- he almost always turns his nose up at mexican food. We'll convert him eventually! 

That's all I can think of for now! Stay tuned!