Aiden Turned 2!

So Aiden turned 2 years old last week. He is getting so big, Jessie and I can hardly believe it. It feels like we just took him home from the hospital a couple of weeks ago. We have loved every minute of our time with him and are so grateful to have him in our lives.

These past couple of weeks Aiden has grown so much and made some HUGE steps towards becoming an even bigger little boy. Aiden, for one thing, is now POTTY TRAINED!!! He now goes all day in big boy Cars underwear with Lightning McQueen and Mater on them. I for one never thought we would be able to potty train him before he even turned two years old, but he was definitely ready. For months he has been very aware of when he had to go to the bathroom. We were a little hesitant to try it, but figured it would be worth a try. One weekend, we decided to just have him run around naked and try to get him to go to the bathroom in his new little kid potty (thank you for the potty, Jim and Tina!). After peeing on the floor 3 or 4 times we finally got him to pee in the potty, and everything has actually been very smooth sailing since. In fact he hasn't had an accident in over a week. He is such a little stud. At night and during his naps he is still using a diaper, and we are at a loss about how and when to tackle that next obstacle. In any case, we are so proud of him. We don't even have to hound him too much about going to the bathroom. A lot of times he will be playing with his toys and just pop up and say "Pee!" then run to the bathroom and take care of it all by himself. No help from mommy and daddy.

Another big accomplishment that brings Aiden more freedom...and Mom and Dad much less freedom...is that he can now open doors. This one was a complete surprise. He never really tried to open doors, so we never really worried about it. One day we were in his room playing, his door closed, and he just simply walked up to the door, opened it, and left. Jessie and I just kind of watched him walk out, and I'm almost positive that she thought the same thing I did: "Shoot..."

Aiden is a brilliant little kid, and we are trying to teach him as much as we can. I don't think we can keep up with him. He absolutely loves his books and loves to read all the time. He has known his entire ABCs now for about 2 months. We bought him some fridge ABC magnets, and loves them. We quiz him all the time on his letters, and he is rarely wrong. He is such a stud. Our next challenge is numbers. He has 1 and 2 down, and occasionally gets 3, but we still have some work to do. Maybe some more fridge magnets will do the trick.

Aiden has also become a bit of a traffic expert. When we are driving, Aiden has always been very aware of where we are and where we are going. If a sign on the road was there one day, but missing the next, he notices it...and lets us know... "Sign GONE!!!". When we were in down in Savannah for vacation last month, out of the blue we hear him yell, "PIRATE! ARRRRGGG!" Sure enough, a few hundred feet down the road there was a pirate flag flying. And his favorite traffic pastime is to let us know the color of the traffic lights. When we are stopped at a red light, he repeats "TURN GREEN!" over and over until the light does actually turn green, to which he screams "TURNED GREEN!!!!!!". He has even figured out that when we have to turn, we can only go when the red arrow turns green. That one, however, took some patience and explaining as Aiden would get upset at us when the other lights turned green, but Mom or Dad didn't go.

We love our little boy, and are so happy to have him in our lives. He is growing up so fast, and we are having such a fun time with him. HAPPY BIRTHDAY AIDEN!