Ali commented that I’ve been remiss in keeping him up to date with what’s been happening in our lives — and he’s right (mind you one post in two months doesn’t give him much ground to stand on). So, here’s what happened this weekend past.

Aidan has been sleeping poorly recently. Generally no nap during the day (or just a little 30 minute one) and waking up in the middle of the night. That has ranged anywhere from 12:30 am to 5 am, and the amount of time he’s been awake from that point on has been anywhere from a few minutes to several (3+) hours. It makes for an cranky toddler and irritable parents. For this reason, Saturday was a blur. I vaguely remember spending way too much time (3+ hrs) and money ($300+) at the Superstore and can’t quite fathom how the rest of the day went.

Sunday, though, was interesting. Gwen sang (and played her flute) in the Holy Trinity choir for their Advent Carol service. Aidan and I went too, showing up at 4pm when the service started (Gwen had left significantly earlier so as to practice). Aidan, of course, had not napped. Not for trying mind you. Anyway, he was pretty wound up. He chatted to himself for the whole walk to the church, and I knew we were in for an exciting time.

We wheeled into the church and I tried to get us set up in a pew. Aidan continued his incessant chatting. The choir came in, and the chatting continued. The choir started singing the first song, and Aidan’s chatting became his form of singing. Now, toddlers don’t sing very well, and Aidan’s no exception. His pitch actually isn’t half bad, but his rhythm sucks, and so do his dynamics. And by that, I mean he sings at the top of his lungs. A volume level, I should point out, that at this point is significantly louder than the choir. Really Tim, please sing louder! You have a nice voice, but we always have to strain to hear you. Anyway, I digress. I tried distracting him (er, Aidan) with juice (which he spat back out over his onesie and nice sweater), and with books, but it didn’t work out. After the first song, Aidan rewarded the choir’s efforts with a hearty round of applause.

The priest started the blessing, and Aidan started chatting again. Seeing how things were going, I beat a hasty retreat to the “crying room”, in this case, a windowed room on the second floor of the church, looking over the church proper from beside the organ pipes. A nice room, but way too hot that day. The crying room is also full of toys that Aidan doesn’t have.

We spent the duration of the whole service in that room. Aidan chatted the whole time. He played with the FP Chatter Phone (talking on it, of course), several trucks and busses, a big sit-in boat, a rocking horse, read some books, you get the idea. Generally had a great time. Church is wonderful! You can go there and play and make all the noise you want to. At one point, a parishioner brought her 9-month old son D. into the room. Church is wonderful! It comes with built-in playmates! Aidan was predictably sociable, but not very good at his sharing skills. Everything that D. wanted, Aidan wanted too. After some time, D. and his mother left. I don’t think we drove her from the room, but they didn’t come back.

I tried showing him the service, and the choir (the PA system was piped into the room), especially when Gwen was singing or playing her flute, but he really didn’t seem too interested.

After the service was over we went back down to the church proper, and Aidan kept going! Running and chatting, and oh my! I don’t mind admitting that it was difficult to keep up with him, and I’m not sure how we’re going to get through the next year or so.

Anyway, we left the church, skipping out on the “light supper” afterwards. Aidan would have been much too rambunctious for that.

That night, he woke at 12:30am and cried/played/screamed until just after 3:30am. We cuddled, changed, medicated, and fed him but nothing seemed to work.

Anyway, keeping with the music theme, Gwen has been teaching some of Irene’s Kindermusik classes as part of her Kindermusik license work. Gwen takes Aidan along to these classes, so he gets exposed to it all too. By all accounts, he thoroughly enjoys it; hopefully Gwen can tell you a bit about it later.

As part of the Kindermusik stuff, Gwen has pulled out a bag of her smaller instruments. Aidan seems to like the various percussion instruments (the wood block is a particular hit, ahem). He also has been going around tooting on various tin whistles and recorder-like instruments. I’m impressed that he grasped the concept of blowing through the whistle to get it to make sounds. He doesn’t quite have the coordination to get different sounds by covering (or uncovering) different holes, but he tries. Hopefully he will keep up his interest in music. Piano and fiddle lessons can’t be that far away! :)

Happily, he’s returned to regular naps and sleeping through the night. Woo-hoo!