Practicing standing

Dear Aidan,

Every day I see you trying to stand alone by yourself more and more. It makes me think that you will walk soon. Daddy and I have been trying to hold you up while you are in a standing position and help you take baby steps forward. I think the farthest you've gone was from your playroom to our bedroom. I try to do that every day at least once. Today while you were playing in mommy's bedroom you went to our chaise lounge chair and you stood up and actually took your hand off the chaise and stood for a good 10 seconds. You tend to do that when you are in your playpen downstairs, but I've never seen you do that in another environment. Good for you!

I've got to say that daddy has been really awesome today in helping mommy. He knows I've been frustrated because I was so tired of having to tell him what to do- i.e., change your diaper, feed you solids, etc. etc. He fed you twice today, gave you a bath by himself, played with you, and put you to bed. I know it's hard for him because he works a full-day during the weekdays and he has to come home and play with you. I know when I used to work I was brain dead by the time I came home. All I wanted to do was relax and watch TV. I'm really nervous to go back to work. I used to work so many long hours and even weekends. I hope that it has eased a bit because I really don't want our relationship to suffer. I hate not being there when you reach a milestone.

On another note, I finished the kids' notebooks that I'm going to be putting in the loot bags for your birthday yesterday night. I have so many things in my to-do list that I enjoy ticking things off once I complete them. Here's a sneak peek:




I made the notebooks in 4" x 6" size. I bought red 1.5" librarian tape on-line and used that to bind the pages together. I printed out 5 different covers and scored 0.75" from the top with a bone folder so that the cover would open easily. I included 9 different sheets of random papers (construction paper, lined paper, graph paper, colour pages, dotted paper) and stapled it all together before glueing the cover and back cover together. I found this really cool double-side tape dispenser that is like glue when it dries at the dollar store. It works like those white-out dispensers. I liked how it worked like glue without the messiness of glue.
I didn't staple the cover and back cover together with the inside pages because I didn't want the staple mark to show through the librarian tape. I made 20 notebooks, but so far 11 kids are coming to your party. I want to make sure I have some extras to keep for you later.