June/July 2004

June 7th: Our pumpkin is here, and he has three cute new activities. The first is that he walks much more, and voluntarily, although still collapses into a crawl sometimes in the middle. He also claps his hands together now, on his own or in response to one of us doing it. The third thing is that he always tries to feed us Cheerios now – he holds out one after the other in quick succession, to drop them into someone’s mouth! Plus, he’s now bald and adorable! Mama and I went to Columbus today, and Rab came up with us and they’ll stay until Thursday!

July 5th: Just got back from Columbus this afternoon. ADEN TOO MUCH for words. Cutest baby ever, mash’Allah! I’m going to recap yesterday in this post and then the previous weeks in my next post. He wore a shalwar kameez for the first time yesterday and was running around at the Siddiques’ 50^th Anniversary party, and he was so cute and sweet, and looked like such a handsome little Subhani male that I almost burst! He toddles around so fast now, and looked so grown up next to the newborns at the party. We got to Columbus around 1 yesterday, to find our prince standing at the door. Played until 5, when we had to leave for Auburn. Aden was an angel all evening. At the Siddiques’ house, he kept running to mama a lot. Rabia changed him into his party clothes at their house, complete with little silver khuse (shoes). At the party, he walked around so much. During the neverending speeches and songs, I took him in his stroller to the lobby area outside the ballroom. At one point I was across the room at the drink table, and looked over at Rabia, who indicated something in the middle of the room – it was Aden, very importantly walking down the center aisle! Rabia thinks he may have set off after me ❤ He just started walking, with no fear of the crowd. He also kept trying to interact with a 2-3 year old girl at the table next to us, who didn’t know what to do in the face of so much charm and confidence! He walked right up to her and laughed, and she crawled onto her mother. He turned, came back to us, and laughed again 😂 Every once in a while, he’d throw a roguish grin her way, the little Don Juan. He did walk up to another baby in a crib, but I drew him away. He got tired late in the evening, but was generally a dream. Sweetie.

6th: Spent all day thinking of Aden in his shalwar kameez, walking up the aisle. Thankfully, they may be coming up Saturday, so Rabia can go out for a birthday dinner/movie. Today, Rabia and Aden went to Toys R Us, and he let go of her hand and raced off to the front door, which was a sliding door! He’s getting more clever by the day. Okay, recap of Aden’s doings in the past two weeks. When he visited, he tried to bowl down GI Joes using a ball. He also loves closing trash can lids, so we have to keep ours extra clean.

At his house, Rabia says that when she puts water for her chai on the stove, he runs to the fridge to wait for her to take out the milk. When climbing stairs, he goes up 2, flattens himself out, then fixes and goes up 2 more, then repeats the cycle. They got him toy phones, which he won’t even touch – instead, he only goes for sleek, dark phones, so they bought him his own phone, which isn’t plugged into a cord, but responds to a “locator” button. When it beeps, Aden answers 😊 Also, one day they saw him drop what he was doing and go stand in front of the tv – turned out Entertainment Tonight was doing a piece on the Nanny reunion show, and Aden heard the theme song and hightailed it to the tv! 

18th: I have 2 Aden visits to draw from, in the last 9 days 😊 July 10^th, they came to Atlanta. Rabia says he now snaps his fingers (and makes the noise) but we haven’t seen it yet. He’s brilliant at walking, and sidesteps like a pro, which comes in handy at their house which is constantly filled with boxes. We drove down to see him yesterday. He loves vanilla wafers, and starts fussing for one as soon as he sees the box – Rabia gives him one, and he ambles along, stopping periodically for a crumbly bite of cookie. 

24th: Aden’s an angel. He now likes to dip his cookies in chai, but then he eats from the dry end! These days, he likes to remove all the little ketchup bottles and other condiments from the fridge, and then put them back. Last weekend was the Siddiques’ anniversary party in Dallas, and thank God Aden didn’t go. There was a family wedding the night before, and everyone ended up getting E. Coli poisoning from the food! Mama thinks Aden’s ears popping during the Palm Beach trip was God’s way of keeping him from going to Dallas! They’re coming up to stay for a week, starting August 6^th.