Goodbye cast, Hello Apple Blossom Festival!

So Aaron's cast came off on Tuesday, and we were all happy to say goodbye to that thing. Aside from being a constant reminder of my parenting fail, it was starting to smell. In fact, the first thing we did after getting it off was give Aaron a bath! He loved splashing in the tub (it had been almost 4 weeks since his last real bath), and I loved watching him kick and bend his right leg. The doctor cut his cast in half and told us to use the back half with an ace bandage if it seemed like Aaron still needed some extra support, but he's back to moving to like a champ, showing no signs of pain or discomfort...in his leg, anyway.

Aaron's teeth, however, are another story. He got 2 new teeth this week, with another one ready to cut through at any moment. He got 1 of his top teeth, and a third tooth on the bottom (that one was a surprise), and his 2nd top tooth will be in any day now...hopefully. All this is to say that he's been a little crankier than usual, leaving both of us a little more tired than usual.

This weekend was the Apple Blossom Festival in town here, and we went to the Apple Blossom Parade on Saturday morning. Aaron seemed to love all of it, and Mudgie loved most of it too. Mudgie was a huge fan of all the candy he got. It seems that every "group" marching in the parade (think Boy Scouts, Soccer Club, etc.) threw out candy to the kids watching. It was Mudgie heaven (and tooth hell)! Unfortunately, when the fire trucks came by, they were blaring their sirens and beeping their horns, and Mudgie, who is a little sound sensitive, was a wreck, though Aaron didn't seem to mind.

On Saturday night we went to the carnival, and Mudgie was so excited by all the rides. He talked a big game, wanting to go on every ride he saw, but when it came time to actually go on the rides, he chickened out on most of them, even opting for the bench over a horse on the carousel! He loved the train ride, and went on that 3 times, and surprisingly, he also loved the giant slide, and went down that with both Dave and me. He wanted to go on the roller coaster, but decided it was too loud at the last minute, and after that, all new rides became too scary. Fortunately, the ice cream was not too scary, but he did try to eat it one sprinkle at a time!

We spent a lot of time at playgrounds this week. Both Aaron and Mudgie LOVE swings. Aaron gets so excited on them that he starts bopping around, and he squeals (kind of like a girl, but he's a baby so it's still cute). We were at the playground on Friday afternoon, and Mudgie was playing in a little house there. He comes running out to tell me that the little boy who was in there with him called him a baby. Poor Mudgie was so upset! I was totally unprepared with how to handle it. I asked him if he told the boy that he wasn't a baby, and I told him that I knew he was a big boy, but he was still pretty hurt. I felt so bad for him!

With the cast off, Aaron is getting closer to crawling every day. His walking is still a little awkward, I think due to muscle atrophy due to the cast, but he's putting weight on the leg, and figuring out how to use it again. With the crawling, he just gets so frustrated. I'm sure that if I left him for longer periods of time he'd be crawling already, but I'm a big sucker who hates to see her baby cry, so I give in and help him. I kind of hope that Karen has more will power than me, and he'll figure it out at daycare. Hopefully I'll have some exciting mobility news to report next week.