Ducks, Cooking, Art Camp

I have no thematic title for this one, sorry. Miscellaneous Aiden Adventures??

Ducks....

We constantly have a surplus of bread in our house - note, I keep it in the fridge so it's good past the expiration date (I assume?? Can anyone assure me of this??) - but eventually it just gets stale because more often than not, my taste buds want something fried and greasy and topped with cheese for lunch.

So when it goes stale, but not moldy, we take it to the duckies!!

Last time we did it, we got rained out! Luckily, we were at Clement Park which is home to the Jeffco Public Library so I decided to take Aiden in there and see if he wanted anything.

He wasn't much interested in the books, mostly I think he was overwhelmed. But he liked the magazine racks in the kid's section.

When it became clear he was never going to pick a book, I suggested a movie. Of course he wanted a Mummy movie!

As we were leaving, I spotted a new book from one of my favorite authors on the staff picks shelf and snapped it up - Aiden scolded me and said, "You don't need a book, you  have lots at home."

But the books at the library are FREE, some day he'll understand my habit.

Speaking of habits, Aiden has taken up cooking this summer!

He started out as a little kitchen helper measuring ingredients and stirring mixtures. He graduated to helping at the oven and stove (with lots of supervision and help of course).

Yesterday morning he made his own scrambled eggs from start to finish!!

Mommy is liking where this is headed!

Besides culinary skills, we have also been feeding Aiden's inner artist this summer. He went to an outer space themed art camp at the Denver Art Museum in July and absolutely loved it!

There were 20 kids total, and only 4 of them were boys, of course Don Juan was in heaven with the ladies...

Showing the girls a thing or two about coloring inside the lines...

He brought home space ships and aliens galore!

And my most favorite art piece...

That's right, my kid spells AND writes his name. Genius. Can not be denied, he's on his way to med school!

I kid, I kid - I'm just so happy to see him flourishing and growing. He loved art camp so much that I decided to send him for one more week before school started. Seeing him with new kids and bringing home all the projects and just really turning into such a well-rounded kid...priceless.

Learning New Things

Aiden is back to school! And in Pre-K - is this really  happening?!?

The little dude is getting so smart that I can hardly stand it! We tried to do a United States of America puzzle a couple nights ago, and it turned out that he didn't need me hardly at all. I think I showed him where 5 states  go.

While I was totally astonished, I was also relieved. At Back-To-School-Night, his new teacher was talking about geography and what they'd study so I thought, "Great! He's ahead of the curve!" Then she clarified that geography would include one new country a week. Holy smokes, this kid is growing up way too fast!

And socially, he is remarkably in tune with his feelings and peers. He saw his little girlfriend in the hallway before school started and I told her how much Aiden missed her this summer. Her mom replied that she talked about him non-stop all summer too! Unfortunately they are in different classes this year, but when she went into her own room Aiden was very attentive to what was happening.

He put his hands right on his hips and said, "Mommy, where is Christina going?" So I told him about how they would be in different classes this year and that they would still play together plenty. Immediately he asked, "Are there other boys in that class room?!" I giggled a bit and said, "Yes, there's lots of boys and girls in every class Aiden."

So we went in to his classroom and he started rough housing with one of his buddies. I started to leave and he came running to the door, I thought to give me one more hug, and dashed past me to the other class room. He poked his head in and back out then told me, "I was just checking on Christina."

We're going to learn lots this year, both of us.

Last night on a family walk to the park, Aiden was asking about "the heart." He kept saying, "tell me about the heart." So I covered the basics. It's a muscle, it pumps your blood all over your body to keep everything working and because of the different chambers that hold and push out blood, it makes that, "Lub-Dub" sound that you hear at the doctor's office with the stethoscope.

He seemed fairly satisfied by this response and let it go at that. But I kept thinking about it. I should have said more, there's important pieces I forgot. All evening I was bothered by this. Even after I put him to bed. Luckily for me, he didn't go to sleep right away (shocker!) -  he sat up for a while saying, "I'm not tired, I don't want to sleep."

So I climbed into the tent with him and asked if I could snuggle. While we snuggled, I whispered, "Mommy has to tell you something."

"What?!? What is it? What's wrong?"

So I proceeded cautiously.

"When you asked Mommy about the heart tonight, I didn't tell you everything. I forgot the most important parts!"

He was worried of course and started inquiring about "the blood" and "the muscles" and I told him that all that is very important, but there's an even more important thing that your heart does for you.

I told him, "Your heart is where you keep your love. All the people that you know, some that you haven't met yet and even some of the ones you might not see again - they're all safe and sound in your heart. And your heart does something even better than keeping them all safe, it tells you the truth no matter what."

I remember being told when I was little, that if your heart has wings you will never be lost.

So I told Aiden, "No matter what happens, this year, this week, your entire life, always follow your heart."