A Series of Unfortunate Events or Thank You, Citizens of WalMart

I know that OutNumbered is often funny, because it is usually funny at my expense. And I fully expect this post to be every bit as hilarious as all others, if not actually laugh-out-loud funny, but I want to preface it with a little bit of seriousness.

A parent's greatest fear - child abduction. As a parent, I find nothing scarier. Our culture runs rampant with the subject these days - think about how you felt reading "The Lovely Bones" for the first time, whether you have kids or not, it was literally the worst case scenario. With the Super Bowl not that far behind us, there was a lot of negative press surrounding sex-trafficking in America...an even worse case scenario.

I recently saw a "kidnapping experiment" on Twitter (@bbabybritt if you're wondering...) that maybe some of you also saw, if not it's attached here:

It's absolutely terrifying to think it could happen to you and even more terrifying to think it couldn't. On top of all of this, I have been reading "Doctor Sleep" - GoodReads review here:

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/831475539

...and it's a doozy, but basically, it's about special children disappearing and never coming home.

All that being said...Aiden got the cops called on Randalicious yesterday for kidnapping.

They went to WalMart to pick out some Valentine's for Aiden's party at school today. Randalicious told Aiden that he could have a Peppermint Patty (his FAVORITE) if he was good in the store. Of course he threw a fit, which I can only imagine became a tantrum/melt down in a matter of seconds. Bystanders would tell you that he was screaming throughout the store, "I want my daddy! I want my daddy! I want my daddy! I want my daddy!" The trained ear of Aiden's caregiver knows he was screaming, "I want my patty! I want my patty!I want my patty!I want my patty!"

Randalicious tried fervently to settle on-lookers and a woman at the check stand who insisted that he let the little boy call his daddy so that he might calm down. My calm and patient (and handsome and wonderful) father who was sent by the grace of God no doubt, explained, "He doesn't want to call his daddy, he wants a Peppermint Patty..."

No use. The woman - or another suspicious individual - followed them to the parking lot and scribbled down Randalicious' license plate number and then proceeded to call the cops.

In the meantime, I had left work and called them to check in on Aiden. He was still upset and screaming "I want my patty!I want my patty!I want my patty!" Though I took it for, "I want my daddy!  I want my daddy!  I want my daddy!" Once he calmed down and talked with me for a bit about some things he might be able to do in order to get back into Grandpa's good graces, they were off to McDonald's.

Thinking maybe a little play time on the giant jungle gym might help soothe Aiden, Randalicious loaded him into the car. At this point in time, he noticed a squad car parked just a little ways down the road and it noticed him - him, and Aiden. The officer pulled up to the house, asked Randalicious about who he is, what the situation is with Aiden, where his parents are, why someone from WalMart might have called the cops...on and on.

Oh Aiden....Oh dear, sweet Aiden.

Poor Randalicious.

While it is all so funny now, I sincerely mean it when I say, "Thank you citizens of WalMart, good lookin out!!"

Now I owe my father the Valentine's Day gift to top all others, but really, thank God that my community is aware and would call the cops just because they had a bad feeling even though it was wrong.

The Elephant In the Room

As many of my followers (who are essentially following no one because I hardly write any more) know, there's some pretty heavy stuff going on over at Winterfell - that's what Aiden and I call home. Yes, I am a nerd. Yes, I want him to be a nerd too.

I've been working hard on an actual piece surrounding all the baby-mama-drama and have not finished it yet. Partly because it takes so much out of me. And mostly, because I sincerely believe you can't really understand the journey, or storm or whatever other analogy you find fitting, until you come out the other side and you can look at the mess as a whole.

That partly piece though, about things being so weighty right now, has me thinking quite a bit. I need to really focus on the good stuff. I know this seems trivial and almost a little too kitschy considering it's the New Year and all. Side note - I don't believe in resolutions. But the point is, the more you smile and laugh, the less you stress. So lets have a little giggle shall we??

Holiday Season - we spent a lot of time gearing up for the holidays. Baking cookies, wrapping presents, visiting friends. Christmas is the one full solid paid vacation I get every year so I wanted everything done and out of the way before I was off of work for the year.

Our gift exchange with the Otley's this year had an all new participant. Baby Vander, who unfortunately found Aiden's gift to be much more exciting than his own.

The cookie baking was quite an obsession all of December - so when we finally did it, Aiden was in charge of all decorating operations.

Christmas 2013 - I spent a great deal of the holiday season contemplating Santa. Is my child really dumb enough to buy all this hoopla?!?! I guess so, now that the holidays are over, all he talks about is Santa this and Santa that. "Santa is gonna put you on the naughty list!" "Don't tell Santa I stuck my tongue out!" Luckily, Santa had Aiden on the "Nice List."

He opened *the big one* first, and if it had been ready-to-play he wouldn't have opened another thing! He's been interested in cooking for quite some time and kept asking why he couldn't have a kitchen. I'm not sure why he would think that but it seemed silly so I got him one.

He pretty much gave up opening presents about half way through - I think I went a little overboard again this year, even though I swore I wouldn't.

After Christmas it was all about cleaning up quick and making room for more.

Aiden's Birthday - we went the Mammoth game (they lost) and then had a donut breakfast party the next morning. Of course Aiden told the grumpy donut man it was his birthday and he gifted us the most obscene donut you'll ever see (below) Thank God Aiden didn't want to eat it - he would have had the jitters for days!

His birthday felt like Christmas all over again, so much stuff. And he gave up opening presents about half way though.

Can't really blame him, what with that cool dino book and all!

We spent the majority of what was left of winter break putting together Legos - I must say, I am quite proficient!

We even squeezed in another Mammoth game (they won!)

And we hatched some prehistoric dinosaur crab things - they're really pretty icky but Aiden thinks it's the coolest thing ever! We'll see how he feels when they start eating each other...

I'm doing my best to keep them alive and tolerate their existence in my kitchen, but really, if no one comes over for dinner until they are part of the big ocean in the sky, I won't blame you.

Mostly we've been having quite nights because there are some attitude and personality changes happening with the little dude...

 but like I said before, all that heavy stuff for a different day.

For right now, Happy New Year from Britt and Aiden.

*Some years ask questions, some years answer them*

"We Just Love Aiden"

This is how most parent-teacher conferences begin for me.

"We just love Aiden."

"Aiden is the sweetest boy."

"He gives the biggest hugs."

I have come to dread parent-teacher conferences. With Aiden's early developmental set backs with speech, followed by concerns about his space perception and attention span - leading to the discovery of his Sensory Processing Disorder (SPD) being linked to his inner-ears, affecting balance, hearing and attention span. This is just always a tough thing. Sitting with his teachers, who see him often and know him well, and hearing that he's not quite where he needs to be, or something new is wrong. It's exhausting being that parent.

This year, things went a little differently.

After explaining to me how much they love Aiden, they began telling me about how much Aiden loves his Mommy. I find it difficult to be sharing this without tearing up a little, because that day, I really needed nothing more than to hear that, and it warms my heart to be able to share it with everyone else. Aiden talks about his Mommy, all day, every day at school. About painting and cooking and bowling and reading the Wizard of Oz and about what a terrible singer his Mommy is.

As per the usual, we went through his evaluation task by task. He can pick out all numbers 1-25 from random order and organize them. He has a mastery of writing his upper case letters and can pick them all out at random from memory. He writes his name, beautifully if you ask me. Aiden understands past tense, present tense, all of his verbs and adjectives agree with his nouns and subjects and proper nouns.

While his teachers are very aware of his *slight* obsession with the littler girl in the next class, they are in total agreement that he is a happy kid, with a positive outlook and a bright social demeanor. He especially loves to sing the peaches song to his teachers...

Peaches - Presidents of the United States

We sing this song while we cook at home and often while we eat - as it turns out, I do this terribly, he has only been sparing my feelings. 

After he drew and then cut out all of his shapes for his evaluation, he asked his teachers for more because they were too easy. One of my personal favorite tid-bits - after naming the colors for his teachers, they asked which is his favorite...the rainbow.

As far as his attention span goes - the diet is helping drastically. He has trouble following multiple directions at once but he is paying attention and he wants to learn, like a regular four year old boy.

Helping the banker count the money.

Helping Mommy organize promo stuff.

Waiting patiently while his ball rolls all the way to the end.

Happy kiddo.

The very next week in class, Aiden received an award for following all of the teachers' directions, right away. It was a noisy award and it gave Mommy a couple head aches, but for a good cause. 

The next day after that, he received another award. This one was a certificate which now hangs on our refrigerator. Aiden had his teachers in tears when he calmed and comforted a classmate who was upset.

My heart beams. For those of you who have read The Help, Aibileen nurtures the love and self esteem in Mae Mobley who is somewhat neglected by her own mother. Every night, and when on occasion Aiden claims that something is "all my fault," we tell each other, "Aiden is kind. Aiden is smart. Aiden is important."

When I heard what Aiden had done for one of his friends at school, I could almost imagine him telling his friend, "You are smart, you are kind, you are important."

It's easy for me to get so busy trying to take care of Aiden that I forget how much he does to take care of me - he feeds my soul with his silliness and he heals my heart with his love. So, I have started doing all sorts of things to help fill in the tiny places in his day where he might not know I am thinking about him with reminders of that.

I started off pretty rough.

But I have definitely gotten the hang of it!

No matter how crazy things get for the holidays, it's most important that Aiden knows I am thankful to have him and that there is no greater joy in my life than to see him turning into a boy that I respect and admire and love. From his waxed poetic vocabulary about boogers to the tiny little fuzzies between his toes that his stinky socks leave behind.

Just Keep Swimming!

Remember when I said I wanted to spend more time hanging out with Aiden than writing about him, we're there. And we are so busy that it seems nearly impossible to squeeze OutNumbered in anymore, but I am still trying.

So lets play catch up.

Aiden's school did a coupon book fundraiser. Typically, I tell the school (under my breath and no where near the school itself) to 'eff off' when they ask for additional money from me. This time around though, I didn't turn my nose up at it because we all know I am a sucker for a book (of any kind clearly...maybe it's time to get some help??). In all seriousness, there was some stuff in it that was kinda cool and I felt we could definitely get our money back from it so I got one and offered it to a couple other people. The more that people showed interest, the more I thought, "Hey! Aiden should be selling these, not me!"

So I made him cold-call everyone to offer them a book, and I sold a few at work. Not thinking much of it, we turned his orders in and handed out the books. A couple days later, there was a school wide email naming Aiden as the top coupon book salesman with a prize gift card to Tony's (our newest obsession).

He was so excited when I told him and beaming from ear to ear, so thanks to any readers who bought a book! Also, you should know that when I asked Aiden what he wanted to buy from Tony's, he asked if he could buy pumpkins to share with his class!! *Insert image of mother beaming with pride* I made that. I did that. He's mine.

Aiden has also started swim lessons, privately with an old school mate of mine. And he loves it, he loves her - they get along swimmingly! Sorry, had to...

Sure, he swims a ton at the lake and at home, our pool is heated and open year round but he always uses his life jacket and refuses to jump in - mostly because of his Sensory Processing Disorder, getting his face wet and his ears under water is harder for him to handle. So the private lessons are hopefully to help him in an actual swim setting: going under water, in a pool, jumping in, submerging and getting re-orientated, etc.

He loved it! He got his ears wet, did laps, floated on his back, whole thing! And the best part is, it totally tuckered him out.

He is going to do at least two more weeks of lessons and then we will decide if he wants to keep going. I am sort of thinking Karate might be more enjoyable for the winter and then hopefully he will want to start back into swimming again in the spring.

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."

Summer Break Part II

Alright, where did we leave off???

Oh yeah, it was Father's Day and Aiden was having ice cream.

Like I mentioned, sugar has been nixed at home - but this doesn't stop his Grandpa's sweet tooth one bit. Aiden and Randalicious go for a treat after school at least two days a week and probably more, recently.

If you have ever heard me talk about why I work so much, you have most assuredly heard the rant about the cost of Legos. And the set-up of the stupid Lego store which is such that you have to pass all the cool packages of current pop-culture trend related play sets in order to get to the cheap(er-mildly...) Legos in the back. Ugh...I digress.

Anyway, my point is. Aiden likes Legos, they are expensive, so is practically everything else - new shoes for rough and tumble boys, bigger clothes for growth-spurt-prone kids, etc.

So Aiden gets a little extra time with Randalicious while I work odd promotions, in odd places. Most recently, I found myself in the middle of no where North Platte, NE - whose claim to fame is Buffalo Bill, and that's about it. While walking around the "museum" (it was really a giant gift shop with a Buffalo Bill statue) trying to find a souvenir for the Bubba, I spotted a bag full of plastic horses and wagons and thought - Perfect! It'll do...

Aiden was so happy just to hear that he got something that he didn't care what it was...

   

And then we opened it up...the world's most offensive toy.

At least most of the red colored pieces are cowboys right??

He loves it, of course... but mostly only plays with the wagons and boats now, though it didn't take him long at all to figure out Cowboys & Indians.

Aiden has been getting a lot of play time with new kids this summer too! Stand by for the "Art Camp Blog" - anyway, he went to his second cousin Sebastian's birthday last month. The two of them are almost exactly 6 months apart - Aiden being older - but the closeness in age definitely shows! 

Sebastian's party was pirate themed, right up Aiden's alley, and it was all sorts of running around crazy - thank God my kid isn't the only one who wants to do only this, all day, everyday.

Waiting to hit the pinata...

Takin a swing...

Playing in the bouncy castle with the boys

Showing off his pirate sword!

Hope everyone is having at least half as much fun as this kid is this summer!