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.

Summer Break 2013 Part I

Holy cow! Does anybody else feel like the summer is just flying by? It simply isn't fair. I haven't had hardly enough time to play with Aiden in the pool and even less time to write about him! I have so many funny stories and updates and pictures, but my OCD self will not let me tell them out of order.

So from the beginning of Summer Break 2013

We've been trying to get out and do at least one special thing every weekend together. Like a movie, a museum trip, a picnic, etc. We started by mini golfing....

This was Aiden's first time mini golfing, and he requested that Uncle Nik and Sam come with us. And naturally, when he cheated THE WHOLE TIME, it didn't bother anyone...

He was really captivated by all the props and statues - but we are going to have to work on his golf etiquette since he just kinda wandered to and from which ever holes he wanted.

We got to do a little hiking up Coal Creek Canyon to see the "Tree House"

Stopping along the way to look at the art in the woods and picking up sticks.

Then chasing Mommy with the sticks.

Aiden also made sure that Mommy wore lots

and lots....

and lots of sunscreen. 

He is getting to be so grown up, and often pretending he is the parent and I am the child. Fine by me...wonder when he'll start paying rent and doing laundry? A girl can dream :)

For Father's Day we had a really mellow BBQ at Randalicious' house - everyone ate way too much after promising to Aiden that we would all go to the park and play baseball on the REAL baseball field. So all of the food-comatose adults had to buck up and work it off.

Luckily, the rain gave us a reprieve and had us running for home after two quick innings in which only Aiden was up to bat.

He didn't seem to mind when we got home though because Aunt B & Uncle Dave brought more sugary goodness than he'd ever seen in his life to make ice cream sundaes with!

Since the start of summer though, Aiden's diet has really changed at home. I still allow him to have sugar at his grandparent's and other caregiver's houses. But at home we have pretty much nixed sugar and nitrates completely. Poor kid - his cookie jar is filled with granola. But, he is doing really well physically and behaviorally with the cut back on all that crap - so I can only feel a little bad that he doesn't have cookies and hot dogs at home hardly at all.

Since he's doing so much better, he is getting along great in summer camp and talks on and on and on about his guys friends these days. Christina (his little girlfriend) isn't in camp so he is just enjoying his little bromances. He even asks if he can have "So and So" or "Whatshisname" over to his house.

Such a sweet kid.

More Summer 2013 updates to follow.

Easter and Such

And now for those Aiden updates I had promised....

First and foremost, a big congrats to my little guy - he is done with speech therapy!!! He still has to have an OT evaluation and potentially some intervention in that area, but language-wise, he is right where he needs to be. He had so much fun catching up with Miss Jo last week, it's almost sad that they won't be hanging out together anymore, but he did phenomenally! He knew and pronounced all the words perfectly and even rambled on about each one for a while. The sounds he still doesn't have down 100% are sounds that most kids don't master until they are 6 and he has trouble with pronouns a bit but again, that comes with another year or two of talking the talk.

So the OT thing (occupational therapy) will just be about helping him concentrate. Some kids require lots of sensory input to focus, others receive too much. With Aiden, we have noticed a sensitivity to sounds. He will hear a neighbor or a car or a thud outside and immediately want to know what it is. He complains when the radio is too loud ("too fast" he says) in the car for him to hear his game boy, etc. So, likely, Aiden is getting to much sensory input and it manifests itself by making him move his body around to compensate for every sensory receptor his body is receiving. He'll do funny things, like run his head along the floor, stomp his feet, crash hard on the ground with his body, etc and it's all a means to solidify all the "noise" he's getting.

In other news:

Aiden had a splendid Easter, hunted eggs with Aunt Dana...

 And because it was such a beautiful day, we went swimming! It was gorgeous, the water was warm, the sun was out - and Aiden took no bribing (well maybe a small amount of "I'm gonna push you!") to jump in. He swam his little self all around the pool, glorious :)

Some other interesting things that have been happening lately...

For the last couple weeks, at bed time, Aiden has been sneaking into his closet and closing the door. The light is on of course, but he sits quietly in there for a couple minutes, sometimes whispering, sometimes silent, then he comes back out and gets back in bed. Peculiar....

His hands and lips have been especially dry over last cold months, so I cover them in A&D ointment before bed and leave the tube on his night stand. The first time the tube went missing, I chalked it up to mishap cleaning and replaced it with another (we have plenty). Last night, it was missing again, so I got a new one upon Aiden's insistence, covered him in the stuff and went to bed.

Not long after I lay down, I could hear the closet door closing and the whispering start. Shortly after, he went into the bathroom and washed something in the sink, then asked to be tucked back in - OK kid, one more time, but then really, bed time. When I snuggled him back in bed, I noticed the A&D missing...the one I just put on the night stand. Peculiar....

When I asked where it was, he said he put it in the closet. So I took a peek...

Everything in Aiden's reach in the closet was covered and smelled of A&D, then in the very back of the closet, sort of hidden, were 4 empty, squished up tubes of the stuff.

Since bed time had long come and gone, I said, "back to bed." Mostly because I was hoping that if I went to  sleep pretending it never happened, it'd take care of itself. This morning, when trying to dress Aiden in something that wasn't covered in goo, I realized how terribly wrong I was.

New Year - New Rules

Some may have noticed that OutNumbered sort of fell off the grid there for a bit...sorry.

This was due to a few factors - technical difficulties, general busy-ness, and mostly because I wanted to spend most of my holiday free time enjoying my kiddo, rather than writing about him.

I do have a few holiday goodies to share though!

This was the first year that Aiden was really super interested in Santa Claus. He wanted to talk to him, see him and he was very concerned about what Santa was doing to get ready for the big day. Of course, he was reminding everyone in the weeks leading up to Christmas that he really needed the "Thomas the Train Shake Shake Bridge" and that Santa was working on it.

Santa delivered :)

This kid was pretty spoiled. Christmas Day I was completely overcome with the amount of presents he got just from me - there were so many toys, how could I have spent so much?!? Looking back over the year though, which was exceptionally tight for us financially, I felt a great sense of pride in knowing I was able to do that for him. If that's what all the skimping and scrounging was for then it was totally worth it.

And if things get tight this year...we'll start our own toy store.

A big hit for Aiden this year was the mechanical T-Rex that moves, roars and shoots darts. This works well in conjunction with his pirate ship which also shoots darts/cannons.

After Christmas, when I started shopping for Aiden's birthday - I had a really hard time finding anything that he didn't already have.

What a problem right?

Anyway, a big, happy, belated birthday to my 4 year old!

He has become quite the little person! Full of sassy sayings and personality quirks.

He has grown taller but the size of his hugs remains the same - bigger than any person I know.

He celebrated his 4th birthday with close family friends and a couple kids from the lake.

Uncle Erik was even in town and trained the boys on how to use the tri-pod nerf gun.

I haven't seen my cat in days....

Since his birthday, Aiden has been very busy - shopping and such

He also attended a birthday party for someone else. Little kids bowling makes me extremely nervous - I always expect a little arm to go rolling down the lane with the ball.

Aiden was enamored with the big kids and how they only used one hand to bowl - so with a little help from Daddy, and a couple gutter balls, he was able to do it just like them.

I was also lucky enough to enjoy some birthday fun, thanks to a weekend off.

The girls (and Dylan) had a lovely time doing karaoke and being silly.

Anyway, this all got me thinking about New Year's Resolutions and such (which I don't believe in) so this year:

- Not worry so much about not working out so much

- Spend more time enjoying Aiden than writing about him

- More girl dates

- Maintain the "Sweet Surrender" mantra

- Uphold the work ethic and sense of self which made 2012 so awesome

Even though you all will be hearing less from OutNumbered this year - rest assured, 2013 holds many funny stories and fantastic adventures that I can't wait to share.