I get by with A LOT of help from my friends

Where's all those wonderful pictures from California, Britt? I'd love to see more of Aiden's trip to Disneyland!

Hey....Oh hi everyone! I think I remember you guys. It's actually pretty hard to forget about y'all when I keep hearing about how you need to see Aiden's summer updates...

Here's the thing.

I am having such a hard time keeping up with this kid. One minute he needs to be registered for flag football, the next minute he has kindergarten PTA meetings. If we aren't trying to get in a quick swim in the afternoon it's because he has the social calendar of a New York hotel heiress. I mean, jeeze. This kid is everywhere.

And on top of it all he is actually headed off to kindergarten. Really soon. Don't even get me started on that whole process...because if it is some sort of testing and assessment of my parenting skills, clearly, I fail.

In all honesty though... I will get the California trip up as soon as I am able, and in the mean time, while everyone is soaking up the last couple rays of summer sunshine (Colorado Thunderdays I affectionately call it) it just sort of seemed like the time to stop and take a breath.

I've done a great deal of reflection the last couple months. With Aiden really growing into this new stage of being a kid, it's hard not to sit back and remember him as a screaming baby who would never sleep. It was so miserable, and I always felt so alone. But I wasn't.

I had Kelly, to help me give him his first bath and to go with me to his baby doctor appointments. And I had Randalicious to help me hold him when I had to study or write a paper. Because of a couple really strong people, I was able to get so much done. Kelly has always been there when I've struggled, I can call at any time and say, "Please come over, I might kill my kid" - I'm kidding. But without my friends, new ones and old ones, I don't think we would have made it to kindergarten.

Single parenting is hard, really hard. Especially if you have any kind of silly notions about a life for yourself. I'm just saying...I get by with A LOT of help from my friends.

Pictures coming soon! Promise!

"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."

Another School Year Gone

Aiden has been enjoying Summer Break for a full week now, but he's been so busy that I haven't had a chance to share all the exciting progress and highlights from his school year...

That's a glimpse at his summer plans - like I said, just a little busy

When he finished up his actual school year at Abiding Hope, they sent home a file with some of his best work and accomplishments from the year, as well as a "yearbook" for him to keep.

 I can't believe how much he grew! He was barely over the "days of the week" in August, and in May be was to the top of the colors! And his hair is growing too! He insists he doesn't want it cut but we'll see how hot he gets this summer.

In his "portfolio" for the year, he had a self portrait from August. He knows at least that he has blonde hair and that McDonald's is his favorite food. Dinosaurs might be more of a learning interest now than a game but I had almost forgotten about how he liked to "play dinosaurs" so this was a really fun page to look at.

 They sent home a sample of "self-directed art" too. He might not be Picasso, but because he's Aiden, it has been deemed an instant classic in our house.

After Christmas time they asked what his favorite gift from Santa was...surprise, surprise we haven't forgotten about the Shake Shake Bridge!

They also inquired about his birthday party plans and the cutie-patootie continues to make my heart melt!!

One of his candid photos in the "yearbook."

His class picture. The teacher on the far left is his favorite - she had him last year too. In the front row, third from the left, dark hair and pink shirt is Christina. Aiden talks A LOT about this little girl...and in the front row, second from the right in a dark blue shirt is Anthony who Aiden says is his best friend ever. Mrs. Morrin on the far right, we are so utterly grateful for this woman. She really got things going for us in terms of OT for Aiden and learning development this year.

We celebrated the last day of school with a trip to the park and played for hours and hours! Racing, sliding, riding bikes, swinging and just getting into Summer-Mode in general.

I am so proud of how much this kiddo has grown this year. There have been some huge adjustments and major growing pains along the way, but we're doing so good - because we have each other.

Small Miracles

What a difference!!

Aiden has begun his occupational therapy (OT) after weeks and weeks of being wait-listed. After all the insurance drama and prescription debauchery, it was so worth the wait. Miss Jackie (the OT) will be taking Miss Jo's place since Aiden is done with speech therapy and she is an awesome fit.

We talked for about an hour about the things that bother Aiden and what his teachers see as "problem areas," and she listened and took notes and came back with good, solid answers.

Everything about Aiden tells her that he is a "sensory kid." His issues have to do with his Kinesthetic Sensory System and his Vestibular Senses.

The Kinesthetic System is what "grounds" your body - you know you are standing on the floor, supported by the foundation which sits firmly in the ground. You are aware of the location of your limbs/extremities and you can feel the space around you. For Aiden, these sensory receptors are slow or interrupted (between the shoulders and other major joints, and the brain) so he is unaware of what space his body is in, how much room he has to move or stop moving - thus he plows over and through things without a second thought to get to where he wants to go.

The Vestibular System  is managed by the inner ear and fluid inside of it. This is less of a problem for Aiden, as he often "crashes" on purpose because of the jolt it gives his Kinesthetic receptors - not because he can't balance. However, this particular system explains a lot about this kid. Why the car in the street sounds as loud as the game in his hand, as loud as the dishwasher in the other room, as loud as the thunder outside, etc. It's all loud, all the time. He actually calls it fast - this is intentional. All of the noise input makes his mind race and he gets confused and disoriented. It also explains why he doesn't like showers or getting his head wet - those sensations further exacerbate the input he is getting an overload of.

Once we talked about what's going on with Aiden, we talked about ways to help calm him down. Jackie brought a bag full of sensory objects to touch and feel and we founds somethings that Aiden could wrap around his arms to help reset his Kinesthetic receptors.

We also practiced some things that we can physically do to help him - rhythmic pressure through his arms and legs to the shoulder and hip joints. Randalicious and I took turns practicing and by the time we had it down, Aiden was hypnotized. It was a miracle. And he loved it. He said it felt good, he was smiling. He was calm.

Jackie watched him work with some play-doh and asked about his hobbies and his puzzles and she was truly astonished by what he knows and can do - this leads me to worry a little toward the other end of the spectrum. Clearly he is a smart kid, but if he can't figure out how to literally settle himself he could potentially hate learning and get really frustrated by school.

For now though, I am happy that we are figuring out the little pieces - I think he is too.

He's had a really good week, playing with his kitty - who is dying to go out for walks now that the weather is better.

Going to the Aquarium.

He even found his Game-Boy - which I had given up for lost over a month ago!

And he is hard core sleeping at night.

It's the little things. It really is.

A-B-C, 1-2-3

Hi all!!!

Sorry for the lapse in updates! It's hard to write about Aiden when I spend most of my time chasing after, cleaning up behind and keeping up with him.

He is doing splendidly though! I may or may not have mentioned that he has finished his speech therapy and continues to speak more and more eloquently everyday. I get a lot of flack and funny looks when people hear the way we speak to each other - suggesting that I talk to him like an adult and should speak on his level...but he has grown to very clearly express himself and his emotions in the most beautiful way that I can't see any reason not to speak to him as though our vocabularies are equal.

He starts occupational therapy this week, so hopefully we can put that budding syntax of his to good use once he decides he wants to sit still!

Everything about him seems to be changing and growing so rapidly. After some long thought, I decided that his toddler bed was "dwarfing him" and that he could probably really benefit from a big boy bed - not just a bigger mattress but something that really made him feel like a big kid.

He is now the mayor of his very own twin-loft bed with a tent. And miraculously, he suddenly looks so small in the massive structure. Even just the size of the twin mattress makes him look so little.

Not only is he speaking like a big boy and sleeping like a big boy, he's working hard like a big boy too! As recent at 2 months ago he started counting all by himself to 30 - struggling with some of the teens and not really knowing what they look like, but trying really hard to understand.

So for the last week or so we have been doing the "numbers puzzle" before bed. It's 20 little 3-piece puzzles. Each puzzle has a number piece (i.e. 6), a picture piece (i.e. six puppies), and a word piece (i.e. s-i-x). So he lays them all out numbers first, 1-20.

Then I give him the picture pieces, one at a time and in random order - this way he has to count the pictures and find the matching number.

When we are all done, I read the word piece to him and he has to go back to his line up and find the digit that we are talking about.

Not only is he getting good at it, but he calls this "playing" and he wants to do it every night, uninterrupted by the TV! I freaking love this kid.

He's also getting really good with letters. He wanted to write the "B" on Aunt B's birthday card all by himself - though he got frustrated, he really wants to figure it out.

After introducing himself to strangers - not sure where he learned how to do that.... - the first question he asks is what letter their name starts with. Then, he asks for my phone so that he can make note of it:

"A"

"G"

So that's what we have been working on. He has a parent-teacher conference this week and then when May is over he'll start going to school 3 days a week (well, summer camp) and then Pre-K in the fall for 4 days a week.

Certainly growing up.