Future grand prix driver in the making ?

Saying that Aiden's obsessed with anything on wheels would be the understatement of his brief life. He's got more wheels than any man his size (or any size for that matter) would possibly need. Every time we go to any store, he's quick to find the section that sells kids toys and picks the wheels that he fancy's on that particular day. He can name most car brands by their logos even when they are zipping past on the freeway and knows more automobile types than most adults would care to bother themselves with. He likes arranging all his wheels end to end forming long trains going from one room to the other. If you ask him what he wants to be when he grows up, 'Car doctor' is at the top of the list besides of course garbage man, postman, policeman, fireman... you get the gist of it.

He's also taken to Dada's hobby of following Formula one. Here he is on a recent trip to an arcade in a Philly shopping mall, practicing his skills on both two as well as four wheels. This arcade by the way was his first time ever to such a venue and it totally saved his and our sanity. It was too cold in Philly and the poor kid was going stir crazy being inside the house all day long. He was like 'I am bored to death people, do something about it before I destroy all the expensive things in my cousins house'. When he saw all the cool things at the arcade, he couldn't believe his luck and was running from one game to another.

Dada - Under the bottom, where the poop comes out

So I don't even know where to start with this post or if it's even a good idea to disclose this information, but here goes. I am in charge of Aiden's bedtime routine. You'd think that would be pretty straight forward, right ? After all, he's just a kid, how hard can it be ? Give him a bath, put the jammies on, read him a story, say night night, close the door, done. Wrong! It's a long intricate routine which he tries to prolong as much as he can. Every day he comes up with a new trick to extend his bedtime. After Mama gives him a snack feeding and leaves the room, I need to read him a story or two, make sure he's got enough water and food, sing a song or two and then on his terms he agrees to turn the light off. But that's not the end of the night, it's the beginning of the end. I have to lay with the prince until he falls asleep. And while I am laying there, he'll ask me all sorts of stuff. He usually starts by asking me 'Where is her'. And when I tell him that she's right outside getting some work done, he'll come up with all sorts of reasons why she's leaving the house. As if his Mama is gone out to party. Then he'll ask me to tell him more stories, give him water a couple of times, hold him (even though I am already holding him), pull the covers up, pull the covers down.... You get the point. Eventually he'll just exhaust himself to sleep.

Well yesterday he came up with a new trick which looks like is going to be added to the daily routine because he repeated it tonight as well. So he likes to pretend that he is different people, animals or things. We like to think that he has a very fertile imagination because he never pretends to be a boy. I mean that would not take much imagination, right? Usually it's just one personality at any given time, but the personalities switch every 2 minutes or so. But yesterday he decided that he wanted to adopt multiple personalities at the same time. So I said to him, well, you'll have to assign different body parts to each person. Little did I realize that this was going to come back to bite me in the butt (literally). So he started with Julietta (his crush), Angelina, Emma & Orio (Uncle Rick & Aunty Elena's dogs), Gianna etc who all got various body parts depending on how much he liked them. So Julietta of course got the face, Gianna got the chest and the rest got his limbs. Then he added Mama to the list and said she was his bottom. Now normally you wouldn't like to be somebody's bum, but his Mama always tells him how cute his bum is, so it's actually a good thing, right up there with the face if not better. Then he added me to the list and I was beginning to wonder which remnant of his body would be assigned to me. Without any hesitation he goes 'Dada, under the bottom, where the poop comes out'. I just could not believe what I was hearing and burst out laughing. He's probably the only person in the world who could call me an A-Hole and make me laugh :)

How to take a great family picture!

We hope you had a great holiday season with your loved ones. We had a blast as well. We are currently in Philly bonding with Aiden's newest nephew Ethan, who is just an adorable little boy. We'll post more of our holiday pictures in a later post but just wanted to share our holiday family picture with you. You should have received it in your mailbox by now and if you have not, it's because we don't have your street address. Please send it across so we can include you in next year's mailing list.

This picture came about after many unsuccessful tries at different locations. With the holidays fast approaching and no family picture in sight, we were beginning to get a bit stressed about the whole thing. So we finally called in the FPSF (family picture special forces). The FPSF team included, Aunty Helena - the resident artist photographer extraordinaire, 'Uncle Jonathan' - Aiden's hero and all around cool dude in charge of mood setting, Aunty Ashley - excellent mood setting assistant and Grandpa - resident expert in charge of documenting Aiden's entire life for future generations. Here's a picture from Grandpa illustrating the elite FPSF team hard at work.