Coming Back Soon

When Lac and I go out on date night, Aiden verifies with us that we're coming back. "Coming back soon?". "Yes, we're coming back soon" we say. "After my nap" he'll say. He'll stand at the window and wave to us as we walk to the car. "After my nap" is sort of a catch-all for anything he wants to happen soon. Often its used when he wants to drink juice and he's already had some (he's only allowed one a day). So, he'll say, "I'll have juice soon, after my nap".

Lately, Quita has been taking Aiden out on weekly dates. They go to Fairyland, the Discovery Museum, the Zoo, the park..... Today, she brought him a Lightning McQueen lunchbox (a.k.a. Litna MaCaKeen) to carry his lunch during their date. As they were leaving I said "Aiden, I'm going to wave to you from the window." I stood there watching my little boy carry his lunch box down the stairs and walk to the car. He didn't look back to wave so I knocked on the window waved to him and signed I love you. Aiden turned around waved back and said, "I'm coming back soon!" "After my nap!" I said.

Here are some pictures from their adventure today....

Birthday - They will have cupcakes

Aiden just loves going to birthday parties and it's not just because there'll be a ton of kids to play with. If you tell him that there's a birthday party coming up, the first thing that he'll say is 'They will have cupcakes'. After all the playing, jumping and running around portion of the party is done, he'll start to ask about the cupcakes. He's got his unique way of eating one. Start with the frosting and then work his way down. Nothing else make him happier than eating cupcakes, except may be dump trucks. Here's a couple of pictures of him enjoying some sugar at Andrew's birthday party.

You are some dog!

Another story about the perils of Aiden's very fertile imagination. A couple of days ago we gathered together for dinner at a really nice Burmese restaurant to celebrate Grandpa's birthday. Which by the way Aiden was quick to remind us was back in January. I guess it was his way of letting us know that we were slackers. We were joined at the dinner by Gideon, a friend of Helena's who Aiden hadn't met before. After a quick up and down look and a couple of questions, he quickly decided that Gideon was cool enough to hang out with him. He spent most of the rest of the evening hanging out with Jonathan & Ashley who are his heroes. Every now and then he'll pull a new trick on us and when we ask him, 'Who taught you that ?' He'll say 'Uncle Jonathan & Aunty Ashely taught me that. Mama and Dada teach me nothing'. We knew he absolutely adores Ashely but we had no idea that his adulation went a little beyond that until we saw Ashley's face turn pink after a little conversation with Aiden. He pulled the famous 'I showed you mine, now show me yours' trick on her. He didn't understand why Ashely couldn't return the favor after he had pulled his shirt up and showed off his nipples.

A little later on he decided that he wanted to be Orio (Cousin Ethan's dog). He then went around the table assigning dog names to everyone else. Mama was Emma, Ashley was Anokie, Jonathan was Marius and Aunty Helena was Eponine. Next in line were Gideon, Grandpa & Dada. Knowing that he had exhausted all the dog names in his vocabulory, I was very curious as to what would happen next and absolutely dreaded the thought of what name would be assigned to me. Remember that I have personal trauma from a previous episode of his imagination going wild (Dada-Under the bottom where the poop comes out). So he thought for a moment, pointed to Gideon and said 'You are some dog'. That was his way of making Gideon comfortable I guess. Then he pointed to Granpa & Dada and said the same thing. You never know what's going to fall out of his mouth next, so I was relieved that he didn't point to me and say 'You are dog poopie'. Phew!

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.

Gradpa's PG-13 Family Calendar

Grandpa comes out with a new calendar every year featuring major family events. Aiden loves looking at the pictures of his extended family and talking about what their doing, almost every day. Lately he's started asking more pointed questions about these pictures he's been looking at for years.

The most curious calendar is the first one which is dedicated to Mama and Dada's wedding and Uncle Rick and Auntie Elena's engagement. Aiden wants to know where he is....Where's Baba? There's a beautiful wedding picture, a close-up of Mama and Dada hugging during the wedding, and one of us (me? Dada?) told him that he was the twinkle in Dada's eye. Aiden loves being included and if you ask him, he'll point out which twinkle in Dada's eye he is.

Now for the scandalous part! In the calendar, Grandpa included pictures from Mama and Dada's super fun Bachelorette and Bachelor parties. At my party, I was led on a treasure hunt through Mission street bars with a list of tasks to accomplish. I was allowed to enlist the help of my fellow partiers and thank God. Did I mention I'm shy? Auntie Elena, my soon to be sister-in-law at the time, was happy to help. She's an East Coaster and doesn't have my shyness issues. There's a picture of Auntie Elena licking salt off the neck of a guy we found at one of the bars. As you can see, it's a great photo.

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Who's that? Aiden wants to know. Luckily these questions have gone to Lac.....I think he said....Ummmm....that's a man. What's Auntie Elena doing? She's licking the salt on that man's neck.

Least you think Auntie Elena was frolicking by herself, I guess I should mention the other party picture that Aiden is curious about. The one where I'm torturing some guy. OK so I guess I'm not *that*shy.

Aiden asked Dada, What's Mama doing? And Dada told him very matter-of-factly, She's pulling out that man's chest hair. Aiden took this without any question, of course that's what she's doing.

So maybe this is the moment to admit that it's only now, in writing this, that I'm wondering if was a good decision to leave this calendar in places where Aiden could find it *and* to look through it with him with the same nonchalantness as Goodnight Moon. Maybe we should "lose" the calendar before the questions get even more probing or he understands what he's seeing. Or, maybe not. What do you think?