The Woes of a Three Year Old. And other stuff.

Yesterday, after a very hard day at school ("Mom, I can't walk up the stairs... I'm just too tired from singing at school!") and an even longer day at home (it's hard to eat lunch after someone else has prepared it!) Jayson sat alone in the dining room with Spiderman while I changed Aidan's diaper. I could hear him having a special conversation with Spidey: "Oh, Spiderman, you're just my only friend." "Sigh. Aidy is too little to be my friend." Then he sang a song all about having only one friend. It was very melancholy. But cute. Spiderman was a Christmas gift last year from his Aunt Hannah, and he's made a recent comeback with everyone in the family, including Murphy. On a happier note, Jay and I celebrated our 6th anniversary or "honeyversary" as Jay likes to call it. We went to Les Miserables at the Signature Theatre (excellent) and stayed in the Mayflower. The next day (Auntie Crystal stayed with the boys overnight!)we went to a golf store and Jay purchased his first two golf clubs, a 5 iron and a putter. It was very dull for me and I guess the sales guy wasn't much of a people reader because he kept directing all of his pearls of golfing wisdom at me (apparrantly I looked like I needed to hear them more than Jay)and I did my best to at least give him occasional eye contact, but that's as much as I could muster. Of course when Jay said "let's look at the lady's clubs", I pointed out that that would be infringing on our already short time left to go to the mall. We walked from store to store at a somewhat leisurely pace for a couple of hours and it was very nice. Worth the extremely long time spent at the golf store. His lessons (for Christmas) start after the 1st of January. Hooray! I hope this is his sport.





The week before that we went to Jay's office party which was...well,an office party. Lots of drunk government employees making bad small talk for a few hours over a sub-par, rather drawn out dinner. But I did get a lovely new dress.

As for holiday celebrating, Jayson and I made gingerbread houses one night while Aidan was bathing, and we bought a tree and decorated it. It's been decorated several times thus far, once by me and also by Aidan and Jayson. I noticed that ornaments seemed to be disappearing one day and Jayson showed me what he had been doing with them: he had his own "tree" under our bed that he was decorating for Wall-E. IF you haven't seen the movie this won't make as much sense to you...Wall-E had a rather depressing life so Jayson seems to think that if he were with us he would probably want to live under our bed where it could remind him of post-nucleur earth where no humans could survive. Wall-E has been ever-present in our lives since he made his very strong first impression on Jayson a month ago. He doesn't want to watch the movie again, but he does want Wall-E to be his friend, and we are always looking for Eva. Jayson is compassionate and empathetic and well, perfect. To me.





Aidan and I attended the Sing-a-long at Jayson's preschool and it's sort of like watching a crowd during feeding time at the zoo. Everyone standing up at their seats(like a rock concert) and flashes going off constantly. I wonder if Obama's inauguration will compare. They sang one or two Christmas songs but mostly Hanukkah and Kwaanza songs, which was funny to me, because I'm pretty sure the vast majority of kids in his school are Hindu. But you know, the school has to be hip. I took a lot of really awful pictures, Aidan screamed every time I tried to direct him away from the crowds of kids in front(he danced the whole time), and Jayson sang part of one song and elbowed the little girl next to him and made her cry, so I think it was quite a hit.





Aidan has been doing very well at causing a scare at every turn lately. He ate half of an orange with the peel still on it the other day, and learned how to climb up onto the oven drawer when I stepped out of the kitchen momentarily while making dinner (yes, the burner was on, but I started only using the back ones, thank goodness!). He also knows how to open the dishwasher and climb onto it and today he undid his seatbelt at the grocery store and I turned around just in time to keep him from plunging head-first to the floor. While Jayson has his swim lessons Aidan usually tries to make a break for the the pool but after giving up on that he enjoys entangling himself in rope and playing at the garbage can.
And to top everything else written in this entry, my mysterious nose sore has made a glorious reappearance, and is hoping to stick around until after the New Year, I think. We'll see about that.

Jaysonisms

Just moments after waking up, Jayson asked me for "the mirror that's a circle, that's Daddy's" (hand motions in the shape of a circle) and I gave him Jay's shaving mirror that he uses in the shower and Jayson examined himself very carefully, then smiled. "I waked up and I thought my nose was red, like the reindeer. So I looked in the mirror and it is red like the reindeer!" His nose was not red in the least, but he must have been having some very funny dreams.

I got down next to Jayson so I could lecture him about something (I forget what now) and when I paused momentarily before starting my next "that's not nice" or whatever it was sentence, Jayson leaned in and kissed me right on the nose. I couldn't help it...I laughed in spite of my lecture then he laughed and hugged me and said "I love you Mom!" No wonder I can't remember what I was supposed to be disciplining him about.

I asked Jayson to be quiet one day while Aidan was taking a nap because he kept running by their bedroom door cheering (he was "running a race"). I went into my bedroom and Jayson came in a few minutes later and told me that Aidan was awake because he "told Dumbo (his stuffed elephant) to be quiet but he kept saying yeah when I was running and he just waked Aidan up". So I went to get Aidan and sure enough, there was Dumbo propped up against the bedroom door. No wonder he woke Aidan up. At least it wasn't Jayson. :)

Mom: Do you remember why we celebrate Christmas?
Jayson: Yes.
Mom: Why?
Jayson: I don't know.
Mom: Because it's Jesus' birthday and we're so grateful for Him that we like to celebrate His birthday.
Jayson: Oh! That means that at Christmas time it will be my birthday too!

We've become more and more concerned about Jayson's pickiness. There aren't a lot of foods that he wants to eat besides chocolate milk and macaroni and cheese (and a few other choice junk foods). He's the shortest and skinniest kid in his preschool class (accept for one girl)-I never would have noticed this but Jay came one day and that's what dads do...assess their son's football playing potential. We came up with a plan that's actually been pretty successful, aside from the extra work for me and suddenly extended mealtimes. Jayson has tried all sorts of foods this week..none were enjoyed, but some were definitely harder than others(see video below). Some new foods tried this week were: mashed potatoes (cried for 20 minutes with the same bite in his mouth), a pea (gagged and started to throw up the rest of his food at the dinner table), celery, a cooked carrot, corn, broccoli, a cucumber slice ("I like cucumbers! No, I don't want anymore!", and chicken that was not in the form of a chicken nugget. It takes a lot of energy, but I'm surprised that I can get him to eat any of it without major tantrum throwing. I've realized that it probably isn't him that's so picky..it's just me enabling him to be that way. Tough love is hard. I guess that's why it's called tough. I know that in the long run my conscience will be relieved of any guilt. I can't really be sure of anything else...that he'll suddenly become extremely tall or that he'll be a great football player, or even that he won't always prefer Cheetos over all other foods, but I know I already feel better about myself and and that's what parenting toddlers is all about...building self-esteem to steel us up for the teenage years. :)

Our Baby Is One..and Walking! Sort of.

Today Aidan celebrated his first birthday. I am thrilled that he's a part of our family and the last year has been one of the happiest of my life. I'm sad that he's growing up, though. I was secretly a little bit glad that he's not as advanced as Jayson was at this age because I felt like I could hold onto his precious babydom a little longer. However, lately he has been showing signs that he would like to grow up some more and tonight he got up all by himself after we were all kneeling on the floor for family prayer and started walking! He has so much joy in everything he does..he laughed and laughed while he tried to keep his balance. I think he's like his dad in that he can't help but giggle a bit while he thinks about how clever he is for figuring it out. I love him and I am glad that he wants to grow and be independent...it just happens so fast!