For You, Aunt Gladys!

When we visited Aunt Gladys in California recently, she encouraged me in the strongest terms to keep updating my blog...because apparently she checks it EVERY DAY...and I have been letting her down! I know I have been writing far less on the blog these days... for a number of reasons. But I know I just need to take whatever comes along and just put it out there. It doesn't need to be great. So, it's not much, but here are some little things. Mostly for you, Aunt Glady!

Aiden has been putting more words together in simple, incomplete sentences. It's exciting to watch his language skills develop. I was watching something sad the other day and I just gave up, surrendered to the bittersweetness of it and started bawling out loud and Aiden, who was playing nearby, looked up at me with wide eyes and I SWEAR he said, "I don't want you to cry!" Of course, it wasn't clear, and probably most people might not have gotten that out of it, but the sounds he uttered all added up to that. I hastened to assure him that I was fine. Oh dear, this child is going to have to get used to the sight of his mother crying. I don't know - maybe he shouldn't have to get used to it. I hope it doesn't damage him. I hope he can accept it. My name is Claire, and I'm a crier.

He also saw a Rice Krispy bar cookie on the same thing that I was watching - no I was not crying at the sight of cookies - and once he saw that, he shouted out, "COOKIE!" and turned to me as if I could magically produce one in that instant. I agreed with him that it would be nice to have a cookie now, but we didn't have any right now. So what? "COOKIE!" I said maybe we could make some later. "Okay! Cookie?" As if, " Is it later yet?"

It's hard to explain to a two year old that cookies take time to make...especially when your oven doesn't work and you have to use a toaster oven to bake...because you are waiting for your W2 tax form to come so you can get your refund money and go buy a new oven. And the toaster oven takes twice as long to bake your cookies as a normal oven...but I love him so much - and also happen to be very fond of peanut butter cookies too - that I made a batch anyway. And by the time the first batch was done, Aiden had almost forgotten about the cookies! That's good because it was a puny amount to begin with, and was even punier after I had consumed a suitable amount of quality assurance samples. I gave up and put the dough in the fridge for when the new oven comes.

(It's been over a month since the oven gave up the ghost. ( Yes- two days before Christmas- I had to use my neighbor's oven to bake Aiden's birthday cake!) There has been a lot of crockpot usage, and pasta, and microwaving. I miss baking - it's not the same with the toaster oven. Anyway, blah diddy blah blah blah.)

And I am constantly amazed at his memory. A week or two ago, some of the neighbor kids were playing in our driveway. One of the girls fell down and hurt her hand. I had her come in to wash the blood off her hand and she was crying, and apparently, this tragedy made quite an impression on Aiden. Every once in a while, out of the blue, he will pull out this string of words, with a few variations. But it always goes something like this, "Anna. Bike. Boom. Ow! Cry. Hand. Driveway." It's interesting to see how sensitive he is to others' pain. Maybe all kids his age are like this. I don't really know. My Childhood Growth and Development class in college was a complete waste of time, taught by an incompetent hippie. ( I must hasten to add that it was the ONLY class at Saint A's that was a waste of time. I loved all my other classes. Yes, even Economics.)

Anyway, that's enough for now. I'll try to do better but don't hold your breath for the next installment!