Mr. Helpful

About every other day, Aidan goes and gets the small vacuum out and announces that he's going to vacuum the floor. We're sure not going to say "no" to that!

We got the Eureka Boss floor vacuum because my Dirt Devil/Royal Stick Vac died and I couldn't get another one as they're not made anymore. (Stupid move on the part of Dirt Devil/Royal, in my opinion...) Well, the Eureka handle telescopes down for storage, and this height is just right for Aidan to be able to pilot it. He was thrilled when he found out it did that!

Today, he started in the mudroom. I added the kitchen because it needed to be cleaned.

When I took this shot, he asked, "Mommy, why are you taking a pichure of me vacuuming the mud floor and the kitchen floor?"

I didn't really have a good answer for that one...

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No explanation needed for this shot, but I guess I can add a bit of commentary...

Yes, you are correct in gathering that Aidan is not potty-trained yet. He has decided that he's really not interested in learning how to do that. So, it has been difficult. Tomorrow, Rita and I are shutting ourselves up in this house and we will potty train Aidan whether he likes it or not. We'll wear 'im down! It's not going to be that awful for him, but it will be painful for us to do absolutely nothing else until he's got it. The process involves getting him to drink tons of water and juice to get him to pee about every fifteen minutes. The teacher must catch every opportunity to get the pee pee in the toilet, thus the reason we'll be sitting all cozy-like in the kitchen together. It's learning from repetition.

We so hope this enables us to make some progress in this area...

Snakes

Friday was a somewhat sunny day. Chilly, and basically not raining. Aidan wanted to go outside and play in his sandbox, so I got his coat on him and out he went.

About half an hour later, he came rushing in the back door. "Mommy! I have to come in and get away from the snakes!" He sounded kind of panicky. I was thinking, my gosh, it's kind of cold for snakes to be out now and besides, I've never seen one snake in our yard, let alone more than one. I ran upstairs to check it out.

When I got up there, he looked quite worried. "I'm getting away from the snakes, Mommy." "Oh, I see. Can you show me where the snakes are?" "Yes, they're right there." He led me back out onto the back porch.

There laid three flat sticks of wood, and running for their lives were many young earthworms. "I was going to build a fence, and then I saw the snakes, and then I went in the house to get away from the snakes."

I really had to control myself and not laugh out loud. I picked some of them up and explained what they were and that they didn't bite or anything. They just tickled. He was okay after that.

"Yes, they're just baby earthworms, and they're good for the dirt, and they don't bite, they just tickle," he said.

Bread Crusts And The Melting Dilemma

I never thought I would cut the crusts off my kid's sandwiches. My mom never did, and us kids learned to eat the crusts just fine. I remember my sister refusing for a while, but my mom still never gave in. We weren't damaged by the experience in any way, that I'm aware of.

A couple of months ago, Aidan began eating only the middles of his PB&J sandwiches, leaving at least an inch and a half around the edge where the crust was. This was quite a waste, and he wasn't getting enough sandwich to satisfy his hunger. Each time, I would ask him if he would like to finish his sandwich and each time, he would say, "No, I don't want to." Then, he started saying, "No Mommy, I'm all done eating my sandwich."

Okay...

I couldn't figure out why he wasn't finishing the sandwiches. It really never occurred to me that he didn't like the crusts, since he'd been eating them just fine up until that point.

So, a few days ago, I decided to try cutting off the crusts to see if anything changed. I set his plate down in front of him, he said, "Thank you", and proceeded to inhale the whole plate of food. I'm not kidding. All of it was gone in about three minutes! I watched to see if this would continue each day if I cut the crusts off.

It did.

Now, I'm cutting the crusts off of my son's sandwiches. I can't believe it. The things our kids can make us do...

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Aidan's snowman is melting.

First, the left eye fell off. Then the nose, and after that, the mouth. There were all the pieces to the snowman's face lying on the ground in front of the body. Aidan couldn't stop looking at it. He looked kind of sad when he looked at his snowman.

We explained that the snowman was going to melt as the temperature came up, and that the snowman would water the grass and plants. Aidan asked if all the snowmen that people built were going to melt. We said they would. Aidan still looked sad.

Today, he was looking out the window at his snowman and he said to me, "The other eye fell out."
"It did?"
"Yes, yook. The other eye fell out. One eye fell out, then his nose fell out, and then his mouth fell off. They're on the ground. See them?"
"Yes, I see them. That's just what happens when the snowman melts."

Aidan was still very serious and sad, and kept looking at his snowman for a while. Finally, he said, "He's sad. The snowman is sad 'cause he doesn't have any eyes or any nose or any mouth."

I didn't know how to respond. This was having a bigger effect on Aidan than I expected. I tried telling him that the snowman was happy on the inside, but he wasn't going for that one. "No, he's sad. His happy mouth fell off."

Good grief...

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You know those charts in medical exam rooms that show pain levels from 1 to 10? They have different faces at each level to aid patients in telling the doctor what level of pain they are having.

Well, we were sitting in an exam room the other day, when Aidan said, "Yook. Feelings." I didn't understand what he was talking about, so I asked him, "What do you see? Where?" "Right there. Feelings. See the feelings?"

Oh! I get it now! Feelings, as in, emotions. I thought that was cute.

Jigsaws And Snowplay

We found a couple of 48-piece floor puzzles at Value Village and thought Aidan might enjoy them because he's been doing puzzles on www.jigsaw.com for a while now. Well, we got home late and it was time to get ready for bed. But Aidan insisted on doing the dinosaur puzzle NOW. We did manage to get him into bed once, but he came back down to the basement and said he had to do his dinosaur puzzle. Okay. I let him. He was very excited. It took him 50 minutes to complete it the first time that night. Not bad!


Here he is putting the last piece into the "I Spy" puzzle. This one took him about an hour to complete. I think he's ready for 60-piece puzzles, don't you?

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It snowed all night last night and most of today. This snow is very wet and heavy, just perfect for making snowpeople and snowballs. Aidan and I went out and had snowball fights and worked together to make his very first snowman. What do you think of it?


After an hour or so, both our outer layers were pretty soaked, so I let Aidan play a little longer before we went in for PB&J's and hot chocolate. He's a happy kid today.

Stuff On My Cat Site

This is really funny stuff.

(Click on the title.)