Hey Big Brother,
This month you wanted to count everything by miss-ha-sippy! One mississippi...two mississippi... I can't even count the number of times we visited the library close to your school this month. Right after I picked you up you insisted on walking to the library nearly every day it's not rainy or cold (which turned out to be a lot on this balmy November). You'd walk in and say a nice library whisper voice hello to the squirrel in the big light tree. Then you'd jump up the stairs and walk in like you owned the joint, asking "Where are my friends?" It's never been the same kids twice, but you do like meeting someone to play with the duplo blocks, train table, puppet theater, or helmet bad and good guys. We sometimes even stayed for storyhour, where you loved learning the Apples and Bananas song. After we would finally leave sometimes after over two hours, you'd tromp the two blocks back to our car saying, "I saw squirrels...check... I crunched leaves...check..."
You bust out the funniest phrases which can sometimes even be too much to repeat. The more innocent: "There are tickly bats in my nose - I need a tissue!" The more grossly innocent: "My poo looks like a gigantic crouton - Mommy come look!" You are the funniest dresser. Your flip and zip with your jacket always gets comments from strangers at the stores/restaurants. You seem to prefer your underpants on backwards and wearing your shoes on the wrong feet, but whatever works is fine with us.
My favorite song change up: "Row row row your boat, life is ba-da-bing!"
My favorite conversation:
Aiden at Cow Patty Party looking at live cows: I don't want that cow to eat me!
Daddy: Cows don't eat people, people eat cows.
Aiden: No, people don't eat cows they're too big, they eat chickens.
Daddy: Then what are meatballs made of?
Aiden: Balls!
"Daddy, when you grow down, you're going to be just like me!" You call your dad "the best big guy in the world" and I think it's because your senses of humor match so well. I overheard Daddy giving you a bath the other night and you all of a sudden squealed that you "see another big one!" My ears perked up and I soon realized that you were "pretending" there was a big bug in the bath tub that was going to get you. Your dad joked that was #350 on the long list of "Things that Aiden and Daddy find funny that Mommy does not!"
We learned this month that you will be lucky enough to have a little brother. I have a feeling that you are going to have a big fan in that little one and vice versa. You are already giving the one you call "my baby" special hugs in his house. You insist that your baby should be named Scary, which replaced baby Ellen as your name of choice (I think sometime during the ultrasound). If we tell you Scary isn't a name for a person, you squeal "it is myyyy babies' name!" You said how about Cecil, and we hummed a bit, and you quickly replied, "Oh no, that is the name of a sea creature only!" or how about Snap, "Oh no, that is the name of a crocodile, not a person!"
You told the ladies at my favorite little clothes store that you wanted a baby brother, and some other little girl chimed in "I wanted a sister, but I got a brother too!" You replied with "I love little brothers!" You met my friend's tiny baby Ava and you were so sweet and interested. You pick all your big brother books to read before bed. I think you are as excited as we are to meet this little one. Although once the baby crib is moved in you will be sad that you can't do "snow angels" in the nice open room we've recently cleared.
This month you introduced us to your first imaginary friend, Johnskin. You will announce that it is time to play with Johnskin toys, and we told you we didn't know what that was. You said he was a funny guy, like Marvin the magician that came to your school. We ask if Johnskin is in our house and you explain so matter-of-factly that he sleeps at the breakfast restaurant. I think sometimes you are playing with Johnskin and he playing with some of your toys next to you.
One of your favorite things to do when we are waiting in line or at a table is to draw and write in the sky. You will point your finger and write your name or pretend to draw funny pictures on our faces from across the table. You were immediately drawn to what you call the "flip over car" and somehow conned your grandparents into buying it for you early this month. It is two different cars one on the top and one on the bottom, and you love smashing it into things and saying hello to the new colored car. The lincoln logs set you picked out with some birthday gift cards is definitely a hit too. You like cuddling with "your grinchy and doggie" that Gran got for you with your Grinch that Stole Christmas book.
We drove to Ohio for Thanksgiving which was a bit of a crazy last minute idea. You were so, so excited that when we stopped about two hours into the ride at our first rest stop you whimpered, "But Mama I wanted to go to GranGran and PopPop's house!" I thought it was pretty funny you thought we were driving to go to some dumb gas station ;) The nice McDonald's guys at the rest stop ended up giving you a free set of five Transformer robots. They were good company on the rest of the ride and you thought it was fun to show off to PopPop when we finally got there. You also lucked out when Daddy won a skee ball jackpot and had enough tickets to get you a Rex Toy Story figure - forget the cheap plastic spiders! You were so excited you wanted to get in the car to drive to Ohio that minute to unite Rex with your Woody and Buzz friends.
You played so many fun games while we were in Ohio. PopPop loved finding zurberts on you. You would tell people, "I have zurberts hiding in my shirt" -or- "There are zurberts sticking to the ceiling - catch them!" GranGran taught you a new poem to act out which you were hooked on - "The old grey cat is sleeping, the little mice come creeping, the little mice are nibbling, the old grey is waking, the little mice they scamper, scamper, in the night!" Uncle Woah would tuck your balloon under his shirt and turn around again and again saying that the balloon must have disappeared - You laughed and laughed trying to point it out to him behind his back.
You loved using the binoculars to be "the kid that sees the scary thing far away!" So you were usually wandering around looking through them giggling and occasionally bumping to things trying to talk with them up to your eyes. You created what you called the "Which Look is Right?" Game - where you would look through the binoculars in all sorts of funny ways, upside down, with your elbow, etc. - then once you put them on your eyes correctly everyone earned a "star badge for winning!"
Even though my doctor won't let me pick you up (doggone previa!) and you weigh nearly 35 pounds, your cousins love to pick you up and carry you like "sack of taters." You would quickly reply, "No, I'm the mashed potato!" You got a big kick out of the elf talking back Target gift card and even recorded the "I'm a mashed potato" well quoted line into it. You loved running around the house with that card in your hand in your robe and monkey slippers. You will occasionally pretend your robe is a cape. Your buddy Aidan at school is really into superman. You looked up in the dark sky and said "Oh look, there is superman pushing the crescent moon!"
You have a memory for bringing up obscure things I've nearly forgotten about. Like when you saw some xmas lights up you called them "scary spooky witch lights" and I finally figured out you thought they were similar to the lights the crazy lady down the street used to decorate like crazy for Halloween. You remembered the blue footed booby that Gran and Pop introduced you to from the Galapagos, and you made cousin Julie gut laugh just by saying the name.
Your music taste extends from all the kiddie songs you learn at school to the ho-down music at the new BBQ place to what you call Daddy's "loud music." You like going down to the basement while Daddy is playing guitar in the basement. Daddy switched over to play some acoustic and you interrupted him, "No, no daddy I want loud music!" You hammed it up and sang songs for your fan club in Ohio. The all-time favorite was the song about the turkey running from the farmer - "...with a gobble and a wobble and a waddle..." I thought it was hilarious that when I asked you if you wanted turkey, you pulled a lyric from another song about having egg foo yung instead of turkey.
You've taken to calling every meal "a snacky." You will give me the rundown of your plan for the day when we are walking out of school. I want to walk to the library, play with some friends, then go home and have a snacky. You loved opening your own little boxes of raisins which I bought for your snack at school. You are still hooked on yogurt drinks and they really seem to perk you up in the morning. You don't drink anything else besides milk and water and usually want both available.
You not only love to learn new songs at school, but you come home describing a new work nearly every day. You are a big fan of the school's multipurpose room and you insist on using the word multipurpose as many times as possible when you bring it up. "Mommy, In the multipurpose room, I saw you at the cash register in the multipurpose room during the book fair they were having in the multipurpose room!" You are always so excited to see your parents at your school even if I'm just working the cash register as a volunteer for the book fair. Your dad made your day by coming in to your class to talk about Australia. Your friends now think your dad is a celebrity who loves marsupials.
We had your first parent-teacher conference this month. Unfortunately, it was the same day you had "an incident" on the playground where you grabbed a five year old by his leg and pulled him out of the playhouse, so we ended up talking about that a bunch. I always feel like you are the little yippy dog that doesn't realize his size. Your teacher said it shows "leadership skills" that you want to play with the older kids, but that you can get really angry if they don't listen to you. We had a long talk about how you can't get angry to get what you want. Your teacher also shared that you are most interested in the "numerical" works. She said that you are "beyond age appropriate levels" in your understanding of numbers. She explained that you have one to one correspondence in your counting and that you appear to understand how to subtract. She was very interested to hear about your garage sale snag of a toy usually for much older kids, the Math Turbo. I initially thought it was worth a dollar because it twists and I knew that would be good for your fine motor, but you have seriously learned about addition and subtraction from it! You also have a clear preference for the number cards for your Alphie robot. The best part about Montessori is that she can see what you are interested in and give you more opportunities for specific work in those areas.
As I was finishing up writing this letter, here is the conversation you were having with your daddy up in the bath: Aiden: I love you so much... Daddy: How much... Aiden: Three million and five years. That's a lot! We are counting down the days until more holiday excitement around here. Be a good boy so Santa keeps you on that "nice boy list." Mommy can't wait to see the excitement on your face on Christmas morning.
Love, Mommy
