And He Just Keeps Going...

Aiden has been saying some really entertaining things lately and it just isn't stopping! I feel weird laughing at him whenever he says something because he always asks me what I'm laughing about, but sometimes it's really difficult.

On Tuesday, after the Gounod comment at the zoo, we headed to Home Depot to pick up some sand for their sandbox. We parked next to a construction truck that had the name of the construction company printed on the side. Aiden points to it and announces, "That says 'School for Children of Small Giants'". I couldn't help laughing at that one.

Then today he shoved a bouncy ball into a laundry basket and tells me, "This is the new Commando-Dreidel. It lights things on fire". Where on earth does he come up with this stuff?? I had to run from the room so I could quite literally howl with laughter. This one keeps making me laugh every time I think about it.

He's certainly in an interesting phase right now and I'm beginning to look forward to his odd little comments each day.

Some Backyard Changes

Our backyard is not big by any means. It's certainly better than not having one at all, but we did have to give up our hope of having a huge backyard. We had to remember that it's our first house and sometimes what's in your price range doesn't include everything you want. We chose having a larger single family home with a small backyard area over a townhouse with a larger backyard, and honestly, it's serving us just fine. That said, there were some changes that we wanted to make.

Our backyard gets the morning sun, but that's it, so it's a shady area. There was a trellis attached to the house that was giving us more shade than was really needed, so we decided to take it down to allow more light in during the day.

It was pretty, but the sun is pretty too!

And it's down! It's way more open back there and we've enjoyed having it gone.

Finally having a backyard means getting fun backyard toys. A sandbox was something we had decided on way before we finally moved!

It didn't take long before we added water to make sandcastles!

The ground back there is hard and constantly damp - not perennial friendly. John was able to put his new garage workshop to good use and he made me a planter box! I'm loving having a little flower area to tend to. I'm hoping to have a few more by next spring.

Gounod

We took a trip to the zoo today to see Kevin (my sister-in-law's fiance) take some pictures of the animals. The boys were as well behaved as they'd been in a few weeks actually, so it was quite a nice day. Long, but nice. But this post isn't particularly about the zoo visit.

After Kevin had departed and we were walking around on our own, we walked past an older gentleman. Aiden starts whispering excitedly, "Mommy, mommy! I just saw Charles-Francois Gounod!". I nearly spit out my water! I decided to make sure I'd understood him: "You mean the composer? That Gounod?". Aiden says, "Yes! He walked by us!". Nevermind the fact that he died in the late 1800s. I'm sure the people passing by us wondered why I was laughing so hard. The things my four year old says....

Water Baby

In case the main blog picture didn't give you a clue, Aiden is a bit of a water baby and always has been. Oddly enough, he didn't like taking baths until he was 5-6 months old, but he adored the shower from just a few weeks old. I would hold him under the water with me and he would stick his little baby tongue out to catch water drops. It was seriously one of the cutest things I've ever seen a tiny baby do.
He just finished up his week of Splash Camp at his preschool and I will tell you that it was no easy task getting him out of one of the three pools they had set up. It was his second year of Splash Camp and we plan on sending both boys next summer.

I've been trying my best to give Aiden new and different activities to do this summer. Nathan doesn't care quite so much and is perfectly content to spend some one on one time with me while Aiden is off doing whatever he's doing. We first put Aiden in soccer camp at the start of the summer, then had a little break because they canceled the PE class I had signed him up for and I couldn't find anything else that looked good. Then it was Science Camp, then tumbling class, then Splash Camp. Tumbling covered five weeks, which was nice. Now we have some more time on our hands until school starts in a little over a month (where did summer go?!?). So I needed something else for my little water baby....

He became obsessed with watching the swim classes after he was done with tumbling and would BEG to go into the pool. So I finally decided to see if they had swim classes for kids his age. Starting August 2nd, Aiden is going to be one little busy fish for two weeks! They had a few more openings in the 3-5 yrs class that meets every day for two weeks. But it met a good time for us during the day (a lot of them met too early or would have required me to ask for certain nights off from work), so I signed him up. He's going to be SOOOO excited.

I'm so happy that we've signed him up for so many different activities this summer. Not too many to feel overbooked, just enough to give him some new experiences and we can see the benefits already. He's acting older, talking about new interests, coming up with new ideas, and has really blossomed into his own person. It's one of those things that makes you feel really good as a parent and has even reminded me that some new experiences once in a while can be a very good thing.