My child is six years old. Six. I'm not quite sure where the time has gone and I'm sure I'll feel just as confused as each year comes around. How did my first baby get to be so old? Just about half way to being a teenager. Six!
Aiden has been very interested in making sure he knows the proper order of months of the year for the past few weeks. Yesterday, he said, "First there's January - when I was born", and I said, "Nope, you were born in October, which is why your birthday is in October". He says, "Oh that's right. January is the month that I started growing in your tummy". John and I were a little shocked. Well, yes that's right, we told him. How he figured that out is beyond us and when we asked him about it, he said, "I just knew". Ok then.
2005 was a big year. We found out on Valentine's Day that we were going to be welcoming a little Minthorne. We shared the news with a friend of ours who was directing a play that opened that night. He said, "I'm happier for you guys than I've ever been for an opening of one of my plays" and he hugged me. Peter was the first to congratulate us and share in those first few days of taking in the news. (It was a special day about two years ago when Aiden got to watch Peter compete on Jeopardy) He got to watch my tummy grow and grow over the next few months and would spend many evenings with me as I hunted for yet more food. I think he found it amusing. Not many single guys in their 20s want to spend time with a pregnant chick, so there had to be some level of "this is the weirdest thing I've ever seen". Between Peter and our numerous roommates in Philadelphia (who seemed to get used to living with a pregnant gal pretty fast), we had an interesting bunch of people involved in the pregnancy (these people threw me a baby shower and served beer - not to me, obviously - but that just goes to show you what kind of parties they were used to). When John got the call that he was able to transfer his job out to Portland from Philadelphia, it was bittersweet. We wanted to be close to family with a new baby, but it was sad to leave our group behind. At 7 1/2 months pregnant, I had three weeks to sell most of our belongings and prepare us to move out to Portland. About six weeks after the fastest apartment search ever, we welcomed Aiden into our family.
I clearly remember sitting on the couch after coming home from the hospital, holding the tiny baby you see in the picture, and bawling my eyes out....in terror. "They'll let anyone go home with a baby!", I wailed to John. "How am I supposed to know what to do?!?". Cry, cry, cry. And Aiden wasn't the easiest baby either. We had nursing issues (which ended up with a stay in the NICU) and he had really bad reflux, which didn't get resolved until he was 18 months old. But he developed just fine and he has continued to amaze us each and every day. And I don't think I did such a bad job (thanks, instincts!).
From reading letters at 18 months, to fully reading at age 4 1/2, knowing massive amounts of science, being interested in space exploration, and having the strangest little sense of humor I've ever seen in a child his age, we love our unique little Aiden. He's independent and joyful. He's challenging and full of passion. He knows what he wants and what he likes, and refuses to accept anything less. He's got an amazing memory and thinks of himself as equal to adults (oh yes, we deal with this on a daily basis!). He may have been our little surprise, but God knew it was time for him to come into this world and we are so very thankful for it. Our life would not be the same without him. Have a very wonderful birthday, Aiden bug.
