Aidan Turns Ten: the Celebration

It isn't easy having your birthday on the first day of school.  But chocolate cake and presents always make things look good.

Even better, is a birthday party with nerf guns galore.  It was all Aidan's idea and he had been planning it for months.  A party where everyone brought their own nerf guns to battle it out for supremacy.  My boys sported their matching nerf jerseys for the occasion.

We divided the birthday guests into teams.  Each team had a base, with a jail and a flag the other team had to capture to win.

Aidan's idea of a nerf battle war birthday party was quite the hit.  No one wanted to stop playing and we heard boys talking about it for weeks.  I think even Chris had a blast!

Griffin Goes to Kindergarten

My last sweet baby boy is off to school.  Today, Griffin becomes a kindergartner.

Chris normally does the drop off duties, but I decided I had to take the boys to school today.  I wanted to be the person to walk Griffin into his classroom and give him a big hug.  He was beyond happy, so confident, to begin his adventures at a new school.  I was crying even before I left his classroom.  I cried in the parking lot and then went home to cry some more.

I am happy for him.  I am so proud of him.  But I am also a little bit sad too.  It is such a shift in our lives to have all three boys in school each and every day.  I am used to having Griffin with me as my helper at the grocery store, to do errands, to clean the house.  He was my guy, my company, my partner in crime.  I enjoyed the last two years we have had alone together.  For as much as we know it goes too quickly, it is still always a shock when you stop and realize it truly has gone too quickly.

I couldn't wait to pick the boys up at school.  I waited outside anxious for a glimpse of him.  I finally saw him through the front window of the school, waiting to be dismissed to come outside.  We simply smiled at each other for a minute or so, enjoying the sight of each other.  When they finally let him leave, he ran to me and gave me the biggest, sweetest hug.

I cried all over again.

He had a great day.  He loves kindergarten.  He has told me he already has two new best friends.  He is full of stories of school, bursting to share them with me at the end of the day.  It was a transition that came so easily to him.  He was ready to conquer the world without me by his side.

I think I may need a little more time to adjust.

Griffin's Day

It is a tradition in our family that before starting kindergarten you get to plan the entire day for your last official Mommy Day.  Griffin has been planning his last Mommy Day for months and after hemming and hawing came up with his list of must dos:

- Snuggle on the couch
- Go for a Hike
- Eat ice cream
- Go to either Panera or Cheeburger Cheeburger for lunch
- Go to Build a Bear

We found out a week before his big day that he would also have to fit in his kindergarten screening and an open house with his soon to be classmates.  This led to a crunch time in the scheduling because we just couldn't get all of it in before we had to pick up his brothers at school.

We started the day with snuggles and read a few books cuddled up under a big blanket.  Then we were off to Build a Bear for our first activity.  After Griffin picked his bear and was getting it stuffed, the attendant asked him if there was any special reason for his visit today.

He nodded yes, smiled and replied, "It's my last day all alone with my mommy before I start kindergarten."

Griffin looked thrilled and proud.  I, on the other hand, welled up with tears immediately and became the crazy crying mom in the Build a Bear.  I am not sure how many parents break down and sob in Build a Bear, but from the look on the attendant's face, I am guessing not many.  (I wanted to cry again when I realized I just shelled out almost $50 for a bear we made in about ten minutes.  Yikes.)

After Build a Bear, we had to get to Griffin's kindergarten screening.  He walked into school like a rock star, chatting with the principal and the gym teacher as if he had been at the school for years.  The kindergarten screening lasted only about five minutes.  Usually, after the screening is complete, the teacher will have the child color while they discuss with you what they missed or what they need to work on, but for Griffin, the teacher came out of the classroom, gave a shrug of her shoulders, smiled and said, "He knows everything."

I laughed, but I wasn't surprised.  Our G is an old soul.

We stayed at the school for open house to chat with the parents and Griffin's classmates.  We got his school supplies unpacked, found his cubby and his desk.  But after twenty minutes, we quietly snuck out so we could go enjoy your lunch date.  After going back and forth as to where he wanted to eat lunch, Griffin finally settled on Cheeburger Cheeburger, but we had to sit at the counter.

So we did.  We sat at the counter together.  We played tic tac toe and made up jokes.  We talked and even snuggled a bit.  It was a perfect lunch date.

After lunch, Griffin decided we had to fit in ice cream.  We went to Coldstone where he picked his favorite treat - cotton candy ice cream with gummy bear mix-ins.  A happy guy indeed.

All too soon, Griffin's day had come to an end.  No more Mommy Days alone, just the two of us.  It's time to move up and on to kindergarten.

First Day!

And we are off!  2012-2013 school year has officially opened.

Aidan at Ten!

Aidan, today you are 10. Ten years old! You are such a boy now, so grown up and handsome. It is hard for me to reconcile the boy you are now, with the baby I still see with my heart.


Even as you grow, so much of you remains the same. You remain a loving, kind soul. You enjoy helping and taking charge. You are always the first to offer to help me, your dad, your coaches, your teachers. At your parent-teacher conference this past year, your teacher told me that if anyone in the class was hurting or upset, you were the first to jump in to offer kindness. This is part of the reason your teacher chose to honor you with the Catholic Values award for your class – your desire to help others, to be kind to others and help in anyway you can. It is one of your attributes that I remain the proudest.

You also love to be the man with the plan. You like to be in charge. You love rules and enforcing the rules. You like to get a little bit bossy, but it’s just the old soul lurking in you that likes to create order in the world. You are inevitably the child picked to be in charge by your teachers or coaches. It is when you are at your happiest.

Your have tremendous focus. I am constantly amazed by your ability to completely immerse yourself in one subject area. It becomes the object of all your waking attention. You will read about it, talk about it, discuss it all the live long day. This year, we went through several areas of Aidan obsession. For several months, it was Nerf guns. I think you knew anything and everything there was to know about Nerf guns. Names of guns, specifications, models, ammunition requirements, dates made, distance traveled. You name it, you knew it. You discovered videos other boys posted about Nerf gun wars on youtube. That led to all of us spending hours upon hours recording you and your brothers in the Nerf battles of the century. (We also learned that Griffin can do a remarkable death scene.)

After months upon months of all Nerf, all the time, your focus quickly shifted back to your constant love : Legos. And even better than Legos, but Star Wars Legos. Your bedroom remains a shrine to every Lego creation you have ever built. If you didn’t tell me so often that you want to be an architect someday, I would think that maybe your destiny is to work for Lego, fueling other little boys’ dreams like they have inspired your own.

You still love to read. I am grateful to the library for keeping you in books that captivate you for hours upon end. Your favorite television shows are Mythbusters; Dual Survivor and Arthur. Your favorite food is still pizza (and pizza logs!), but you have also fallen in love with a nicely grilled steak You love chocolate, brownies, chocolate chip cookies and any other baked goods I can bake.

You love to play tennis and have asked to continue to play year-round. You played on tennis team and took tennis lessons this summer. You enjoy swimming and did a great job on swim team, switching from freestyle to breaststroke to butterfly with ease. You enjoy taking the dog on a run – just the two of you, jogging through our neighborhood. You love mountain biking or snowboarding with your Dad and hitting tennis balls with me. You played basketball this year and loved attending Ecology Camp to learn all about the outdoors.

You are the leader of our pack of boys, sometimes challenged by the littlest pack member Griffin. You love to play with your brothers, from video games to elaborate Nerf wars to Lego battle scenes. And sometimes, you retreat for some quiet time all on your own. I will find you in your room, building or playing with Legos or reading. As you get older, I find you need that time alone to recharge more and more.

I am grateful that even though you are a boy of ten, you are still my snuggler, my hugger, my love of a boy. You still ask me to come snuggle on the couch. You love to hug (particularly because it makes the puppy howl because he wants to be in the middle of it.) And you will still lay down with me to cuddle for an afternoon rest. I treasure each time I hug you, each time I snuggle you, each time we cuddle. You are full of love and are so generous in expressing it to your family.  You have such a good heart.

Your Dad and I are so proud of the boy you have become Aidan. We love you, so very much.

Happy Ten, to my sweet, loving, growing up much too fast, boy.