Our dear, sweet, funny, funny Aed

Aed is a unique child, as they all are. But sometimes, it's hard not to think he might have a little more 'weird' in him than the average kid. Wouldn't really be surprising, given his parents. One of my favorite things during the day is to just watch and listen to see what he will do.. and try to figure out what he is thinking.

He loves all things wheeled. All things. It is incredible to me the excitement that a few cars and a cardboard box can bring (he especially loved the ‘snot box’ (tissue box) from a few days ago as a little house for his cars). He even turned ‘school time’ into putting-the-car-in-its-garage-so-it-can-sleep time.

His current obsession is letters and words. His frequent request is, ‘I must make letters on your computer!’ But he’s always loved to read books. We discovered him all cozied up in the buggy one day and couldn’t resist the photo.

While Aed is not a lover of change, he does love things that are out of the ordinary and, much to my delight, is very easily excited. A while back, his hair had gotten really long and was bothering his forehead. As a solution, I gave him a little ponytail right on top. He loved it so much! Daddy didn’t love it so much, but Aed and I thought it was awesome :).

We have discovered since living here that Aed’s fear of loud noises is much more intense than we realized. He is petrified of anything loud, and even the possibility of anything loud.. hand dryers, the flush of an unfamiliar toilet (can you tell he hates public restrooms?), elephants, etc. I should qualify though, that it’s really only unfamiliar and unexpected loud noises. For example, he loves to hear fire engine sirens and helicopters overhead.

So, there were a few free events for kids in September that I thought our kids would enjoy. Turns out I was wrong. They were in a little enclosed courtyard where you just couldn’t position yourself far enough away from the speakers while still being close enough to see. So Asher, confused, stared at the speakers the whole time..

And our little phonophobic boy sat there with his teeth gritted, stiffly waiting for the torture to end.

We did go back to one other show, me thinking I could position us further from the speakers, but no luck (though I can say that he enjoyed the second show more than the first.. the sound was a little more under control). Now any time we walk in that direction he says, ‘We’re not going to go see the clown!?’ Also, every time we go to the zoo we hear, ‘We’re not going to go see the elephants!?’ after a harrowing experience at the elephant exhibit on our first visit.

Another thing I love about Aed is that he currently sleeps under a laundry basket. He calls it his cage (a name he came up with, not us :) and loves to cozy up under there with Porter and his blankie.

This particular instance was actually even more strange because he fell asleep on his own in our bed. He NEVER sleeps in the day any more, let alone just falling asleep where he was lying. We were beginning to wonder if the laundry basket was magical :).

Aed is also very sensitive to sadness. He gets really upset if he thinks anyone is sad or crying and, we have discovered, can’t handle ANY song that seems sad to him. Unfortunately for Ian and I, this seems to be pretty much any song we sing that is in the ‘adult’ category.

In hopes to make ‘rest time’ more enjoyable and relaxing for him, I purchased a CD of Jewel singing lullabies. Put him to bed with the music playing, went out to start doing something productive, and within seconds he comes running out in tears. After some questioning, I discovered he thought the music was so, so sad and incredibly upsetting. So much for that! He shunned the Ipad for days after that incident.

Another evening at dinner, I was jokingly singing (with great passion, I might add) a song that we had heard that day. I made eye contact with him during my incredible rendition of the song and saw his eyes filled with tears, his face red, and his mouth quivering away.. I immediately stopped and tried to help him recover, but he totally lost it. I laughed so hard on the inside, and tried to reassure him that all was well. Phew.

He is easily excited, easily scared, a sensitive, sweet, entertaining little guy. He regularly cracks me up with his funny antics and the things he says. I don’t know what I thought he’d be like as he got bigger, but who is he is so much better than anything I could have come up with.