Imaginative Play CAN Be Taught!

Several months ago I found some curved waldorf blocks (Montecarlo Blocks from Grimm's Spiel & Holz - see below) and while I was shopping online, I stumbled across this picture of colorful blocks that Aiden LOVED looking at online:



Inspired by it but not liking the ridiculous price of buying all the block sets shown (about $500), I got the curved blocks, bought some unfinished cut wood shapes off Etsy and picked up some rainbow glass pebbles at Michael's so Aiden could invent his own make believe things.

In July I took Aiden to the library and also let him pick out DVDs from their scant collection. He selected a Tinkerbell movie where she invents things and goes on some ridiculous adventure. Aiden was so enthralled by the way she used sticks, leaves & natural things to make "machines" that he wanted to "make Tinkerbell fairy things". I suggested we start by making Tinkerbell a place to live out of his blocks & things, which spiraled into a whole world of imaginary play for him that I'm loving!

See the rainbow pebble cobblestone walkway? (A "sidewalk" for "driving on") Aiden also decided she needed some mushrooms planted nearby her little gnome house.

I built the blue block wall (first picture above) and let Aiden watch me. Then I began making the above multi-colored wall and got about 3 pieces touching before he completely took over! When we first got the curvy block set he was *PISSED* that they would not line up to make nice, straight sidewalks. (My exact intent - the kid should learn something besides straight lines!) Once I showed him how to stack the blocks, make curvy-edged lagoons for his plastic dinosaurs & how to balance the symetrical arched blocks, he's enjoyed these much more! I have too and am always on the lookout for more creative waldorf playthings I can pick up on Etsy or make myself. :)

Meanwhile, it's also nice to have fun, silly things to pretend play with. I would have loved something like this as a child and would have played for hours on end! (No doubt it's why I'm giving them to Aiden now!) And I'm not worried about the "girlie fairy" things rubbing off.... Not shown is Frank the Combine Tractor plowing down everything in sight and then Chuy the Bulldozer picking up the "what a mess" glass pebbles and putting them into his deep fry basket (a vintage object I found in Granbury that is now a sand & water play toy), shoving the basket into one of the empty cubbys (that doubles as a play oven since I lined it with a metal oven rack) and cooking them into "candy". All of this ended by throwing the glass pebbles & blocks everywhere - Hurricane Aiden style - before he calmly walked out of the playroom, towing star blanket, to go wreak havoc somewhere else! Yep, he's got that fairy play thing down.... LOL!

The Blokus King

Aiden has recently gotten into (sort of) playing preschool games and one day two weeks ago he spied the Blokus box as I was putting away one of his games with the rest of them. He asked for them and I paused, thinking they were nothing but little pentominoes (educational) and they were brightly colored, making them easy to pick up if he decided to throw them. Sure, why not?

What I didn't expect was for Aiden to become so serious and spend a FULL 45 MINUTES IN SILENCE attempting to fill his Blokus board with all the pieces. I was stunned! Why hadn't I thought of that activity sooner? I fetched the camera because I thought no one would believe me and here they are (pics are from August 11 which is why he still has hair!)



He's in deep concentration, sitting nicely, not throwing anything...who is this kid?



Logically testing & turning the pieces to see which way it will fit...

Experimenting with new combinations to see if he can squeeze more pieces in the same area previously occupied by pieces that did not fit together nicely... (That would be Brian's efficiency he's working with! Hopefully combined with mom's spatial intelligence?)

And now that he's done, he's got to drive Filmore on it because he is only 3 and EVERYTHING he builds must be "road tested" this way to determine it's driveability...LOL!

Now when I need a few minutes of quiet to get something done, Blokus comes to the rescue! Gosh I love this kid and sometimes he sure does impress me with his math-and-logic-based creativity!

Preschool Fever and.....Cereal?

Aiden has suddenly fallen in LOVE with all things preschool. I've been doing "preschool" at home with him for months but he's just now caught on with the whole excitement of back to school.

I'm quietly against child avertising so I only let Aiden watch PBS kids (very, very minimal ads for things like raisins, health food, children's gyms, etc.) and DVDs. He doesn't see hardly any "regular" TV. He has, however, seen the new Frosted Mini Wheats commercials where the cereal squares sit on the children's shoulders as they bound off the school bus, dressed in brand new clothes with coordinating backpacks bursting with brand new school supplies. This obviously has caught the imagination of Aiden because when we were at the store today picking up bread, he spotted the cereal from an impossible distance away. (Ooh, good! He got mom's 20/15 vision!) We then were NOT leaving the store without "preschool cereal". (Hmm... 5 grams of fiber and it's a carb - besides oreos - that he'll eat? DEAL.)

When we got home we were NOT having anything for lunch besides "preschool cereal". I poured him a bowl and watched him happily shovel in a few bites before I noticed him pause, look at the box, glance over his shoulder, look at the box, poke his cereal..... I reminded him to eat cereal with a spoon when he said "I want cereal to sit on my shoulder?" I laughed out loud and had to explain to him what he'd seen on TV was pretend but assured him this was indeed "preschool cereal" and that it helped him do good at preschool things. (Bah! It's not completely untrue. I just doubt the cereal will teach him the proper order of numbers bewteen 12 and 20 and that "forty six" is not one of them....)

With any luck this will help me get some food in him on the mornings he'll have SPARKS (the free mom & tot pre-school our district does to help children learn what is expected of them in a classroom). Now if only they had "preschool chair glue" so I could get the kid to sit still or "preschool pay attention fairy dust" so he would listen to directions longer than a single word! Even better would be a "preschool snare gun" and "preschool tranquilizer darts" but CPS may frown upon those.... For now I'm tempted to load up the yellow backpack Aiden sometimes runs around in with bricks to slow him down a bit but with my luck it would only build up his endurance! :D Ah, the joys of parenting!

Aiden's Haircut: Phase 2

Tay: I couldn't bear to see Aiden's head completely shaved the day he cut his own hair off but after taking him out in public for 5 days and the "stripe" getting funny looks, I decided it might be best for everyone's patience to just buzz him and be done. Yesterday I carefully measured the hair he had left, clipped on a 2 guard and buzzed it clean & even. :) He doesn't even look like my kid! LOL!

The WORST part about it is I was mailed a fun new tub of Got2Be Sculpting Paste to try as part of a product-launch word-of-mouth-advertising campaign THE DAY BEFORE HE CUT HIS HAIR! The product is a cream-to-dry something that goes on, helps you create a gorgeous messy bed-head then dries to a touchable, matte, soft finish that then holds the shape without being crunchy. Aiden looked like a little movie star by the time I was done with his hair and the turd cut it all off the next morning! These next several months will be AGONY while I wait for his hair to grow out. Meanwhile I'm (sort of unintentionally) driving Aiden NUTS by rubbing his fuzzy buzzed head! It's so....fuzzy! LOL! He's told me repeatedly "I cut off all my hair. It's all gone forever" and "I like my hair short or spikey? I like it spikey." Looks like he misses his hair, too! He'll learn. In this house you do not mess with hair!

So Tell Us: Does Aiden look more like Bri or Tay with his hair buzzed?
(Personally I think he looks like Eric's stunt double but that's just me!)

A LITTLE Off The Top, Please.

This past Saturday while I was playing Ultimate, Tay needed to get ready for the baby shower she was co-hosting later that morning. Aiden was contentedly watching his new Curious George movie, so Tay thought that it would be the perfect time to go and start getting ready. When she got out of the shower and went to check on Aiden, this is what she found:

The kiddo had climbed up onto Tay's counter desk in the kitchen, grabbed the scissors out of her pens and pencils jar, and decided to give himself a haircut. In a straight line. Down the middle of his head. To the scalp.

Tay was pretty traumatized. Something about family pictures in a month and a half, and that her baby's cute hair was all gone. I was just happy that Aiden still had ears. So, after hiding all scissors, and a quick buzz cut Tay was off to the baby shower and Aiden and I went to the Children's Museum to meet up with Sheena, Tyler, and Kyler for their last weekend in Houston before Tyler's school semester begins.

The Children's Museum was fun as usual (P.S. the membership has been totally worth it this year). And then, you can't take a trip all the way into to town without stopping in at our favorite candy store next to The Chocolate Bar.

So, don't you just love the new do???

Aiden Update

We were at Hobby Lobby today where some teens (I am guessing) damaged a portion of the store by throwing fully-unscrewed-and-opened bottles of craft paint across the shelves EVERYWHERE. On a nearby clearance aisle Aiden got ahold of a tiny bottle of blue model car paint someone had opened and left within easy grabbing distance. As I was distracted by avoiding the paint explosion puddles, I looked up to see Aiden COVERED in blue paint, ruining both pieces of clothing he was wearing. I was thinking about how these inconsiderate strangers, with their obvious lack of parenting, would never realize their actions caused us a ruined outfit and incredible amounts of frustration. I don't want Aiden to be that way and yet I seem to have been dealt that card to battle.

So Aiden saw an Occupational Therapist at the end of July and I got some answers, which I wanted, but they were upsetting. In fact, they were heartbreaking. Aiden has no neurological issues at all and while he showed a shadow of some possible lingering sensory issues, all the tactile play therapy I did with him this spring seems to have helped him overcome it. (If only that complement had made me feel better.) However Aiden scored very high on his intelligence screening and as soon as I entered the room to hear the test results, the therapist observed a marked change in Aiden's behavior. In short, he's wicked smart and will creatively manipulate to get his way.

Okay, so all kids do this. No big deal, right? Just give them firm discipline and maybe a swat on the bum, right? Well...yes and no for Aiden. The first part of the problem is me. I disliked how harshly I was disciplined growing up and vowed to be much kinder to my children. I also pick my battles a little too well, which has given Aiden the belief that there are loopholes to be exploited. In addition to this we are discovering that without extremely clear, firm and without-fail consistency, Aiden will start pulling out bizzare tricks from up his sleeve for us to contend with so our focus wanders off HIM and onto the messes/noise/destruction he's causing. (Included in this are his autistic-type behaviors since they actually made me pause and wonder if he had control over them or not so I did not punish, I just re-directed the behavior believing he may not be able to help it.) Aiden's mess-making, toy throwing and strange vomiting fits (fingers in his mouth while crying to trigger gagging) also fall in this category.

The most difficult & frustrating part is that Aiden needs SOOO much firmness that feels like it borderlines on unkindness and parental dictating. For now giving Aiden more than basic choices seems to invite manipulation while simple requests, like put your underwear on, have suddenly turned into TWO HOUR battles. Like yesterday when Aiden refused to put his underwear back on after going to the bathroom and I walked him to his room and told him he could come out when they were on. TWENTY SIX TIMES over TWO HOURS I had to put him back in his room and listen to him kicking the door and damaging the drywall while I vacuumed, mopped, cleaned the playroom and then sat down to begin playing with his Legos myself. I was 5 minutes in to Lego playtime when he emerged, exhausted, with his underwear on. (Backwards.) It was extremely difficult to return him to his room every 4 minutes and listen to the HOURS of wailing & banging but the dings in the wall will be worth having one less thing to fight over him with.

Unfortunately I don't really know what to do with Aiden's new tourettes-like screaming gibberish outbursts in public followed by "Mom don't hit me!" when I haven't ever hit him, aside from spanks on the bum, and at that moment I didn't even touch him. (Tell me this isn't a difficult child. I dare you. I also dare you to ask me when we're having another one...) Most mothers would have beaten him to a pulp by now, trying to spank the misbehavior out of him. That doesn't work for Aiden - instead it gives him the all-clear to whollop kids his age, which has made him aware of his massive height advantage and adds "bully" to the list of things we must contend with. Instead, Brian hit the nail on the head. We have to combat stubborness with stubborness until each melts the other's away and loving give-and-take can resume.

The worst part is I MUST learn to control some of the aspects of my own kindness in order to be the parent I need to be for Aiden. He MUST be ignored when screaming, no matter how much I know this parenting tactic bothers Brian. He MUST have stated consequences followed through with, no matter how unkind it seems to walk him back to his room wailing & gaging, threatening to vomit on his new carpet, for the 26th time. He MUST learn proper behavior first and taste of consequence before he can understand true kindness from his parents and I completely hate this needed period of unbending parenting but I'm doing it. Because worse than 3 year-old temper tantrums is the thought of how truly unkind it is to let a child enter the world where he thinks it's okay to take his frustrations out on the general public in totally unacceptable ways. I guess there is an early warning and a good parenting lesson learned from open, dripping, splattered bottles of paint and one ruined toddler outfit during a morning at Hobby Lobby. What mother wouldn't trade a toddler wardrobe to ensure her child never becomes that type of adult? I simply have to keep reminding myself: The messes & house damage are temporary while the lesson is lasting. Otherwise the orderly house is only temporary and the damage to him is lasting.

July 4th!

Well, a month late isn't too bad, right? I am falling behind in my blogging responsibilities. Thankfully, Tay has been able to keep things going for the past couple of months while I have been working so much. Thank you, sweetie.

Anyways, we spent the 4th of July in Granbury with the Sullivans, and we had a great time. We drove up on Thursday, and came back home on Monday the 5th. We filled our time with boating, fishing, bar-b-que, shopping, outings, relaxing, time with family, and while Aiden took naps, I finished off season 3 of Burn Notice. It was a very nice trip. Below are the highlights.

On the 4th we went into downtown Granbury for their Independence Day Parade. It was fun to experience a small town parade again complete with the local high school sport teams and band, all of the local organizations, the police and fire dept, and local veterans. We definitely have much to be grateful for to be Americans. Aiden especially enjoyed that all of the floats and marching participants threw candy. I think that he got close to what he got at Halloween last year.

After the parade, we went and visited a local attraction. We actually met the owner/operator of the Tolar Windmill Farm and Bed and Breakfast at the parade. Luckily, Chuck didn't mind that we were Aggies, and convinced us that we should go. Aiden loves anything mechanical, and he also loves doing anything out in the open where he can run and do whatever he wants, so he definitely had fun running around and exploring this place.

The next day was actually Sunday the 4th, so after church it was time to wait for the big fireworks show over the lake. We had the best seats in town in the Sullivan's back yard, and the waiting was made all the better with the bar-b-que and our own fireworks.

I learned two lessons though. 1) sparkler thermite falling between your toes hurts real bad, and 2) there is only so much flag waiving and sparkler time that can keep Aiden occupied before he gets bored waiting for the fireworks show to begin (can't you tell from the picture below? lol)

In the end, it was a fun trip that we will probably do again next year. Some of the other fun activities were Aiden's first attempt at fishing. He didn't catch anything this time around, but I was heartened to see that he did seem to enjoy this activity. I had a great time staying up until 2 am fishing with Tyler one night, and we actually did catch some.

It is also always fun to see the two cousins hanging out with each other. I think that they were watching Tarzan here.

Lastly, Aiden was enthralled with Aunt Sheena's iPhone. He loved all of the fun little kid games. We are now that much closer to convincing Tay to get one!

It was a great holiday, and I hope that everyone enjoys the pictures.