My day with Aiden.
The day began simple enough - he had breakfast with his sister and father as I sipped coffee at the kitchen table....He watched cartoons while I cleaned up and got ready to shower...Then suddenly something changed...
While in the shower (mind you, I do not dilly dally in the shower - 10 min tops!) Aiden decided to begin a mission. He started by traveling down the hallway to his sister's room and proceeded to empty not one, not two, but all five of her toy totes onto her floor. That must not have satisfied, so he continued to strip all her bedding off her bed as well. It is my estimation that this project must have only lasted minutes, because very shortly after I heard him go by the bathroom door the first time, I heard his little footsteps traverse in the opposite direction back to the living room.
While in the living room, Aiden managed to get the lid off of his sippy cup and empty the entire contents onto the couch (number one reason Aiden is only allowed water during the day). Apparently this seemed to lay the ground work for a fun experiment of how fast goldfish crackers turn to mush when applied to a pool of water in a sofa cushion....
I emerged from the shower, wrapped in towels and discovered all the aforementioned disasters. Upon cleaning the couch fiasco, Aiden then proceeded to throw all the sofa pillows, blankets and coffee table books onto the ground - but, hey, at least he was busy doing this and let me vaccume up the mushy goldfish!
I decided this was a day that we should NOT stay home - for fear that the house, or the child, may not surrvive.
Story hour at the library - perfect solution!
Not so much.
Aiden was not about to sit through one, let alone three books. He ventured near and far from the story hour area, pulled books off the shelf, and howled when returned to his seating area. Crafts are always part of this particular library's program. The children were to paint small ants on paper, stick sparkles onto an ice cream cone - and...humm....There was one other thing they were to do, but we never got past the sparkles....Aiden emptied the entire glue bottle onto his page, used his entire hand to finger paint and threw sparkles on the ground.
Time for lunch.
He was excellent during our meal. Quite the little gentleman using all his manners as he proceeded to eat his chicken nuggets, apples, my cheeseburger, my fries and down a full container of milk. I decided that maybe he could go play for a bit and burn off all those extra calories. Normally Aiden sticks to the main floor of the play area - a little too nervous to venture into the actual tunnels themselves. I guess today he felt braver then most days.
In about four minutes he had found his way to the most remote area of the hamster tunnels that are the Mc Donalds Playland. I must have looked pretty desperate in all my miming attempts to get him to come back down, because a lovely woman who was there with four girls ranging from 4 to 7 offered to have one of her children try to coax him back down. She only emerged with his shoe.
I was going up. This is NOT something I do lightly. I have never been, nor do I wish to ever be again in the Mc Donalds Playland tunnel. Nevertheless - I went in, holding my breath. I was about 3/4 of the way to Aiden when I happened to look out a small window to my right only to see a man I knew and his son in the dining area laughing hysterically at me in the the tube. Nice.
I did manage to get a hold of Aiden and he was very compliant in his decent. Although he did think he would be able to go back up, therefor when he noticed we were putting on his coat and shoes, this spurred a great amount of tears and yelling. Oh, I think Aiden cried too.
I did, very politely, go and say hello to the laughing man and remind him that "What happeneds at Mc Donalds, stays at Mc Donalds." During this 5 minute conversation, Aiden climbed up a windowsill and was laying spread-eagle across the table next to theirs.
It is time to go home.
And this is where we are now. Home - ahhhh. Aiden is sleeping (How could he not be!? The kid ran a marathon today!) and I am cleaning, or at least will be shortly. This will help me center and I will be more able to attack the afternoon when he wakes...Wish me luck.
