Aiden is very sensitive. While the upside of this nature is a very gentle and curious little boy, Aiden also has many things that he’s afraid of. These things will translate into hysterical crying, if we’re not careful. His sensitivity does not, thankfully, translate into extra tantrums or feelings of being overwhelmed in public.
When Aiden is a little bit scared of something, he’ll tell you by saying “Aiden no yike it.” Unfortunately, there are a lot of things that Aiden doesn’t “yike” (like), even when you just look at things that are obviously upsetting him (he will use the phrase for food and things he doesn’t want to do, of course).
His current top fears include:
Dogs (small ones in particular)
Driving through puddles (huge fear – both the noise and the splashing)
Car washes
Swiper the Fox in Dora the Explorer
The middle sequence of The Polar Express (the top of the train, the sliding on the ice, the puppets, the man hitting the wall in the tunnel)
Monsters. We couldn’t watch The Grinch because he looked scary and Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer was most definitely out after the Abominable snowman totally freaked Aiden out.
Getting any part of his head wet
Fireworks
There are things that do cause Aiden’s anxiety to peak, though not with such dramatic teary results. These things have included loud car noises, a flock of geese, parades with many fire engines and large crowds of people. Sometimes something different, like a new type of diaper or a vest vs a jacket, can set off a big freakout as well.
Most of the things that cause Aiden to be upset are things that are very loud or unexpectedly loud. He’s learned to express this by saying things are “very noisy.” Having a way to express his anxiety has helped a lot at forestalling tears. Knowing what upsets Aiden also lets us avoid things – areas known to have big puddles or fast forwarding through certain movies, for example.
He’s starting to use the word “scared” as well, though we are balancing a fine line with that. While we try to give Aiden the words to describe his feelings, I’ve been a little bit cautious about specifically calling out his fears. I don’t want Aiden to feel self-conscious about his fears, or be labelled as ‘scared of things’ when I think some of his sensitivities are temporary. I’d rather he feel like he can find ways to express his anxieties without saying he’s scared. If that makes sense.
How do you talk with your children about their fears?
Aiden has an astounding memory. He wants to know the details of everything - every kind of tree, kind of car, kind of dinosaur and part on a train. He never stops asking questions and is great at showing off his skills by retaining an endless stream of facts.
Not only does Aiden have a great memory for facts (which he gets from Ianiv), he also has a fantastic situational memory (which he gets from me). He loves to tell stories of where we’ve been and what we’ve done. We have always encouraged Aiden to talk about his day, but it goes far beyond that. Aiden will talk about things he’s done a LONG time ago.
Aiden continually talked about how Babby had “forgotten” money for the tractor at his last visit to Maplewood Farms. This time, there was no getting around renting that tractor.
Some examples of Aiden’s memory in action:
He talks about Hawaii all the time. In detail. He recounted, unprompted, how we took a green bus to a cruise ship where we saw girls wearing flowers dancing. All of this was correct. His most common things to bring up are the airplane, the penguins, trolley busses and swimming.
We recently went to a butcher we hadn’t been to since last summer. Aiden immediately remembered that we bought crackers last time we were there and asked for them again. This was nearly a YEAR later.
He brings up and compares different situations. He will tell you how the sloth in his Animals Encyclopedia (he loves this book) is the same as the blue sloth in the Dora video.
He told me about a birthday party 6 months after we went there, out of the blue. He told me how much fun the bouncy castle was and that he liked the goldfish snacks.
He recently told me the entire plot of a book we’d only read 2 times. He was really looking forward to reading said book before his nap.
There are endless examples of Aiden’s memory in action. I am daily astounded by the things he talks about with me and how he shares not only his current day but events in the past that really made an impression on him.
It shouldn’t be a surprise, then, that Aiden has begun calling out the names of logos he recognizes of stores, restaurants, cafes and delivery trucks (as examples). In the same way he insists on knowing the title of every book we read, to ask for it by name, he also wants to know the names of every place we pass or go to. ;)
I’m already finding myself having to research things to fulfill Aiden’s desire for facts. Crazy!
Aiden is making a lot of progress when he’s singing. He’s most likely to sing when not in the spotlight. His most common stage is his crib – he often sings before bedtime or in the morning.
Aiden doesn’t sing many songs from start to finish unassisted, but will sing bits on his own. The first two lines are most common before he gets distracted.
Aiden enjoys singing Twinkle Twinkle, Hurry Hurry Drive the Firetruck, Hello Everybody, Zoom Zoom and the Bananas Song. Sometimes a song he’s been thinking about will crop up, like the ABCs or Wheels on The Bus.
Just today, Aiden was in his crib when I hear: “Aiden want to sing The Wheels on the Bus. The wheels on the bus goes round and round. The wheels on the bus go round and round. Awwwww wheels not working. Not working anymore. Probably not working.”
As you can see, easily distracted. He always ends up on a tangent in his pretend world making up stories.
Aiden will also make up songs. “Aiden shoes on. Aiden shoes off. Aiden shoes on. Aiden shoes off.” When he then said: “Mommy, sing Aiden’s shoe song!”, I clued in that he was doing more than just babbling. Super cute.
It’s clear Aiden wants to sing more. He will often move his lips when someone sings, trying to learn the words perhaps. Or lip sync? Cute though. He’s also participating more now that he’s started preschool once a week (my guess).
It’s been a big month for Aiden. After all the joys of Christmas, we settled back into our routine. Aiden is definitely a boy for routine: he was excited to return to playgroups and all his friends. Two weeks ago, he began attending his first pre-pre-school program, a 2-hour drop-off program at Karen Magnussen; quite to my surprise, he took to it instantly. The first class, I had to return for the circle time, but he successfully transitioned into this last week on his own. I’m very proud of him and we’ve been re-enforcing his enjoyment of the class at every opportunity.
In other milestones, we learned that Aiden is to have a little brother and he had his first successful sit on the potty just tonight! He still has no idea when he’s going pee, but we’ll try to re-enforce his success today and see where it leads.
Enjoys snow. We finally had a snowfall and spent a lovely morning building snowmen, making snow angels, throwing or shovelling snow or just making footprints. Great fun. Cold hands.
Loves to count anything. If he drops a number, it’s often the 5. Not as consistent between 10 and 20.
Can recognize most of the alphabet, though gets easily confused. Better at recognizing a given letter in a small set than being prompted for what a letter is.
Aiden loves to describe the world around him – everything he sees, hears or tastes. His variety of expressions is expanding to include such descriptions as weird, crazy, silly, and funny
Aiden loves to pretent to hide something like magic… “Where’s the X? I no know, where is it? Here it is!”
Has an amazing sense of humour. He will see things and label them as funny (like a car stuck in the snow), emphasizing his point with a fake laugh. Yes, a fake laugh. It’s a big like a hiccup with a forced smile.
Likes to describe something as “not” something else: “This is Aiden’s milk. Not Mommy’s milk.” or “Not going to Moja. Going to JJ Bean!”
Wants details on everything. Wants to know the name of every flower, every kind of truck, every piece on any kind of train, and details of the route we’re driving to get somewhere.
Tries to dictate driving: “Go left!” Thankfully he’s mostly ok with just narrating what I’m doing. I spend a lot of time talking about driver safety and routes. He’s learning quite a lot.
Is trying to sing songs, though mostly at home when he feels most comfortable or in the car. Current favourites include The Banana Song, Twinke Twinkle, Hurry Hurry Drive the Firetruck, Zoom Zoom, a Hello Everyone song from Gymboree and tidbits of many others.
Aiden loves to say: There it is, Find it, Want it, Get it, There it goes, There you go, Want somefing to eat, Mommy drive, No go home, Oh Mommy, look!, That’s better Mommy, I see it, Where are we going?, Oh no! What happened?, That’s fun, Nope,
Phrases of Aiden’s I love: heckacarpet, walkaroni, Aiden yikes it, I no know [I don't know], mananas (bananas), want Mommy cuddles, Thank you Mommy, Daddy works in the Mancouver, i-see-um [museum]
I’m trying to cherish the very last of the baby words that Aiden has left. Some of them are just too adorable not to enjoy. My favourite baby word is “heckacarpet” for “helicopter”, close behind “walkaroni” for “macaroni”, so I captured it on video before it disappeared completely:
I haven’t made any effort to correct how Aiden says helicopter. For the most part, he self-corrects on his pronunciation. In some cases, he chooses to stick to his baby words for unknown reasons: “baa baa” for sheep or “manana” for banana. I know for sure he can say both words correctly, and yet they remain baby words.
