January 4

Tuesday:  I only have TWO pictures to show to you from our six hours together today! Unbelievable--I KNOW! We were so busy that I truly forgot all about my camera until nearly the end of our day! 

We read a LOT of books today--super good ones too! I'm so glad these kiddos like to listen to a good story! Brendan, naturally, reads on his own; but even if he has just finished reading a particular book and then I pick it up to read to the little kids, he nestles all in nice and close and listens to me reading it out loud--and laughs and yucks it up with us as we go. I love this about Brendan ... and about Aidan and Erin. 

Aidan is bound and determined to be a famous author one day. This kills me--but he is 100% serious. He also wants to be an "apartment building owner" and lease out units to people so that he can "make a lot of money." So Aidan got right to work on another book today. He sat at the table for nearly an hour illustrating his book about a lonely little fish who "missed his mama" and then she came back and all was well. Aidan asked me if I would write the words as he told them to me. In the past, he has written the words himself--except all of them (other than his name) are NONwords due to the fact that he cannot spell yet. He was very very pleased to dictate to me today while I wrote in very neat letters his words.

Much of the day was spent playing and building with magnets. We watched a few Disney "shorts" with Donald Duck and Chip 'N Dale, as well as a few "Goofy" stories.

We ate a lot of snacks, one decent meal--Aidan ate his usual Gold Fish and then he added a NEW "dish" to his repertoire ... he calls this "hot chips" and it is simply some tortilla chips on a plate, microwaved just enough to warm them up and then they are eaten by our very fussy eater. When he had first "ordered" this new meal item, he called it "chips and cheese." I asked him to clarify--did he mean tortilla chips topped with shredded cheese and then microwaved to melt the cheese--he nodded that this was what he meant; but when presented with exactly that, he then told me that he only ate "hot chips" that did not have any cheese. Thankfully, I only used a small plate and ate the chips and cheese myself. Yikes. What a kid. I made him his little plate of warmed up chips and he merrily ate them. 

It is good to be a grandma!