Today you are 7

Aidan, today you are seven years old. You have taught me and your mother a million lessons, and we have millions left to learn. I held you, held you hand, from the day you were born. And I'm not about to stop now...even though you are getting kind of heavy.

Today is hitting me rather heavily. I'm very emotional about you turning 7. For some reason, 7 is hitting me harder than other years. Maybe it's because 7 is when I recall starting to have a really solid flow of memories about my life. And I am all to aware that your life has not always been easy. You struggle sometimes due to your sensory processing disorder and language processing disorder and auditory processing issues. It makes the world and people in it hard for you to understand sometimes; and it makes people in the world less able to understand you- the 100% genuine, so sweet, truly loving and caring, honest, silly, creative, wonderful you. Most of the times your true colors shine through. I know we can't control other people's thoughts and actions. 

But I can control my own, and for this, I must apologize. I don't know how many times in our 7 years together I've let you down, raised my voice, misunderstood you, not tried hard enough to understand you. I always love you, and I always will. I still have a lot of work to do on always, in every action, showing you how much I do love you. 

You have made me the father I am, along with your sister. Your love runs through my veins, and I hope that my love- along with my heart, and my flaws, and all of it- runs through yours too.

I am so proud of the young man you are becoming. You never give up. You never settle. You are sweet, and strong, and protective, and creative, and adoring, and curious, and amazing...and you've grow up before our eyes. 

I will always be your Daddy...and you will always be my son. I will never give up on you, and I will try my hardest to always be the best Daddy that you deserve. 

That is my promise to you, now and forever. 

Happy Birthday, my son. I love you to a million, billion, trillion pieces. May your dreams come true, and may you always find your happiness.

President's Day: 2017

Oh man, oh man! A three day weekend? Yes please!

To celebrate Pops' birthday, we took Pops to the zoo!

You were excited about the animals and the company, sure. But the big hit was the cotton candy. And the Cotton Candy was as good as y'all remembered it from last time.

Then...sushi!

The next day it was 'warm' enough outside so you guys chose to do a car wash!

Which then turned into something else entirely..

And then, in what seems to be our annual President's Day tradition, we went to the dentist!

The most exciting news is that x-rays show that you, Aidan, will be losing your first tooth soon! Your front, bottom, left tooth (which you can see on the right in the x-ray below has almost NO root left on your baby tooth!) You were so excited about your loose tooth, Aidan!

But, you're hanging on to those front top teeth for a while. 

And Julia, your x-rays show a lot of root still left in there, but you were SO psyched about seeing your adult teeth coming in that you spent the rest of the day telling anyone who would listen- mommy, the neighbors, our waiter, our bus-boy- that you have adult teeth coming in!

And- come on- the best part of the dentist is the free floss (which you requested, Julia, when they didn't put it in your bag) and the toys!

You couldn't wait to show Mimi and Pops your clean teeth too!

Add in a driving lesson, to boot, and you got yourself one heck of a President's Day Weekend!

Julia and Maui the Skink

One Saturday, we were all working in the garden, when Aidan and I caught a skink.

Aidan was very interested in the skink and observed it in a jar.

But then, Julia, you asked Aidan if you could play with the skink too. He said 'sure!'

You two checked out the skink together and then Aidan played with the water hose.

But you...you continued to marvel at the marvelous skink.

And it was true love.

You named him Maui.

You cuddled him.

Let him crawl on you.

He seemed pretty calm and collected and enjoyed your warmth.

You cuddled him for at least an hour.

You loved him.

And then he eventually hopped away and went on his merry little life.

You were sad.

But, you'll always have the memories of Maui.