Aiden Stories

How difficult could a seventeen month-old be, right? Let me tell you about last Friday.

Everything was going well. I'd somehow managed to vacuum my house every single day last week and had just put the vacuum away and gotten Aiden a snack. I'd found the new Cheerios snack mix on sale at HEB and I had a coupon so we picked up a bag. Once we were home, he'd zeroed right in on the new treat and wanted it. I gave him a small serving in one of his little plastic bowls and he was munching happily in the living room while I put away the rest of the groceries.

I heard the familiar sound of snacks hitting the tile followed by a sweet little "uh-oh". Before I could groan about my freshly-vacuumed floors I heard Major coming down the hall from our bedroom to vacuum them up himself. Then several things happened at once. Aiden was holding his little plastic golf club and snack bowl when, in a moment of random bliss and glee, let out a series of whoops and shouts as he ran towards the playroom swinging the putter like a caveman. Major, who was standing between Aiden and his bee-line to the playroom, had been staring so intently at the dropped snack mix that he didn't see Aiden coming at him...

I'm standing in front of the pantry, frozen, seeing my precious son, the massive doberman and Major's fixed gaze on the food all around them. I could feel my muscles tense and the adrenaline rush hit about the same time as the snarl in my throat. (That's how we communicate "no" to Major without confusing or frightening Aiden. Heck, even Aiden growls now.) I'm scolding myself for not making sure Major was locked in our bedroom while Aiden was awake and now I'm worried Aiden will get knocked down when Major makes a move for his spilled food. I have no idea how dogs can move so much faster than we can...

Major looks up from the prized snack mix to see a club-waving, screaming banshee coming at him and panics. He turns to his right to escape but is standing too close to the wall to complete his turn. Instead he goes completely vertical, stands up with paws on the wall, pushes off to turn around and hits the ground running in the opposite direction. In the middle of this maneuver I hear the *CRUNCH* and CRASH of plastic and I see Aiden skid to a stunned stop. By this time I've reached him and scooped him up, still anticipating he would be knocked over by the hairy hoover, and then I see what broke:



Major had hit the wall outlet in the hall with his knee, knocking the HUGE childproof double outlet cover off, breaking the faceplate and jamming the outlet back into the wall. See the drywall damage? Luckily Brian is super-handy and had it fixed in no time after a trip to Ace Hardware to perfectly match up the plate for me. But back to our story. So I see this smashed in faceplate and plastic chips on the tile. I lock up the dog then grab the camera and the broom, thinking Brian is never going to believe this story. While I take a picture, Aiden is trying to touch the broken plastic. I tell him "No, no, it's sharp. Ow! That can cut!" and put my hand over it to block his poking. As I pull my hand away, I cut myself on the finger! I show Aiden the cut (to prove my point that plastic can cut) and then go to get a band-aid with him following me scolding "Nuh-nuh-no! OW! No, no!" I inspect the annoying shallow cut, dig around for a band-aid and then sweep up the plastic debris before I notice Aiden has silently disappeared. In fact the whole house has fallen silent. He must be in our bathroom....

I bolt into our room to see him running out of the bathroom shouting "Nuh-nuh-NO!" as he tries to get past me. (He's so self-incriminating! LOL!) I notice he has something pink and crumply in is hand as he weasels by. There on the floor he has dumped out an entire box of nursing pads I had stored in the back of a drawer in the bathroom and has made off with one, which he is now shoving into the driver's seat of his Fisher Price train.



Arg! I begin picking up the nursing pads when I wonder how he got these out of the back of the drawer with all the other stuff - like that black hair dryer attachment - in the way. Wait. I peer around the half wall and find the other stuff strewn about around the toilet and into our closet. HOW?!! It only took me about a minute and a half to get a band-aid on and sweep up the plastic!

It's not the worst afternoon ever. The grocery shopping AND vacuuming are done so I can't complain about the mangled breast pad riding in the battery-powered train down the hall. That night he brings a bottle of bubbles to the bathroom for us to blow while he's in the tub. Problem is, the once-clear bubble solution has now turned cloudy and has a slight green tint to it. I have no idea what he's added to it (Crystal Light?) but he's wailing for bubbles so I start blowing. Only problem is they're now indestructible mutant bubbles! The things won't pop! They pile up all over him and his bath toys. At one point he has a bubble-fro & Brian recovers from the hysteria first and runs for the camera before I can:



This isn't a lucky shot. The bubbles are staying in place, holding their shape and didn't budge until we rinsed them off. If I can figure out what he's mixed together to create this concoction of unpoppable bubbles we'll probably be made millionaires by our impossibly busy seventeen month-old! LOL!