Depth

I have the pleasure and wonder of watching Aidan´s emotional and spiritual sides unfold.
We have talked about death, since Scot (John´s sister Roseann´s husband) and my young nephew Joshua both died in 2009. We all held each other in a big family hug after Aidan cried about death. He said he never wants us to die, and wanted to know what happens when people die. I talked about the spirit of a person always staying with those who knew them, and that a part of them would always be here. That seemed to comfort Aidan a little bit, but for weeks, death was the focal issue, and Aidan needed time to ask questions and explore his feelings about it. It´s a subject I have not fully come to terms with, so I don´t expect him to be completely comfortable with it either. I doubt most people are. Aidan seemed to grasp the finality of death in a way I would not expect a 3-year-old to do, and reacted to it strongly. It was moving and sweet in a way, to share such raw emotions and fears and work through it together.

when Aidan was 2, we listened to a sweet and haunting melody together. It was a Swedish lullabye called "Byssanlull," and it brought tears to Aidan´s eyes. He stopped playing and just listened, then started crying. When the song was over, he wanted to hear it again, and then cried again. I did not know that such young children could feel such things so deeply before I became a mother myself. My respect for young children has grown tremendously as a mom. Their capacity for love, emotion and spirituality is huge.

Aidan asked my aunt, who recently had eye surgery, how her eye feels and how she is doing. She was so touched by his genuine interest in something he does not have any real experience with, and the fact that he could in some way understand that it was difficult for her.

Aidan worries about life post-baby. His little brother is due next Saturday, and he is more anxious than excited. I think he knows that baby will change our lives, and he is not naive about that even though he has no real frame of reference for it. He´s also excited and happy, and hugs my belly lots and talks to the baby. So for him, like for us, the unknown holds its wonder while at the same time causes a bit of worry about how it will turn out.
He marvels at the tiny baby clothes. The first time he saw one of the tiny outfits, he said "wow, so small?"
He wants us to have one more baby after this one. We were talking about family sizes, and I said something about our family being composed of four people. He said "no, let´s have one more!" Haha, he wants the kids to outnumber the adults :)

Aidan is 4!!

I just love my little, big man!! Aidan is a caring, fun-loving, wonderful human being, and it is such a joy to be his mom!
We had a great party at Child Planet, a children´s play place here in Oslo. His guests were:

Taylor (Tonje and Kelly´s daughter and a great playmate to Aidan)
Maja (Bo and Jenny´s daughter)
Juni and Eirill (sisters and daughters of Frøy and Jørn)
Nikolas (Hilde´s daughter)

And Momo and Elfrid came as well! Momo made a delicious marzipan-covered cream cake, and I made some very simple vanilla cupcakes.
Maja´s gift was a huge plastic sword, and Aidan loves it. He asked me what it was, which was nice as he´s never had a toy weapon before. So he´s slowly losing his innocence, but as long as it´s with a plastic sword which he´s convinced is a pirate sword, we´ll be fine :)
Taylor gave Aidan a remote-controlled jeep, which I am going to like playing with. I have always liked remote-controlled cars, and so I get to play with it when Aidan is in kindergarten!
Momo gave Aidan a really cute electronic toy cash register, and Aidan´s loving ringing up our grocery orders and giving us our bags of food.
Elfrid and Ivar gave Aidan an airport set, and Aidan´s really enjoying it. It´s all over our living room floor. So it´s a big airport!
Nikolas gave Aidan a really sweet wooden xylophone. Aidan loves music, so he´ll get good use out of that.
And last but not least, Juni and Eirill gave Aidan a 3 cd set of Albert Aaberg´s stories and music. He was a Swedish children´s author, and I´m sure we´ll all enjoy the cd´s. I love almost everything Swedish when it comes to kids music and films!

After the party, we came home and Aidan was on a high. He said "now I know how to be a party man." Hehe!