Aspen

It's been a long time since I've posted what's been going on with Aspen. This is more for me later on down the road, but he is growing and changing so much! As always, he is alternately incredibly loving, sweet and affectionate and challenging, aggravating and dramatic. A lot like his daddy! People tell me to watch out having two girls with all the drama they will bring, but they don't know Aspen and Mark. They are far more dramatic than either Journey or I am! Everything is a 'nightmare' and life crisis. :) We'll see what this little girl will bring, but I am definitely used to drama!

Aspen holding Lilly for the first time. Isn't he sweet? He was so gentle with her.

He really enjoyed holding her and wanted to be able to walk around holding her like I was. Hmmm, I think he needs a little more practice before he graduates to that. Reminds me of myself with Adrian. I always wanted to hold and walk around with him when he was a baby.

Isaac is Aspen's favorite friend to have over. He asks to hang out with him every other day! This week Isaac came over and the boys spent literally hours outside in the front yard catching tadpoles. I was able to paint most of Journey's new room when he was over! Such fun boy time. I knew there was a reason we hadn't gotten around to cleaning out our pond this year :)

Yes, they are having fun.

Another thing Aspen has been totally into the last couple weeks is putting his legos together following the directions. Our normal morning routine is that Aspen will wake up around 6:30-7am. Neither Mark or I like to get up that early so he goes downstairs and plays his DS or computer games until we get up to turn on cartoons around 7-7:30am (whenever Journey wakes up). One morning, instead of playing his DS, he picked up the directions to one of his lego toys and started putting them together. He enjoyed it so much that he continued as he finished each project. I love how proud he is of himself as he finishes each page, and have been very impressed at how well he is able to problem solve, spend the time searching through the thousands of legos to find the right piece and just spend focused time on one thing :) This is a new thing for him!

And a couple stories.....

Aspen learned a valuable life lesson today. A couple of weeks back as we were walking out of the fruit market I noticed that Aspen's hands were all sticky. I asked him what was all over his hands and with as much innocence as he could muster, he responded, "I don't know, maybe I will lick it and see!" As I was telling him not to, not knowing what he could have gotten into, he licked his fingers and said "mmm! Honey." "How did you get honey on your hands?", I asked. Um...I think I may have stepped on one of the honey sticks in the store and the honey squirted on my hands..." he said a little hesitantly.

It sounded a little weird, but since I didn't see it, I just said Okay and we walked to the car. As Aspen was buckling himself in, he said, "Mom.....what would you say if I had bitten the honey stick and got it on my hands.....?" Well, I guess I would say that was stealing and that is wrong because we didn't pay for the honey" I responded. He was pretty silent and I asked him if that was how it happened. He came clean and I told him that I was going to have to talk to his dad and we would decide on the punishment. It was a long ride home for him and he rushed to his room when we got home when he realized Mark was already there.

We decided that he was going to have to pay for the honey stick out of his own money and apologize to them at the store the next time we went there. We discussed how stealing hurts people and it hurts God because that is sin.

It's been weeks since that incident and I think Aspen thought I'd forgotten about it. Truth is, the times I've been there since, he wasn't with me and I wasn't really looking forward to taking him in to apologize knowing the high time drama it was going to be. I kind of had to emotionally gear up for it myself!

So today was the day and I warned Aspen before we left that he would need to get his money together and apologize. It was as dramatic as I expected. Lots of tears, begging me to let him stay at home, etc. We practiced what he would say in his apology and I promised that I would stand next to him, although I would not talk for him. I felt bad for him on the ride there because the anticipation was just killing him. It was almost more than he could take. I sympathized with him and told him to ask God to give him courage to be able to say it with out crying.

It wasn't easy for him. We had to stand in line for about 5 minutes while we waited to speak to the cashier, but I was very proud of him (and almost started crying) as he apologized and paid for what he stole. He was able to do it all by himself, and as he finished, it was like a weight was lifted off his shoulders. He felt so good to have it over with! He also commented that he would never steal again. It was just too hard to pay and apologize.

My greatest hope for him as he grows up is not that he doesn't make mistakes, but that he learns and grows from the ones he makes.


And one more - Aspen is ready to cut his hair (sniff, sniff, I love his long blond hair!). He asked us after church on Sunday when we were going to get his hair cut. Surprised, we asked him what made him think of that. Apparently some of his friends told him that his hair looked like girl's hair. Yes, the ultimate insult! And he has noticed when he has been mistaken for a girl lately. (It happens occasionally, but he never seemed to notice up until now) So we are at that age where it matters what other kids think. Pics to come of his new hair cut when he gets it!