The Turtle, The Monkey and The Snake

So, you'll never believe it but it's SNOWING AGAIN. We've had a full week reprieve between storms, which is good because this one we're having right now is supposed to be a super-mega-ultra mother of all storms. So big that Oklahoma is getting as much snow as New York. Yikes.

In keeping with the theme of the past two or so posts, we haven't been doing a whole lot other than our regular activities since the act of staying warm and out of the snow has become our main focus. I guess that's pretty typical of January/ February.

One thing I like to do to get Aiden moving a little is to turn on music in the afternoon and Aiden will dance and sing while I get some chores done. Aiden is becoming more and more creative and it shows whenever there's music on. Sometimes he sways along and lip-syncs and sometimes he comes up with the craziest dance moves you've ever seen. He's totally unselfconscious and fully committed to grooving which makes it the best entertainment. Here is one of his newest moves, the turtle:

****

In completely separate news, we found out there is a monkey living in our house. We put Aiden to bed on Saturday night and around one in the morning he came streaking into our room, completely terrified and babbling about a monkey in his room. We calmed him down and put him back in bed but not an hour later he was back with the same story about a monkey in his room.

He has some stuffed animals in his bed that make noise so Sean took them all out just in case they were the cursed 'monkey' that Aiden was talking about. Still, he returned to our room over and over again despite our best efforts to assure him that there was no monkey.

The next night we sat down with him to ask about this mysterious creature.
"Really mean monkey. Really sad mommy" he told me.
We asked him where the monkey was right that minute and he shyly pointed over his shoulder at the wall. The very same wall where his nightlight was casting a perfect Aiden-sized shadow.
We explained what shadows are and that they are nothing to be afraid of. The next morning he was still wary about the shadow-monkey, but then this morning he told me that he had kissed the monkey goodnight and that the monkey went to sleep.
Right. Okay. As long as he's gone I guess.

****

After all of the monkey-drama we went downstairs and Aiden started playing with some of his toy animals. He picked up his blue rubber snake and rested it over his shoulders.
"Hey mommy, I have a snake tie!" he said.
I asked him if it was just like the kind that daddy wears and he frowned at his snake before looping it around on itself and sliding one end through the hole, creating an almost perfect Windsor knot. I was shocked. He still can't put his own shirt on but he's pretty confident with a tie. Go figure.


Hopefully it will stop snowing sometime within the next ten years and we will be able to be a part of society again. Until then we'll be over at our house, staying warm and having all sorts of animal issues.