Is It Monday Again?

Our weekend went by so fast! Yesterday Amanda visited and we went to dinner. I was supposed to work but decided not to. Lazy, I guess. Afterward we went over to the neighbor's house to help Baby James celebrate his 2nd birthday. Aidan and James each had a helium balloon in the backyard, and each accidentally let them go. We watched them go up, up, up until we couldn't see them anymore. Then the older kids started bringing out lots of balloons and letting them go. The little kids joined in and were having a really good time waving "bye, bye" to the balloons. I was really caught in a mental dilemma on this one. The first two were accidents. Then the older kids were doing it on purpose. It's horrible for the environment. I couldn't very well correct the older kids because they are not my kids and it wasn't my house nor my balloons. Yet they were teaching Aidan a really bad habit. I chose to let it go and not say anything. These neighbors have serious problems, the least of which is their laziness in social responsibility. Aidan probably will not remember this incident (I hope) and there is sure to be another opportunity to teach him those lessons in the future. The concept of "parent and let parent" is a difficult concept when it's infringing on my environment, my tax dollars, etc. Oh my, was that a conservative comment or liberal? Hard to tell!

The really good news this weekend was that Aidan is nursing less and less. Jason says he hasn't noticed any major changes but I sure can! In general, even when he nurses during the day he isn't really into it. Several times this weekend he's nursed for a moment, stopped and asked for a drink or food. The only times he's into it at all is at night or in the morning. Both times that he needs Mommy's comfort. I know that when he's ready to wean completely he'll either do it himself or I will know it's time to cut back on the last feedings. I've talked to lots of other moms about this issue and they all say the same thing, "you'll know when it's time."

I was just talking to Amy on the phone and told her about taking Aidan's baseball bat away this morning. She said I should write it in the blog since I always write positive things and he might never know that I was not the perfect mother who gave him whatever he wanted. This morning Aidan wanted to take his baseball bat to school. It's only a whiffle ball bat, but it can still hurt. I let him carry it to the car and then into the carseat (I had to have something to get him in there). Once I had him all strapped in I told him to say "bye, bye" to the bat. He was very unhappy but there was no way that I was going to let him have that bat. He was very sad but I wasn't persuaded.

At school Aidan has a new assistant teacher who really likes him. She's Jordanian and has four kids of her own. The head teacher told me that she took to Aidan immediately and talked all about how smart he is. She told me on Friday that Aidan brought a doll over to her and told her, "This is my son." I asked her if he tried to nurse it (he does that with his stuffed animals) but she said no but where did he see a child nursing. I explained that Aidan still nurses and then she teased me that her mother nursed one of her children for 5 years. Of course, in Jordan that's not so unusual as it is here. In most countries moms nurse until their children wean themselves and that is often 4 or 5 years. Thank God I'm almost done!