Communication

Aaron has decided that non-stop talking doesn't really cover his bases as far as how much he wants to communicate with us. I mean, there are always those times where he wakes up while we're sleeping, and there is likely something on his mind that needs to be shared RIGHT THEN and not one second later, so what's a boy to do? Until recently, what he would do was march himself into our room, regardless of the hour, to share with us the important information of the minute, which might be something as urgent as wanting to make sure he got an orange vitamin the next day, because he's had 3 days in a row of a red vitamin, and he would really like to switch to orange.

For Christmas, one of the presents he got was a small whiteboard and markers, and he has really taken advantage of using these to make sure Jason and I stay on task and stop acting like mindless, forgetful buffoons. Or maybe he uses these to express some brilliant idea he had at 3AM. Here's a sampling of what we've found propped outside our bedroom door.

"Dad, I know what Sharon would like from you. A blanket."

What a helper! Jason was wondering what he could get his mom (Sharon) for Christmas, and Aaron had it all figured out. In the middle of the night. Better to wake the whiteboard than us.

"Yay! Yay! New year is here! In 2009, we want to make a party!"
This was what we woke up to on (well, duh. You can figure out the day.) Something about the grammar seems weird, like he hired someone with a rudimentary understanding of English to translate it for him. Probably because he was engrossed in the details of the festive confetti drawn around the word "prtty" (party). You may not understand the words, but the graphic design conveys everything you need to know.

"Dear Daddy, my clothes go in the CLOSET. Remember."

And yes, the "remember" was more of an order than a nice reminder. I don't know how Aaron puts up with our incompetence. Daddy was explicitly told that we're not laying Aaron's clothes for the day on the chair in his room anymore, that now we're going to put them on his closet shelf. If daddy wants to disregard the new order of business, that's fine, but don't think it goes unnoticed. (And another illustration to help make his point. "See the CLOTHES? Do you GET IT?" I have every reason to believe he was rolling his eyes when he wrote this. I shudder to think of how daddy's annual review is going to go.)

"Daddy, I am downstairs".

At least he didn't want us to worry. And just in case one of us woke up unable to read, there's an illustration to help clear things up. A picture is worth a thousand words, they say. Or three words, in this case.

A couple of weeks ago Aaron lost his first two teeth, one on a Tuesday and one on Thursday, and he left us a really funny whiteboard message to show us what the tooth fairy left him, but he erased it before I got to take a picture of it. (And I'm only mentioning it so I can let you know that Aaron has lost his bottom two front teeth and looks so stinkin' cute.)

This one isn't a whiteboard message, but another new hobby of Aaron's. He's learning how to tell time, and is understanding the difference between AM ("at morning") and PM ("past morning"). Since my watch and most of our clocks don't provide any clues as to whether we're in AM or PM, Aaron has taken it on as his duty to be the keeper of the meridian. He updated our refrigerator every morning and afternoon for almost a week.

Aaron's looking over my shoulder and wondering where the picture of AM is. Sorry, kid, I missed that shot. But these other ones I got are a great reminder for me of how fun it can be to live with an almost 6 year old boy.