Aaron Uses the Potty and Mudgie asks about death

On Sunday night, the boys were taking their usual end-of-the-weekend bath, when Aaron tells me he has to go poopy.  This was not unusual, as he often tells me this at bath time (I assume this is because he is naked).  So as usual, I get him out of the tub and sit him on the potty.  I then turn my attention to Mudgie, since Aaron will usually sit on the potty for a bit, tell me he did poopy (which he's never really done), and then get a "prize" as he calls it, which is really just toilet paper (no, I'm not making that up).  Anyway, this time I actually heard something fall into the toilet.  I was kind of afraid of what Aaron threw down there, but before I could ask he informed me he was "done going poopy."  When I check inside, he had indeed done his business on the potty.  After some high fives and fist pumps, I cleaned him off and asked him to wait for Mudgie to be done in the tub.  While I was finishing with Mudgie, Aaron told me he had to go pee pee, so back on the potty he went, where he once again did more than just sit there!  Here's hoping we get some repeat performances of that soon.

Aaron has been taking some cues from Mudgie on the expression front as well.  Many times in the last week he spontaneously told either me, Dave, or Mudgie that he loves us.  This is good, because he has been more impish than usual this week.  I'm trying to attribute it to his 3rd 2-year molar coming in, but somehow I suspect that's not the cause.

On Saturday morning, the boys and I went to the library.  They both love the train table there, and we picked out a bunch of train books to bring home with us.  Mudgie has been in heaven reading them all day and night, and that's saying a lot for a kids who had recently been introduced to video games.

This brings me to the final updates in the Weatherwax house.  Dave has introduced the boys to 2 new activities in the past couple weeks.  The first, which I just love, is family jam sessions.  He and the boys will rock out in our bedroom, with one of the kids playing the piano, and another playing the guitar with Dave, or another little plucky instrument Dave acquired years ago.  They will sing, dance, and pretty much just rock out for a good 30 minutes.  Mudgie has even told us that we need to construct a stage so we can have a "music festival."  I have no idea where he picks this stuff up, but I think it's awesome!

The other new activity is video games.  Mudgie has been playing angry birds on Dave's phone for at least 6 months now, and he's gotten really good at it.  He even taught me how to play!  But since he is now obsessed with Sonic the Hedgehog (thanks to Netflix), Dave has showed him the Sonic video game on the PS3.  He must take after his Dad, because Mudgie seemed to pick it right up, and now the two of them play Sonic together.

It's so nice to see the boys sharing these very special things with Dave.  Not like they didn't do/share stuff together before, but these are things that were 100% initiated by Dave, and the boys are both 100% into them.  I'm so proud of my big boys and their amazing Daddy.

Finally, I need to share the last "event" of the week that really stood out.  As I was getting Mudgie dressed after bathtime, he started asking me about all the grandparents.  As I've done before, I explained that Grammy and Grampy were Daddy's parents, and that Grandpa Steve is my father, Grandma Mary is his wife, and Grampy Michael was married to my mom.  For the first time ever, though, he really processed this, and then asked me where my mom is.  As I've explained before, I told him that my mom is in heaven.  When he pressed for more information, I told him that she got very sick, and the doctors couldn't make her better, and so she died.  Since he knows what death means, he asked, "So she's never coming back?"  Fighting back tears, I told him that although she's never coming back, I think about her all the time, and I keep her alive in my heart.  He kept asking me why she got sick, and then started to ask if I was going to get sick too.  It was one of the most heartbreaking conversations I've ever had with him.  I just told him that his Daddy and I do everything we can to stay healthy, and hopefully we will never get sick like my mom.  Here's hoping...