I blinked and just like that

My little angel baby Aidan is a full fledged self proclaimed tween! I swear it was an overnight transformation. Last week he was acting nerdy with the other neighborhood boys and now he has a strut to his step. You see there is a girl, a really cute girl, and he is head over heals. It is so strange to see Aidan act awkward around a girl, he has always just been his goofy self no matter who is around, but this girl he wants to impress.... and its mutual. She has brought him little gifts to our door with nervous giggles, dragged her friends up to the door and pointed him out and say "Look, that's Aidan" and according to my "IN" with the young crowd in the neighborhood Aidan has "The hair" that I guess is sought after these days and that is what ultimately won her over. The other day walking home from school they stopped to talk in front of our house (she lives 3 houses down) and Adam actually had to say so Aidan, maybe you should offer to walk her home. As I was thinking how cute it was I realized that no matter how cute the "I'm in love" face is it means that he is going to either hurt or be hurt, and with the way Aidan loves and attaches to people and animals I am betting he will be the one who is hurt. I hate to think about my little boy going through heartbreak, it hurts me to think about it!

For now I am marveling at how in such a short time my little guy has gone from the Pokemon nerd to a boy who wants to shower and make his hair look cool, and even put on deodorant (Still not into matching his outfits but I guess that would be asking alot ! ;) He is planning now to buy her a present with his allowance instead of buying more bey blades or Pokemon. I dare say he is growing up before my eyes. I am also well aware that I am very lucky that he still considers boys kissing girls to be totally gross and I will continue to remind him of just how gross it is for as long as I can! I guess I have to admit his hair is looking pretty cool these days ! ;)

8 years ago I got the best thing ever

I know this post is a day late, I am a slacker, what can I say!
Adam and I have been married for 8 awesome years now. We never did the whole big wedding thing, in fact we never did a wedding at all. We got married by the accountant who had done Adam's taxes and been a friend for years. We went in to get his taxes done and had him marry us with his office staff as witnesses afterwards (He was also a bishop) We decided not to tell anyone until after we were actually married to avoid any sort of stress over who to invite or have there. We took our kids out to dinner at Denny's after the "Wedding" and told them we were officially married, called our parents and were done with it! We took some pictures in the back yard with all our kids and sent out announcements. We were as happy as can be! Adam told me our honeymoon was a surprise, it was March in Show Low and cold but he told me to pack for warm weather so I was sure we would be spending a week in the valley.... no kids at a nice resort in the sun, I was so excited! He planned every detail, told me nothing, at some point he let my parents in on the secret and there was alot of elbowing and smiling as we were getting ready to go.... I thought this must be a REALLY nice resort we were going to! The day came and we left, sure enough we checked in to the double tree resort in Phoenix, it was nice! He took me to Ruth's Chris for dinner then told me not to unpack more than clothes for the next morning because we were going somewhere else the next morning. At this point I was VERY confused! We got up bright and early and went to the airport of all places. Having never traveled farther than California I was pretty dang excited but I had No Clue what was coming, and he was giving no hints at all. He had this great smile, he knew he had pulled off this awesome surprise, he had me! We strolled around the airport, past all the terminals, he said "Let me go and ask what terminal we should check in at, and walked up to a counter, I stood there and he pulled my hand and smiled... I looked up and he was headed to Hawaiian Airlines, I was starting to get an idea but thinking there was no way.. he pulled my hand over to the counter and told the lady we were checking in. I think I dropped my bag and said "No way, we are going to Hawaii!" He laughed at me and hugged me. It was the best surprise, I still can't believe he pulled it off, we flew to Hawaii and had the most romantic honeymoon I can imagine. We fell deeply in love with Hawaii and even more in love with each other. We have been back to Hawaii 4 times, almost moved there, our heart know we belong there, we are whole in Hawaii. I never in a million years thought I would even visit an island, Hawaii was a distant dream, now Hawaii is the definition of Adam and I, barefoot on the beach!

I got so much more than Hawaii of course, Adam is a great husband, he has given me a great life, a great family. I love him more than I ever thought I could love. I am so happy I found him, and that he has managed to put up with all of what I have brought him in the 8 years we have been together. I look forward to many many more years and adventures with the love of my life. There is never a dull moment with Adam around, that's for sure!
I love you baby!
xoxoxo
Jen

Modifying

I have come to a crossroads with Aidan lately, not in a good way. Aidan is fighting some major internal battles that I cannot fully understand, but I can no longer excuse his behavior and write it of as "It's because his dad was arrested or he's being this way because his dad got divorced again, or he is acting out because we moved around a few times in the last few years.

Aidan was diagnosed a Bi-Polar in 2007 and put on medication which changed absolutely nothing so we took him off the medication and it was decided that he was misdiagnosed. He was then diagnosed with ADHD. I agree with that diagnosis based on the research I have done but I have resisted using any medication to handle it because I don't like what the medication can do to your child, and also he has always maintained a straight A status in school, so I thought as long as I could be extra patient with him and manage it with diet and at some times herbal supplements, if it didn't affect his education I was doing the right thing.

I have always struggled with the aspect of nurture vs. nature on kids like Aidan. I think some of this is built in to his genes. He has had family members who have spent most of their adult life in mental institution for some thing or another, another member committed suicide. I myself have battled depression in the past. After years of this I have realized that I don't can who's fault it is that Aidan is like this, Blaming his dad for having family members with problems is not going to help our situation at all. Blaming myself for not doing or knowing enough is not going to fix this. Action now is the only thing that matters. I don't care why he is the way his is, I just want to get him back to the sweet, loving, never hurt a fly kind of boy that I knew and loved for so many years. He is in there, we just have to break him free!

Over the last few months Aidan has been displaying increasing signs of emotional disturbance and anger management issues. The situation has come to a boiling point now and I have to take some pretty drastic measures....... the main problems we are having with him are:

Lying: He lies alot, he lies to keep himself out of trouble and he lies to both me and his dad about things that he thinks might make each of us mad about what happens at the others house

Not accepting responsibility or consequences: Everything is always someone Else's fault, according to Aidan he is always in the right no matter what he does, but he gets in trouble because people just won't listen (Yeah we won't listen because he needs to accept responsibility for the things we know he did)

Arguing: Aidan argues about every little thing with my husband and I. It is exhausting. I can ask him if the kid he was just playing with was around 11 or 12 and he will look at me like I'm stupid and so "No, he is 12" Its that he tells me I was wrong, then he gives me his answer which is one of the ones I presented to him.

Trying to barging his way out of EVERYTHING: Aidan does not accept punishment well. We recently had a morning where he was not acting nice towards his brother. I gave him 3 warnings in a 1 hour period, the 4th time I sat him down and told him I have asked you 3 times this morning to speak nicely to your brother and to treat him with kindness, you are still not doing that and for that reason you are now grounded. He went to rage, he yelled at me that it wasn't fair that I didn't give him a specific warning that if he did it one more time he would loose privileges, he threatened that by taking away the "Only things that bring me joy in life" I was just going to make him more angry and my punishment would backfire. I don't take that crap at all for the record.

He has become increasingly more and more violent over the last few months. His temper is like a very fine piece of thread that is pulled tight and ready to snap at a moments notice. He didn't use to hurt anyone when he was angry, but he as been hurting his 4 year old brother, which is something neither me or my husband will take lightly, that is the only thing he can do that makes me truly angry at HIM, not just at his actions.

Aidan also lacks any sense of guilt when he does something wrong. He will sit and look at the person he hurt with just a dead look on his face. I have taught him to say sorry, but it is nothing but a word if you keep doing the same thing over and over again. I can teach Aidan why rules are in place and why he has to accept the consequences for what he does, I always hope that this will remind him that the next time he thinks about doing that specific wrong he will also consider the consequences. He can recite it all back to you, say he understands, give you a high 5 to go off to play, but he seems to be unable to put any of this into practice in his real life and therefore he makes the same mistakes and gets the same consequences over and over.

I have changed my plan. He is not going to get the same old consequences anymore. I feel that this is an extreme case that calls for extreme measures. Aidan is loosing ALL privileges, we will have a point system where he will start at 0 and also with 0 toys or privileges. He can earn or loose points depending on certain criteria. He will be able to slowly earn back his toys and privileges over time by getting up to a certain amount of points. I am going to use something like balls in a big jar so he can see the progress going up and down in relation to his behavior.

He is not going to like this, he is going to tell me I am ruining his life. I have given him and will again after we have our meeting to go over the new plan tonight, that if he chooses I will support him in going to stay with his dad for a while to see if his dad's methods work better that what I am doing, it usually makes him very mad when I suggest that at all, he says that he can't just Can't live with is dad, he goes to a rage when we talk about it so I try not to bring it up much.

When he goes into a rage it is a full out rage. I often have to physically restrain him, I sometimes need my husband to help me restrain him because I can't hold him myself. He fights being held down, but I feel it is necessary at those time to protect him from hurting himself and/or his brother, and even our house. (I don't want fists through doors) So today at about 4 after homework is finished and dinner is planned out we will have a talk, just me and him. There will be yelling (Him) there will be crying (Hopefully only him, but I may loose that battle) there will be insults and ultimatums that will not be met. Then hopefully he can go to his room to calm down for a bit and we can have a pleasant evening together. I hope this is the punishment he needs to stick, along with counseling which we just go started with the process. Wish me luck!