Milk, Fish, and other Milestones

Aiden lost his first fish. Well actually, it was his second fish. The first one died and we replaced it before he realized it with one that looked kinda similar. We held our breath as he checked out the fish tank, but he didn't seem to notice.

This time, we thought there might be a theme developing, and we don't want to be in the practice of trying to match identifying marks on goldfish every couple days or so. So we waited until he noticed that there were only 2 fish in his little aquarium, bit the bullet, and told him that his fish died.

Now, he's 3 years old so he didn't take the news too hard, though he was a little bit sad. He has actually been introduced to the idea of death already by a video he watches sometimes – it's Beginner's Bible stories, The Story of Easter. So now Aiden knows that his fish died like Jesus did.

The only problem now is that he has actually paid attention to this video, so he knows that Jesus comes back, and now he is expecting Jesus to have his goldfish with him when he does.

First (technically second) dead pet. It's a milestone.

Another milestone is that Aiden is officially drinking milk! Yes, real, honest to goodness, comes from a cow milk. No more milk allergy!. No more of this $7 to $9 per gallon rice milk – how you milk a grain of rice I have no idea. He eats anything we eat, no more special lists of “safe” food, no more asking to see ingredient lists at restaurants, no more packing the only kind of chicken tenders we know he can have with us everywhere we go. No more hiding the ice cream in the back of the freezer and only getting it out after he goes to bed – wait. We might still want to do that one.

It's a beautiful thing to make one meal and one meal only for dinner, and have all of us sit down and be able to eat it.

He's such a big kid, I really can't believe it. We're having conversations and he's having real opinions. Now when we go out we have to know where the nearest restroom is at all times – it was actually much easier to have him in diapers. Every day he does something new and it just reminds you that he's his own little person.

This winter he went sledding for the first time and built his first snowman. It seems like every day he's exploring another first and learning something new. It's pretty crazy, it makes you see things as if you are seeing them for the first time too.