Napkin Notes, Stick & Shoot and the Russian Embassy

After the Holidays, I started sending Aidan's snack to school with him.  It was his request and he emphatically insisted that he no longer wanted to buy the school snack.  Although this added to my schedule, I agreed.  The school snack wasn't much and I knew I could send better: sliced strawberries, apple slices, cheese sticks, etc.  But, what I hadn't planned on was adding even more stress because of a little note I wrote on his napkin.

It started simple and innocent:  a heart with an I Love You in the middle, which went on to Mama loves Aidan, and then Mama and Daddy loves you.  On Monday as I was drawing the Cat in the Hat, I thought, How did I get here???  I have now drawn Mario, Luigi, Aidan as a hockey player, the Caps logo, The Lorax, Sam I Am, and so on.  What happened????

I am in need of some inspiration of what to draw next on Aidan's napkin.  Hurry please, we leave in a couple of hours and his snack bag will need to be in his backpack!!

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About a year ago, Pat and Aidan converted Aidan's soccer goal into a hockey goal and fixed in so it could be easily moved out onto the pipestem by our house.  We bought some inexpensive adjustable sticks and some outdoor hockey pucks.  Aidan can spend hours out there practicing his shots.  He will run up and down the pipestem controlling the puck and then he shoots and scores!!!  He even does it really good while wearing his inline skates. 

His favorite past time is to have one of us, preferably daddy, out there with him to work on passing the puck and to create "traffic" in front of the net.  He's only five and you should see him!  And I do have to say that this has really helped him a lot on the ice.  He typically scores anywhere from 5-7 goals during his Mini Mites games and he has gotten really good at stealing the puck away from other players.  I am sure it is from this practice on the pipestem.

At Christmas, a good friend of ours gave Aidan a pass to Stick & Shoot at the Ice House.  It has 10 sessions pre-paid.  We never know for sure when the Stick & Shoot is going to be offered, so we have been waiting.  And our wait ended. 

All during March Stick & Shoot is being offered at differing times so we decided to take Aidan up there last Tuesday.  In preparation, Pat bought a helmet, gloves and a stick so he could go out on the ice with him.  They only allow 30 people on the ice, which is nice because there are so many more during Aidan's Skills Class.

When we got there on Tuesday, we were too late.  It was full.  So, we decided to watch for a bit to see how it all went and it is exactly like what Pat and Aidan do out on the pipestem.  Aidan stood there watchng and he said with that sad little sound, "I want to be out there too."  Oh.....Okay, we'll try again on Wednesday.

So, on Wednesday, Pat and Aidan went, without me because I get off work too late, and headed up to the Ice House and got signed in (the sign in starts 90 minues before) and then went to have dinner.  When they got home, Aidan was just glowing!  He LOVED it!!!  So, we're going again on Sunday. . .and I think we have some other dates on the March schedule we will try to go. 

What a great gift!!!

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On April 14th, we will be heading over to the Russian Embassy for the annual Easter Party.  It will be our third year.  Interesting that it will be the day after our 4 year anniversary of being home!!