Today, Aiden would have turned two years old. A heavy day for Mama and I. It felt like we couldn’t come up with the right thing to do… as well as feeling like we did enough to celebrate him. Aiden was our sweet special boy, and he deserved all the adventures – so that’s what we did!
Mama has always wanted a garden. To start off Aiden’s birthday we made it a priority to finish digging and mulching around Aiden’s tree. We also picked out some lovely flowers to start off Aiden’s garden.
Lunch time was coming up and little Sawyer was getting hungry. We took a well deserved break from the dirt to have one of Aiden’s favorite foods. Cupcakes. As is tradition, I smashed it into Sawyer’s face… I’m sure wherever Aiden is he appreciated it and laughed. We also opened gifts and Mama did a little photo shoot with the boys.
We then took a short family trip to Build A Bear. Sawyer helped us pick out a birthday bear, fill it with a recording of his heartbeat song, and pick out cool clothes for Aiden’s birthday bear.
One of our first trips with Aiden was to a local park that is also a fish hatchery. I think this is where Aiden first fell in love with trees, nature, and water. We took Sawyer to the park with Aiden bear and we fed some trout!
We then packed up the car and went to the local Science Museum. Aiden loved the lights, sounds, playing video games with dad, and most of all the butterfly exhibit. Sawyer got to crawl around the Butterfly house, see the turtles and we were all hoping we could get one of the big butterflies to land on Aiden bear. Sawyer got to go on some slides, play in Sesame Street, and check out all the cool video games Dad grew up on.
Our final stop was to eat dinner at Aiden’s benches. We watched the creek flow by, listened to the birds and geese, and heard the tree’s whispering in the wind. I’m sure it was Aiden telling us he was with us always. I hope you enjoyed your birthday today Stinker Man.
Thank you to everyone who sent Aiden cards for his birthday. They mean more to us than we can possibly express. We are so happy Aiden touched so many and that everyone thought of him on his birthday. We would also like to thank our nurses and hospital staff for allowing us to donate children and parent baskets, g-tube care packages, and a whole bunch of goodies for our second family in the pediatric neuro floor.
