Our Aaron

I never wrote a post to honor Aaron on his birthday last November, so I will write a few words about him now.

Aaron is a careful thinker, whether coming up with "jokes" or trying to convince us of something. He is reasonable beyond expectations, trying hard to understand when things don't go his way, and makes an effort to not demand things at inconvenient times.

He is quite the entrepreneur, attempting right now to save money to buy a fishing boat. He has a separate container for boat money, and jumps at opportunities to earn more. When I went to Aaron's Parent-Teacher Conference, his teacher chuckled when she saw me and said something along the lines of, "My goodness, that Aaron! I'm telling you, he is going to be the CEO someday! He wrote me a note one day that said, 'Ms. Perez, Marco and I need to talk to you in private.' So I pulled them into the hallway while the other kids were working independently, and he told me that they are saving up for a boat and wondered if I could ask the other children to bring in old toys and things they don't use anymore so he could sell them." She thought it was the funniest thing. Pretty funny, but she's not the one who would have to deal with everybody's junk! Anyway, Aaron has been selling a few of his toys on craigslist, doing odd jobs around the house, and saving it all up for that fishing boat. One day he was getting so frustrated that he was still so far from his goal and so we sat down and talked about the idea of long term goals, and that most people in the world do not have enough extra money to buy a boat but if he saved for several years, he might be able to get one. He was upset at first, but by the end of the conversation he really got it. He is focused on the long term. This kid has serious patience.

Aaron loves to read and especially be read to. Reading has been his most reliable source of comfort. When he had an ear infection and would wake up in the night in pain, the only thing that worked to calm him down and ease the pain was to read to him. When he was in the hospital and getting poked and prodded, he would be fine as long as I was right next to him reading. There were even times when I would get distracted by looking at the needles in his arm or listening to the nurses next to him and he would desperately yell out, "READ! READ!" Now as he is reading better on his own, he will often sit down and read to himself for long periods of time. But what impresses me the most is that I don't think he has ever requested we not read a specific text to him when reading in bed at night. Sometimes we will pull out Habermas, or Dostoyevsky, or some text on Cybernetics, and he will lie there and listen. I am by no means saying that he understands everything we read to him, but that, to me, is much less important than having the patience to listen and try to understand.

I think it's telling that Aaron pulled out several of his loose teeth all by himself, just reached in and yanked them out when asked to.

Aaron continues to explore the culinary arts. He is fairly good at following recipes, but still loves to make his own creations. He tries to be careful with what he combines in order to avoid creating inedibles. Some of his favorite things to make are cakes, scrambled eggs filled with chopped veggies, pizza, and zucchini rounds with shredded parmesan cheese.

When Aaron makes mistakes, he is always willing to talk them through with us as we analyze what went wrong, why it was wrong, and how he can prevent it in the future.

He still loves fishing, of course, and no week would be complete without a good, long study of his extensive tackle collection.

Aaron continues to be interested and interesting. The other day he said to me, "Can you believe that when you and Tato got married you didn't even know that soon you would have a little boy named Aaron?" It is pretty hard to believe.

2003

2004

2005

2006

2007


2008


2009

2010

Run for Haiti

Aaron and I have been looking for a run in Central Park that we could do together (or, at least, one after another). New York Road Runners often have kids' races after the regular ones, so I've been keeping my eyes open. When I saw "Run for Haiti," I knew it was perfect for us. Four miles for me, then a short race for the kids afterwards, and all of the entry fee went towards relief efforts in Haiti. Aaron has been very interested in raising money for Haiti (including doing a hot chocolate stand and helping his school collect shoes to send) so he was very excited about this.



Here we are walking towards the start of the race. There were over 10,000 people who signed up to run, so there was a constant trail of people headed towards the start line.

Here's Elliot right before his race. He started running with Ben by his side, but decided to be goofy and started lifting his feet funny and making everyone laugh. Then he collapsed onto the ground (all smiles) so Ben picked him up onto his shoulders and they ran across the finish line together.

Here's Aaron just after crossing the finish line.

Aaron with his ribbon and post-run snacks.

For the weeks leading up to the race, Aaron asked me about ten times if I thought he was going to win. "What's the chance I'm going to win, mom?" I kept saying low numbers like 5% or 6% but he would say, "I don't think so. I think it's more like 90%. I'm pretty fast." Alas, he didn't 'win,' but, like I told him several times before the race, we're not in it to win, we're just in it for fun. (To which he would respond, "Well, I am in it to win.")

Aaron's Joke

As we were getting ready for bed last night, Aaron told me he had a joke. The joke was as follows, verbatim:

Two guys were talking and one guy says to the other, "I'd give anything to be able to stay up until 9:00." Then the other guy says, "Okay, fine. All you have to do is not stay up until 9:00."

The he got a big smile on his face and said, "So see? He shouldn't say 'anything.' "


Addendum: It has come to our attention that this joke might need a little explanation in order to be fully understood and therefore appreciated. I recognize that explaining the joke makes it a lot less funny, but I am just so pleased with Aaron's sense of humor that I think it worthy to beat this to a pulp by explaining it. So, here I go... I think the best way to think of it is in terms of sets. The first guy said that he would do "anything" in order to be able to stay up until nine, therefore giving no limitations to the set of things he is willing to do in order to have the privilege of staying up until nine. The second guy, however, pointed out that such a set is impossible, since said set could not include the event "not staying up until nine," since if he did do that, he wouldn't be able to stay up until nine. Get it? Pretty darn hilarious if you ask me. (Needless to say, there is a lot of talk around here about paradoxes, between Ben's dissertation writing and my general mathematician talk. Aaron's "joke" is somewhat similar to Russell's Paradox , or, more anecdotedly, the "Barber Paradox. " Aaron also liked the "All Cretians are liars" paradox his grandpa told him tonight.)

Lost

Well, I think I am ready to give up and admit that two precious items were left on the airplane on our trip back and are now lost to the ether. (According to the Delta representative on the phone, "After two days, the lost items get sent to Atlanta... and I don't know what happens to them after that.")

The two items were both Aaron's, and I think were left in the pocket in front of us in the airplane. I usually check those pockets several times before getting off but I guess I was otherwise distracted...? I can't remember. Anyway, one item was Aaron's cross-stitch which he designed himself and had started in Utah. It was going to be a dolphin jumping out of the ocean, with a sun in the corner. It was going to be for Libbie. He has been interested in cross stitch for a while now, due to seeing the several pieces we have in our house that were done by my mom. Recently, my sister Kori did a cross stitch project and Aaron got to see how they are done and became interested in doing one himself. He insisted on designing his own cross stitch instead of using a pattern like most people do. In fact, when we walked into the cross stitch store in Salt Lake, my mom asked the saleslady if they had a section for kids

The other lost item is a journal/book that Aaron was making about his experience with his sickness. On the cover was a drawing of a boy lying on a hospital bed. The bed was quite impressive, with the criss-cross legs that make the bed go up and down, and with a light overhead. He really didn't like that light-- asked them to turn it off whenever they put it on. A funny little detail to include, I thought. Anyway, the next page was a table of contents with four chapter titles: 1. Confusion Day 2. New Day 3. Hungry Day 4. Surprise Day. The next page, as you can see below, was the chapter "Confusion Day." In case you have a hard time making out the words, I will transcribe for you: "I was lying on the couch... ? I didn't eat or drink. I didn't smile. Everyone wanted me to go to the hospital. Then my mama and daddy took me to the hospital."

Thanks to Grandma Marsha, we have photographs of these pages. We had hoped he would finish the book, but, alas, it won't be so.