Avi's jokes...

He's very into jokes. He regularly brings a joke home from Edison's daily announcements. And then sometimes he makes up his own variations, like tonight's.
Avi: "Knock knock"
Me: "Who's there?"
Avi: "Boo"
Me: "Boo who"
Avi: "Knock knock"
Me: "Who's there?"
Avi: "Boo"
Me: "Boo who"
Avi: "Knock knock"
Me: "Who's there?"
Avi: "Aren't you glad I didn't say banana?"

Track engineer

Ezra is quite good at putting train tracks together. I was impressed to see him put all tho together this morning, including using the slopped one to connect to the bridge. And after this pic was taken, incorporating a t intersection with additional track leading off in all directions. Clever boy.

Happy Mama

Is there much that makes a mom happier than seeing her boys play sweetly and appropriately together. Avi and Ezra have been stacking cup towers together for a good 15 minutes. Counting, stacking, knocking, etc. Avi's being a great big brother. "Let's do chop chop timber again."

Block towers

Ezra was surprisingly good at stacking blocks, even skinny ones on end a long time ago. I want to even say a year ago. But I was particularly impressed with his engineering skills this evening. He was stacking towers and I was counting the blocks for him. Then without any demonstration on my part he used two blocks to make the bottom level, straddling the next layer block in half of the first two, like an older more experienced mind would do. That worked well. He got six high that time instead of five. Then he happily knocked it over and started again. This time he used double blocks for the first two levels. He got seven stories high. He might just be as much of a smarty-pants as his brothers. God help us.
And his vocabulary has exploded as it's wont to do at this age. He suddenly seems to have hundreds of words. Now, to be honest, most people would only understand a handful of them, but I get it. Every day, every context finds him demonstrating new words he is wanting to try out. So fun. Now if only he doesn't become as challenging as his brothers. Wishful thinking I fear.

Where's Avi going to fall asleep next?

Another difficult bedtime. This is where we eventually found him tonight when we came down from watching a video.

Shabbat at the beach

What a great day at the beach we had this Shabbat. We left Friday evening, had a Shabbat picnic along the way at a park. Got in late to a hotel on Newport and the played all day on Saturday. Tide pools, beach time, hanging out on the docks looking at crabs and jellyfish and sea lions and boats, meals out, swimming at grandma and grandpa's resort and then havdalah before getting in the car to head home. What a jam-packed day we had. Like a three-day weekend rolled into one day. So glad we did it. We needed that family time.

Musical beds

This is where we find Avi more often than not. Either before bed as pictured here when he has snuck into our room to fall asleep unbeknownst to us or in the middle of the night when he wakes up and sneaks in be with us, also unbeknownst to us generally because we're both too dead tired to notice an extra body in that queen size bed (which is already also Murphy's sleep spot of choice to my frustration) until we wake up stiff and sore because of our contortions to make room for him (and Murph). I have to say one thing though. For all his challenges getting to sleep and staying asleep in his own bed, once he's asleep he's a great little smuggler. He doesn't wiggle and squirm. He doesn't breathe loud or anything else distracting. Unlike his big brother who is too squirmy to sleep with or his little brother who is too independent to sleep with anyone, Avi is a great sleep companion. Until of course you wake up drenched as I did one night last week because he'd peed all over both of us and the bed. Ugh. We both changed jammies, abandoned Cary on the dry side of our bed and moved to Avis bed together. Other nights (no pee involved), Cary has been the one to give up and move to Avi's bed in the middle of the night. Easier than moving him I guess he figured.

Puzzle master

Ezra did this whole puzzle almost all by himself. It may be the first time he has seen it, I'm not sure. He has a very good sense of what needed to go where with very little assistance.

Avi's wonderous brain

It's been five months since the snowstorm caused the tree branch on the power line experience that so significantly affected Avi. He still talks about it regularly. We've mostly worked through the fear of electricity that resulted. (The fear that made it hard for him to fall asleep because the electricity in the wires of the house might harm us, etc...). Anyhow, we're driving down the road just now on the way to our family day at Enchanted Forest and he says, "Is a branch a conductor?"
"Are you asking if wood conducts electricity?" I clarified.
"Yes."
"No," I said, explaining how that's why powerlines are made of wood.
Without missing a beat, he responds, "Then why did the branch catch on fire when it touched the powerline?"
If he asks questions that hard now, what's it going to be like when he's 8? Speaking of 8 year olds asking questions, that one is driving me crazy with his questions. Incessant. It's been that way since before he was two, and it hasn't let up. The worst is that he doesn't let up with a line of questioning. You give him a good answer and he asks a follow up question and you give another answer and just get another question until the questions just get more unreal and unanswerable. I end up exploding in frustration regularly. Then I feel badly of course, but it's out of control. Worst is when he repeats the same question when I've already given him an answer.

Tired boy

He might be a little worn out. Not only did he wake up at 4:40 this morning, but he just spent the last hour jumping into my arms from the side of the pool and walking to the steps, getting out and doing it again. He must have repeated that cycle 30 times.

Speed reader

We gave Noah a new book to try at bedtime last night, Ereth's Birthday by Avi (the author, not his brother). That was right about 8:00. Tonight he complained of having nothing to read. I said, "what about that book from last night, didn't you like it?" He grinned and said, "I finished it!"
"No you didn't," I retorted, thinking it not possible since he was asleep by 9 or 9:30.
"Yes I did," he insisted.
So I grabbed the book and read snippets from the back of the book, "Who died and how did she die... What were the mice singing at the end?" etc. He answered all my questions accurately. What do I do with a kid who reads 180 pages of a book marked ages 8-12 in 90 minutes?

Today is Avi's birthday. 5. We went out to Chapala as is becoming customary to mark birthdays around here. Then off to swimming lessons and then back over to 28th and Willamette to go to the Yogurt Extreme place so he could have a treat and play with the wii they have there. His idea. Nonetheless, he hardly ate any of the frozen yogurt treat and then he mostly just wanted to watch Noah do the dancing game on the wii. He tried a little bit eventually, but didn't actually want to use the remote or wand or whatever the handheld thing is called. Typical. He was happy observing. I'm assuming he will move out of observer role eventually, but I wonder if there's more I need to do to encourage that or if it will happen naturally regardless of my strategizing.

And since I've mentioned the other two, I might as well record an update on #3. He has finally started talking. Not all at once, but he's getting some words (recognizable by us if not outsiders). They include:
Up
Yes (yesh)
No
Mama
Daddy
Night night
Off
Poop

And more.... The other ones aren't quite as regularly heard and don't come to mind, but I have heard attempts at ball, all done, thank you, me, doggie, and others. It's coming slowly but surely. Not to mention plenty of imitation sounds like barking, sirens, cars, etc.
My personal favorite has to be "yesh" though. He says it so quietly and deliberately, and with a sheepish grin on his face. It's irresistible.

Thank you They Might Be Giants

My child is obsessed with the "backwards alphabet."

In the water!!!

Every now and then I think I may have figured out a dime's worth of wisdom about this parenting gig. Doesn't happen everyday, but when it does it sure feels good! So I'm patting myself on the back right now as I watch Avi smiling and enjoying swim lessons. No one would believe this was the same child from two days ago. Tuesday: crying, shaking, panicking, and refusing to get in the water. Today: bouncing, jabbering, grinning. We were a minute or two late Tuesday and that meant that the class started without him and I think, knowing him as I do, he then felt out of place and uncomfortable, which just compounded his apprehension of the swimming situation. He felt in the wrong. So today, I vowed to get there super early, which we never manage to do. But we did! We were 10 minutes early and that meant we were the first ones there. Even before the teacher, whom we were then able to say hello to before she even got into her suit. Avi waited for her ten and she came out again and he helped her get the props out and he was first in the pool before any other kids were even there. Success!!!

When Avi takes swim lessons...

Note: he is not actually in the pool. That's as close as we got him in the 30 minutes. Let's hope Thursday goes better, otherwise we're in for a repeat of last year.

When Avi plays with Legos...

"Up"

Oh, and Ezra seemed to learn the word "up" tonight. Add that to mamma and the all purpose "da" and an occasional "daddy." and maybe we've finally officially entered the verbal stage. He seems to be following in Avi's footsteps with the talking thing.

Monsters under the bed? No.

Avi is asleep on the couch downstairs (where Cary is doing sone work on his ipad) because he was genuinely too terrified to go to sleep in his room when we were not on the same floor. He lost story time due to poor behavior at dinner. He got ready for bed ok but then when left alone got more and more worked up about his latest bedtime fear. Ready for this... Electricity. He's been pretty freaked out about electricity every since seeing the transformer explode in the spring snow storm.
He has also become terrified of cars. To the point of being paralyzed at the thought of one near him. Not the presence of a running car, but just the possibility of one. This has transformed his new bike riding pleasure into a thing of the last (hopefully temporarily), and makes it impossible for him to get out of the car in a parking lot without a grown up right beside him. Where did my fearless toddler go?
Also in this note about how Avi's mind works... He worked much of Sunday with Cary on the project in the basement. He was curious about the barometer and then the dehumidifier and wouldn't stop asking questions until he understood exactly how the whole thing worked. Cary asked him the next morning if he remembered how it worked and he was able to describe it back to him in specific step by step details.

Done with highchair?

Are we done with it? That's a risky decision, but he does sure like sitting at the table with his brothers, and I would enjoy having it out of the room.

Playtime

These two have been playing together (parallel fashion) more and more. This morning Ezra played nicely with zoob and then train tracks while I did the breakfast dishes (instead of doing things like dumping out the dog food and water and getting into the water dispenser and pulling the bags out of the cupboard). Yeah. There is hope.

The 6 cent shopping trip

Drove to grocery store twice this evening. Had to go back with the MC so he could apologize for taking the piece of taffy (and pay for it -and another for his brother - out of his allowance). He was pretty somber. We talked a lot about getting caught and how that can actually be a good thing, because when people don't get caught, they sometimes keep making bigger and bigger mistakes until they get into trouble they can't get out of with apologies.  Hopefully making a big deal out of this 3 cent act of snitching will prevent bigger events in the future. I think we spent close to 60 cents in gas for 6 cents worth of candy!    But it wasn't the candy we were buying obviously, it was an investment in a child with an honest future.  Hopefully it will reap dividends. I was proud though because I stayed calm the whole time and I framed the situation in terms of helping him fix a mistake instead of punishing him. "We can solve this," etc.  He would have completely melted down with any other approach, but I was able to get him out from under his hiding place under the kitchen table to admit what he had done and then deal with it.  So I must have done something right. 
I didn't tell him until the ride home that he wouldn't be getting stories tonight.  It was already past 8:00 when we got home so the logical consequence was that he used up story time in a return trip to the grocery store.  

Nerds and proud of it!?

Noah made this sketch a few months ago while waiting at the kitchen counter for dinner, but I just finally got around to scanning it tonight.  I thought it was worthy of saving and posting here.  This is a drawing of his father (hence the arrow pointing to "Carry"a.k.a "nerd."What I love here is that neither the artist or the subject was disturbed by the label of nerd, but both considered it something to be kind of abashedly proud about.  To the left are signs that are meant to read (with a little spelling help): "Genius working. Quiet!" and "No spit balls."  I like all the first place ribbons and the robot and the extra detail of the bug on the overhead light.  The bug seems particularly Richard Scarry-esque.  I have to say, though he did a decent job capturing Cary's hair, goatee, and general face shape, Cary does not have ears like Marc Brown's Arthur.  Overall though, nice job Noah.  

Potty training hopes

I hate to even put it down in words, because I'll probably jinx it, but our little one seems well on his way to being potty-trained at not quite 20 months yet. He goes on the little training toilet several times a day, usually #1 but a few times #2 as well, and has several times now indicated to me that he needs to go, without words of course in accordance with his generally speechless style; he finds ways to get his point across. He even indicated he wanted to use the toilet at the Y playcare, and today he kept his diaper dry from after nap until bedtime! I know this might be considered TMI for a blog post or not something that anyone feels the need to read about, but as my reason for this blog is to make up for their lack of baby books, those of you who happen to be reading will just have to forgive me this post!

Storytime

I was on my own this evening, and A was supposed to be in the bath while I put E to bed, but the former was screaming his head off about an owie on his leg, making it difficult to have a calm story time with the little one. So I enlisted the eldest. He did such a wonderful job, I was overwhelmed with pride. E was more focused on his favorite story, The Very Busy Spider, than ever. Of course I know that Big Brother is more than capable of reading a simple book like that, but what was so sweet was the way he slipped into that certain type of voice and style that we adults use when reading to toddlers, and embellished the pages with extra interaction just like he's seen over the years, such as "isn't that a nice web she's making," and my favorite (a new approach adopted by him), counting the shapes in the triangle as they went through the pages (18 triangles, one spiral, so many rectangles and so forth). Too sweet. E was clearly enthralled by his big brother's style.

Yippee!

Ezra just pottied on the floor a little bit before getting in the bath, stopped, sat on his little toddler toilet and peed! Let's see if we can get this one out of diapers before 2!

Mr. Determined

A.k.a. Mr. Don't Tell Me What We Don't Do

Do you think I've mentioned a time or two that the table isn't for climbing or that we don't climb on tables, or that that isn't safe? Yep. A few times.
Doesn't seem to make a difference.

Today he was hell-bent on using the electric pencil sharpener in the back the desk. Couldn't understand at all why I didn't want him to be doing that!

When Mom cleans

I gave up and did it myself. This is what it should look like unless someone is playing nicely on the window seat or the sweet yellow rug with one set of something.
How long will it stay? It depends on how quickly Cary can make me the locking doors that I've requested. One toy out one toy in rule is going to take over by force of lock and key since it seems that's what is necessary.

Gotta love Pinterest

He's having so much fun with his masking tape track. He got it immediately. I may need to buy a Costc- size stash of masking tape.

That's not how we eat yogurt.

new phases and phrases

Mr. MC has been sleeping in our bed so much lately that one night (thanks to a reminder about this technique from our pediatrician), I decided at 1AM when he came to crawl into bed, to give him a choice between his sleeping bag on the floor beside our bed or being tucked back into his bed.  Since then he's been sleeping on our floor almost every night for a good portion of the night.  People tell me that it won't last forever.  He won't be sleeping on our floor when he's a teenager.  It doesn't bother me and Cary and I are getting much better sleep every since we're not sharing a queen-sized bed with both a dog and a 4 year-old.  I do really love snuggling him - he's such a good snuggler when he's asleep - not a squirmer like Noah, surprisingly, but I have been getting better sleep since moving him to the floor.
Likewise, I'm getting tough on the Little One (LO).  He had been doing such a good job of sleeping through the night, but then the morning nurse kept sneaking early and early from 5-something to 4 or even 3.  We're going backwards in more than one way.  He's 18 months and I would have thought he would be weaned, not nursing in the middle of the night.  So this week I'm getting tough and refusing to nurse him until it's light out.  It's working! Of course seasonally, it's going to get lighter earlier and earlier each morning for awhile, so I better wean him soon so I'm not getting up at 5AM anyway here in a couple of months.

Like his older brother, The LO doesn't have but a few words at 18 months.  "Mom" (which he screams with the tone and attitude of an exasperated  8-year-old, wonder where he got that?), "meh" (which means   "more"), and "da" which refers to every other animate and inanimate thing in life.  Not that he can't make sounds.  He "talks" constantly and loudly.  He loves to imitate any sounds that his brothers make, as long as they aren't real words.  But siren noises, car sounds, and any silly nonsense sounds his brothers make, he copies.  And as of this week he has a version of "woof woof."  It sounds more like a train whistles' "woo-woo" than a dog, but he makes that sound when he hears Murphy bark.

Boys don't have any eggs"

A few weeks ago, the boys (mostly #1, but both he and the MC were part of it) and I had a human sexuality conversation triggered by the It's So Amazing Book that we have on the shelf.  It covered everything from eggs and sperm, to gay marriage, and intercourse.  All questions had been answered with comfort and ease, but without sharing more than they asked for.  Then in typical kid-style, it moved on to completely other topics (like Legos or star wars or who knows what) without any awkward conclusion.

The following conversation happened with the MC completely out-of-the-blue in the supermarket checkout line a couple of weeks later, and I've been meaning to record it for posterity's sake.
A (all of a sudden): I don't want to marry a boy when I grow up.
Me: Well, you don't have to marry a boy.  Chances are more likely that you'll want to marry a girl, but whatever.
A:Well, I don't want to marry a boy.
Me: OK, you don't have to, but just out of curiosity, why don't you want to marry a boy?
A (matter-of-factly): Boys don't have any eggs.
Me: That's true.  You need a girl for eggs.  So you can marry a girl then.
A: But we don't have any girls in our family.
Me: That's okay, you can't marry someone in your family anyhow.
A: But you and Daddy are married!

Ah, the "Family Circus-esque" simplicity of his perspective on his parents combined with his scientific knowledge of sperm and eggs and the progressive view on gay marriage all make for what I found to be pretty amusing conversation.

"al-gee-bra"

While Avi learned to ride a bike today, Noah has been learning algebra at Spring Break "math camp" at the UO (officially called "Hands-On Equations").  Tonight he was showing us how he could figure out 2(3x+1) = x + 27.  Wow.  X =5.  More importantly, he really got it, not just the answer, but what it was that he was figuring out.  Sure beats what he's been doing in math in the classroom for the past 6.5 months.

Murder or Scientific Sacrifice?

Here's what I found in the freezer this evening:

Do other kids put stuff in the freezer as frequently as ours do?  You would think they would've figured this "science experiment" out by now.  It freezes.

Question is, do I rescue Mr. Minifig or do I see how long before the boys remember he's in there?

A new bike-rider is born

He's been riding all of about 5 minutes!

New Hair Cuts

All the boys got their hair cut in the last few days.  Noah willingly enough at home one evening. Ezra this morning while being allowed to play on the bathroom counter with toothbrushes and everything else in reach - oh what a mess with damp hair clippings everywhere - I should have planned that out a little better. And Avi this afternoon.   He was the one that needed it the most, but I honestly didn't know when or how  it was ever going to happen.  Then Mack came for their play date.  Turned out that Mack was going to be picked up by his grandpa to go get a haircut.  Perfect!  What better incentive than the chance to go with a friend.  So Mack and his grandpa Larry and the boys and I all went to Don's barber shop and watched the boys get hair cuts.  Who would have believed that Avi had ever thrown a fit about getting his haircut before.  He sat so still and was the most cooperate, well-behaved child you could possibly imagine.  And he wasn't even still from fright.  He seemed completely relaxed (and absorbed in the cartoon playing on the TV in front of him.

In the afternoon I had the boys pose for pictures with their new haircuts.  I'm not the fine photographer that Cary is, but I love how this series of pics really shows off their personalities, so I had to put the whole set up.  I asked them to make a series of faces, funny, mad, excited, etc. 

Seriously?

How exactly does that happen? Especially when nearly all the toothbrushing is assisted/supervised. There's so much I don't understand -and I don't even mean the big life questions, y'know, like where do the mismatched socks go.

Style doesn't matter until age 10 apparently

I've been cutting the boys' hair for years now.  That being said, I haven't cut Avi's since last fall and it's getting VERY long.  The last time I cut Avi's hair was such a horrific event that I swore I wouldn't cut his hair again until he proved to me that he could be cooperative with someone else.  It has yet to happen, but I think we're getting closer.  It's in his eyes a lot.  The deal is that he has to let Daddy, Grandma, or a professional give him a haircut before I get near him with scissors again.  The last time resulted in screaming and physical violence on both sides, including a nicked and bleeding ear.  As I said, horrific.  I don't ever need to repeat that experience with one of my children again.

But I digress, this story tonight is about the eldest of my boys.  To say that he is much more cooperative about haircuts is really only to highlight how awful the MC has been, because #1 fusses and moans the whole time and has to be reminded about every ten seconds to sit up straight.  He freaks out because of the hair that falls on his neck and face, and I have to constantly blow it off.  That being said, he willingly agrees to a cut when he starts to get shaggy.  His hair is so thick that it gets unruly.  So tonight when I was cutting it he just wanted me to cut it that fastest way possible.  I was trying to do just that by using the trimmer all the way around in two lengths, one for the back (1/4") and one for everything else (7/8").   I think it was the shortest I've ever gone on top.  It looks a little goofy, but I tried to fix it up the best I could with scissors afterwards.  Anyhow, the point of this story is really that I learned something important, two things actually.

Yesterday on our first of two snow days, Noah met up with his classmate Ruby sledding in the park.  He and Cary talked to Ruby and her mom about coming over for a play date later, and so the two of them spent a couple of hours playing Monopoly here in the afternoon.  Only later in the evening did it come out that he has a crush on Ruby.  I love that he shared this with us.  We talked about why.  So sweet.  She's friendly, nice, easy-going, likes the same stuff he likes, is smart, and significantly has sat next to him all year so far.  Fast forward again to tonight's hair cut.  He was so ready to be done and I was trying to convince him that it was a little wonky in the back and he should let me clean it up with the scissors.  He protested.  I suggested that he didn't want to go to school with goofy hair.  He said he didn't care.  I said something like, "What about Ruby?" He said, "Oh that doesn't matter until I'm ten."
Love it.  But oh my!  What's going to happen when he turns ten?  Watch out girls.

Just ONE time too many!

It's bedtime and Cary and I have been nagging Noah to get ready for bed. He's already lost his story from us when we were still downstairs for fooling around repeatedly when asked to finish his milk, carry his dishes over and get upstairs to start getting ready. He's already been reminded about "time and place" and "appropriate response."  He's already been instructed to adopt a somber attitude and complete the tasks. (In typical fashion, we've had a lovely evening with an art project, singing and dancing and joking around, but then he can't transition and reign it in when it's time. He's had the same challenge since toddlerhood.  He's unable to get serious about his consequence and focus on the task at hand.  So when we're all upstairs getting into PJs, and he's supposed to be brushing his teeth, he runs downstairs to get an old musical birthday card he rediscovered today. Argh. Again.  Then I order him into the bathroom to have him brush his teeth, and he's squirming around being silly.  Again.
The conversation that transpired next was priceless. Not in the "Ahh....Aren't kids so sweet" kind of way, but in the "OMG, how could our brains be wired so differently" kind of way.

Me: Noah, that's it. You already lost story time, now you've lost the opportunity to read to yourself.

Noah: What?!? (acting all shocked) 

Me: We've had to redirect you one too many times. You shouldn't need all these reminders to do what's expected.

Noah: But just one too many! (As if he shouldn't have lost a privilege until it was X MORE times too many.)

Who responds that way? Just one time?  Yes I suppose I literally said, "one time" when I meant "way too many times," but he knew what I meant!  How will such a perspective serve him in the future? There must be some usefulness to his constant negotiating and line dancing.  Will he be a hostage negotiator? A contract lawyer? A great judge?

Rainy day play

Too cold and wet outside for sandbox play, so we brought it inside today, complete with leaves and other greenery. Look carefully, and you'll even see a lake we made for the Apatasaurus. Noah just got home from school, and he immediately got as caught up in Dinosaur World as Avi is. We made dino eggs with flour dough with sand and coffee grounds. We've been collecting Cary's coffee grounds for awhile.
Now they are absorbed in discussing who's a meat-eater and who's not and who might eat each other and "training" them to not bite.
Love it. Worth the sand spilled all over the back steps. Better get to cleaning that up now.

Everything just takes longer with kids

Such as getting out of the car, because you have to pick up all the toys that the now-sleeping toddler enjoyed pitching over the side of the seat. He was asleep in the picture, worn out from his hard labor.

Are we really there yet?

Out eldest had brought home jokes recently featuring "hairy pickle" and "liqueur buns" punch lines. Or should I say, "lick her..."
I was volunteering for Noah's class's library Period the other day and one of his friends (a conservative Chinese-American kid whose family is very involved in church) was joking with another buddy about an author named Fuche on a book. "If the 'h' was a ...". "Timothy," I said, startling him unintentionally, "I don't think your father would want you talking that way, and besides, that still wouldn't be spelled right!" He was a little embarrassed. Is my son having these conversations too? I don't doubt it. He is afterall the one who exclaimed "shit" the other day when he spilled water on his pants while sitting in the back of the car. I couldn't believe it. Thankfully we were the only two in the car at the time. I don't need my four-year-old repeating that! We talked about the fact that he shouldn't be saying that word at all, but if one was to accidentally let that word slip out, it better be for something a lot more dramatic than a little water on your pant leg!
Cary was talking with another parent the other day whose 15-year-old son is dating an 18-year-old girl and the father and son have been negotiating whether or not the young couple can spend time in their homes when no one else is present. It just made us both think how many difficult stages or challenges we still have ahead of us. Yikes.

Brotherly Love

There's plenty of tension between the boys on any given day, screams for "Mom, get Ezra," or arguments between the older two, but in comparison to what it could be, I feel very fortunate that the boys get along as well as they do, especially given their age differences.  I know they love each other.  With Noah, it's almost always clear as he's most effusive about it (more so about his cute baby brother, less so at the moment for his "annoying" 4-year-old one).  I see it with Avi too, but not as often.  He's more apt to put a sign on his door saying "no 8 year olds allowed," or complain about having a baby mess things up. However, his affection for both of his brothers the other day was so palpable I was really touched.  It was picking him up at the end of his school day and he was bouncing around enthusiastically asking me when Noah was going to be home so they could play Cars together again (they've been acting out scenes from Cars 2 with Avi's two lego kits of Mater and Fin McMisile he got the other day).  "When's he going to be home, Mama? Noah's my best friend!"  Ah, what more can a mother ask for?  Then, not five minutes later, as I was talking with someone, Ezra snuck behind the folded room divider at TBI as he is wont to do.  I saw him, and was going to get him in just a second, but before I got over there, Avi suddenly came running to me screaming in terror.  He could hardly speak he was so upset.  Tears streaming down his face, sobbing, he pulls me down and I try to figure out what had happened to him.  Turns out, nothing.  He was just worried about that pesky little brother of his.  Ezra was fine of course, but somehow Avi thought that the other kids had smashed him behind the room divider and he was completely distraught that his little brother was hurt.  As I assured him that Ezra was fine and another adult fished the oblivious monkey out of his hiding spot, I managed to calm Avi down.  I was so touched that Avi would be that concerned.  It was such a dramatic display of his affection and sense of protection for his brother.  I really hadn't seen anything like it before.

No girls allowed

Not only am I the lone female in the house, but Avi and Noah are now throwing a fit about "girls singing" in the Pandora mix. "No girls," they've declared. "Can we have 'Dynamite' or 'It's Gonna be a Good Night!'?" I'll point out that Cary put the girly music into the Pandora mix to begin with, he and his love of the Ingrid Michaelson-Sara McLaughlin type.

What will you remember?

As a mom, I'm afraid I'm perpetually impatient, quick to anger, and a real no-nonsense drill sergeant too much of the time. But I do do fun things with the boys too. Will they remember how I was creative and clever with them when they look back or will they just remember me on a broom? I sure hope they can remember the good things. You'd think it would inspire me to do more fun stuff and be less of an impatient tyrant, but it's awfully hard sometimes.

And I thought last week was hard...

I haven't been able to get anything done with Ezra's climbing and adventurous nature lately. It also been increasingly difficult to find a place for the big brothers to play with toys with small parts because Ezra gets up on the tables. But now the game got even harder. Avi's playing with Magnetix and Ezra just scaled the bar stool and got up on the kitchen counter to wreck havoc. NOTHING is safe anymore.

So I hear...

I've been told that not all toddlers repeatedly climb up on the dining room table and run across or climb cupboards or try to take all the dishes out of the dishwasher. That certainly hasn't been my experience. Likewise, all of mine have repeatedly responded to a stern and loud "No!" with peels of laughter. Apparently other children actually are startled when parents do that. Personally, I have yet to experience that.
Those are just two of MANY examples which lead me to believe that these three have to be three of the most trying, challenging, strong-willed children ever born.
How did this happen to us I continually find myself asking? Two formerly rule-following "easy" children?

The perfectionist painter

I win a freakin' medal. Not only did I not put my 4 year old out on the street for neighbors to take in when I discovered that he had splattered and spread paint all over the utility room, but I even got to the bottom of the problem and figured out why he did it. Question is when do I get my medal and how much is it worth in cash?

Speaking of Communication...

I was in the bathroom earlier this afternoon with Ezra outside the door. The phone rang, and unable to get to it at the moment, I ignored it. Ezra started squealing (yes, he has NO words at 16 months), then apparently went and got the phone and tried to slip it under the door to me.
He may have no words, but like Avi at this age, it is increasingly apparent that he understands what's going on. I can give him simple commands and he follows them (unless of course he doesn't feel like it). "Go get your shoes and your coat," is nearly always successful, whereas "Show me your nose" just elicited a mocking response such as laughter and fingers in his mouth. I'm SURE he know where his nose is and is just messing with me. And of course there many other examples every day that he is understanding language just fine. I'm promising everyone that I won't worry about this one's language delay so much.

Grown-up style communication

Avi was just singing a song about a "great white shark," but I was a little confused because it sounded like a "grey white sock swimming in the sea," so I asked him to try saying the word SHaRk with me. He didn't want to. I persisted. He stomped his foot and said (with perfect pronunciation), "I don't want to have this conversation!"
Love it. The kid may not be able to say "shark," but he sure can say what's on his mind!

Duplos already?

I can't believe we are here already. He's getting remarkably good with attaching the duplos. Not 100%, but frequently. And he definitely has ideas about what he wants on there. After this pic he got down and got some characters, cow, bear, man, etc. he grunts when he attaches them, the same grunt as when he does "show us your muscles."

Time out

Ezra's first time out.
He is always trying to play in or dump over the dog water. So, we've taken to keeping it up in the counter unless Ezra's not around or in the highchair.
Worked pretty well until now when he realized he could take the little stool over to it and still reach it well enough to dump it all out.
Would he stay in the corner for time out? Of course not. Not after one or two or countless reminders. I kept taking him immediately back to he corner and putting him down on his bottom and saying, "Sit!". He just gets up and comes back to the scene of the crime. So I put him in the high chair facing he corner. Now he's screaming his head off, but maybe he'll get the idea. And times up, so I should let him out.

And he's up, again.

Ezra must have climbed up here at least two dozen times today. He also climbed on the dinning room table multiple times and on his brother's desk (after taking off his diaper), and into the highchair by himself and other feats unattempted by children unlike mine. Mine are all apparently made from the same mold. Telling them no, redirecting them, or attempting to make it harder to do are good strategies for other people's children. So say the patenting books and the experiences of my peers. Not for my boys. Case in point, I flipped up the little seat on the desk hoping that would dissuade him from climbing. (The old thing is very stiff and too difficult for him to push back down.). No problem. It took him an extra four or five seconds to climb up the first time he tried the new approach.
Where did these boys come from? And how are they all so much alike? Aren't siblings supposed to be different from each other?

More boy decorating

Brought to you by the emerging reader currently very interested in spelling and reading nonsense words.

Sleepy lunch time

Guess I should have put him down for nap a little earlier.