Stink Eye

The other morning, A woke up before his brothers. All three share a room, so I went in hoping I could resettle him before everyone woke up. No such luck. As I walked in, J was already standing up, and M was sitting up and rubbing his eyes.

I was also overcome by a horrific stench. The only power on the planet that can produce such a stench is a fresh A diaper.

I grabbed him, planning on changing him, and asked M if he wanted to stay in bed. He said, "No. A woke me up. He stinked me right in the eye."

That's as good a description as any. I couldn't sleep after that, either.

Cool Kids Go To Church

This was the view of our back seat on the way to Mass this morning.

Rain Cloud Ear

On the way to daycare this morning, J declared, "It feels like it's raining in my ear!"  S said, "It does?"  J replied, "I have rain cloud ear!"

M looked at him, and said, "That's not rain.  It's ear wax."

God Does Not Sleep

On the way home from daycare today, the following conversation took place.

J:  "Where does God sleep?"

S:  "I don't know if God needs to sleep."

M:  "God is too busy answering people at night to sleep."

So logical...

The Ginch

J refers to The Grinch Who Stole Christmas as "the Ginch," and he's scared of the Ginch. S figured out, though, that J is really scared of the commercial on just before The Grinch on our DVD, which features The Wizard of Oz and a melting witch and all that. So, she convinced the boys to watch Word World instead, and then to watch The Grinch afterwards, once J had calmed down.

M, who loves The Grinch, grabbed the book off the shelf. While the boys watched Word World, he slowly took J through the book, page by page, to show him it wasn't scary. Then, he sat right next to J all through The Grinch with his arm around his shoulders. They both had a good time.

Our boys are so sweet, it's amazing.

Taking Care of A

S's brother and sister-in-law came to visit for the weekend, and this morning, we all went out for pancakes.  A was having a horrible morning, and was a struggle to get ready.  He was easily upset, would not be out of our arms, and just sad.  We allowed him a pacifier a little more than usual, and it was the only thing that seemed to help.

As S was getting J dressed in his coat and shoes to go outside to head to the pancake place, she noticed something in his pocket, and asked what it was.  (J is notorious for smuggling toys he shouldn't have in his pockets, not to mention assorted rocks, cool pieces of wood, etc.)  He said, "It's a binky, for A.  I think he's going to want it."

We are very lucky to have such sweet, sweet boys.  They really do take care of one another.

Prepared for Mass

When we go to Mass on Sunday mornings, we allow the boys to pack their own backpacks with a few things to help entertain themselves. Usually, this means a train or two, a book, maybe a Matchbox car. Today, we didn't double-check J's bag before leaving. That kid...

They ARE Pretty Great

M has never been as big on saying "I love you" as J. But now, when you whisper in his ear, "I love you," the most common response is, "I love ...

... UNDERPANTS!"

Also, "... bananapants" never ceases to elicit peals of laughter. In fact, M and J both seem to think that is the funniest word ever.

Dinosaur Train

The primary reason that I have to go to the office every day is that I am not a genius. If I were a genius, I would have already invented something by now that would have made me millions.

For example, I would have invented the show Dinosaur Train. After all, when thinking of the perfect show to market to 4-year old boys, you'd think, "What do 4-year old boys like the most?" The answer, of course, is "dinosaurs and trains." I didn't figure this out. Some other guy did. He golfs 18 after dropping the kids off at daycare. In a gold helicopter.

At least I can reap the benefits of Dinosaur Train. One benefit is that both of my oldest boys, M and J, know how to correctly pronounce many more dinosaur names than I ever dreamed of. This was made apparent to me this evening, as I sat on the couch with a dinosaur book and patiently worked with M - or, better, he worked with me - on the correct way to say "ankylosaurus." For the record, that's one of these things.

Beautiful, no? Anyway, they are very cool, and M insisted that the name is pronounced "ANG-ki-lo-SAUR-us."

Big surprise - when I looked it up in the book, he was right.

I still can't say it correctly.

The Great Pumpkin

I should preface this by noting that my boys eat very healthfully, often by choice. My wife, S, has done a remarkable job of ensuring that they always have lots of fruit and vegetables placed before them. They love pasta, and M even devours meat when he declares himself a "protein predator" (like a T-Rex, it seems). None of them eat much candy or sweets, and view those things as special treats.

So, at least thus far in their short lives, Halloween has not been about gathering 40 pounds of candy. They love dressing up, and love trick-or-treating in its various forms (at the Detroit Zoo's "Zoo Boo," at daycare, or with Nana and Grandpa), but do not yet care how big of stash they're able to obtain. I know this will change in time, but right now, we like it.

However, while the boys don't care about the amount of candy, they are very aware of the amount. If it suddenly went missing, we'd have problems. We've accepted this in the past when it was time to get the candy out of the house (often at the expense of my coworkers), but this year, S heard about an alternative solution.

One of her friends has started the tradition of the Great Pumpkin with their kids. The basic premise is that the Great Pumpkin takes their unwanted Halloween candy on Halloween night, and leaves behind small gifts. While the boys would miss candy that simply disappeared, this (we thought) was something they would go for.

So, while on our way to visit PopPop (one of the boys' great-grandfathers) and then trick-or-treating, I told them of the Great Pumpkin, and that he was a huge pumpkin ("like in The Runaway Pumpkin [a favorite book right now]" chimed in M), and that he ate Halloween candy. I said that he wanted to eat their extra Halloween candy, but he wouldn't just take it. Instead, if we left candy for him on the front porch, he'd leave presents. "Boys, what do you think?"

J immediately said, "We shouldn't do that." M replied, "He should get his own candy."

And so much for that.

Actually, they ultimately went for it, and it went off without a hitch, but that exchange darn near killed us. If this how they are thinking at (nearly) 4, what do we have in store in ten years?

The Circle of Life

A few days ago, just after S had put A to bed, I pulled M and J onto my lap, M on my left, and J on my right, to read them their bedtime stories. As I do every so often, I asked them if they knew why I liked to hold them like that, with M on my left and J on my right. For the first time, J responded that he remembered why, that it was because that was the way Daddy got to hold M and J for the first time on the day that Mommy and Daddy got them. I really want them to know how much those little things mean to me, and how much getting them in our lives meant to us, so it made me quite happy that he was starting to learn the story.

Then we began to talk about how much bigger they were getting, and how one day they'd be grown up. I asked if they knew what might happen when they were all grown up, to which M asked, "We can drink from a glass?"

After I finished laughing, I explained that they might become daddies, too, and have little boys (correction: big boys) to hold and read bedtime stories to. We talked about how Daddy and Mommy started off as babies, then became kids, then teenagers, and then grown-ups. This concept seemed rather amazing to them, as they had little to say but their eyes were wide open.

Then, they snuggled in, and we read our stories.