He'll probably climb a tree too tall and ride his bike too fast

Well, I promised you a post. A post about this boy:

 

This is his angry face. But not really. His angry face is much more angry.

 

Anyway, it has only been a month since his birthday, but he deserves a post all the same. Because this boy is awesome. A little bundle of terror and fun. We liken him unto our own Energizer bunny. He never stops going, and when I pray for the safety of my children, it's possible I pray most sincerely for his. Luckily he hasn't had many serious incidents since the back to back face mashings that provided such great photo fodder for facebook, but he's always smashing his hand, his finger, hitting his head, falling down, getting stuck, and otherwise making us fear for his life. When he's not doing that, he's making messes, a sampling of which I have already graced you with. I don't bat an eye when I walk through the house and step in something wet anymore. The boy has a royal obsession with dumping and filling. Also with putting toilet paper in the toilet and flushing it. Over and over and over and over. You could toilet paper someone's house with his spoils. Other tidbits about Spencer:

 

• He loves to terrorize people. He chases everyone around with his hands up like claws roaring like a dinosaur. I literally find the girls cowering in corners in fear.
• He has to pick his own clothes and get himself dressed. If you pick clothes he will not wear them unless you put them back in the drawer and let him pick. Other quirky habits: He changes pajamas four times a night, he likes to wear the girl's socks, and he refuses in genera; to wear matching pajama tops and bottoms. Also he tends to lose his pants.
• Speaking of terrorizing, he loves Ethan. So so much. So much that he tends to throw himself upon Ethan with great force and grab his limbs and wrestle and wake him up from naps because he misses him so badly. Did I mention I also tend to pray with some fervency for Ethan's safety?
• He loves cars and trains. Like many boys, he dotes on Thomas, and one of his favorite things is to get piles of cars and line them up in rows while laying on his stomach. Maybe I'm a little biased, but slightly adorable beyond words.
• He is always excited about everything. His vocal abilities are only so so, but he manages to convey his meaning mostly through inflection. Everything ends in a high pitched squeal of-excitement. "Dad-DEE?!? Mad-LYN?!? Cook-KEE?!?" He may or may not be accused of sounding like a girl. Hopefully puberty will be a relief for him.
• He loves nursery now. Only took six months, but now he runs in like a champ and beats up the other kids in delight. We're so proud. The nursery leaders probably feel the same way when we come to get him that I feel at bedtime.
• Other things Spencer enjoys in no particular order: shoes, getting his nails painted, outside, slides, treats, juice, Daddy, dumping things, dogs at a distance, doing things himself, reading to himself, ripping up books, meat, dress up, climbing, jumping, tackling, dolls, snacks, ipads, iphones, anything electronic, hiding under blankets, running away, pushing things, pushing people, laughing maniacally.

So that's Spence for you. A little bundle of joy and mischief and love and independence and busyness. We sure love him and couldn't get along without him, although we'd probably breathe easier if he lived in a plastic wrapped bubble in an enclosed bouncy house. Happy belated birthday sweet boy.

Born to be Wild- or, All about Boys

It's been almost six months since we became a tribe of six (and with six of us I do feel like we qualify as a tribe now, or maybe a small pack of wild dogs). And let me tell you, some days I still feel as overwhelmed as the first day Jessie went back to work and said, "Good luck! Stay alive!" Once in a great while I feel like I'm starting to get on top of things, and that maybe in the not so distant future I might be a cool, accomplished, productive member of society. The ratio of these moments is somewhere along the lines of the ratio of the number of times Spencer creates a mess to the number of times he cleans one up. Hmm, funny, there might be a correlation there.

Anywho, I probably only have the gumption to chronicle anything today because I'm utilizing this bad boy:

 

This is my birthday present. Our old laptop was perfectly useable and awesome, except the small detail that the screen was almost entirely detached from the keyboard. And it is not supposed to be removable like these newfangled tablet computer whatsits. So we splurged and now I have a shiny new computer with only a few crumbs in the keyboard. Because the children like how shiny and new it is too. It makes me want to do computer stuff.

 

So back to raising multiple small heathens. A lot of the stress comes from this deceptively cute life form:

 

Don't you love his awesome hair? Small side note: I have since cut off the wild patchy Mohawk, left over from when he went entirely bald except on the top of his head. It's all growing back nicely now, but I couldn't bring myself to cut it even and respectable. I'm a wimp like that. But then one day I just seized the moment and ran a razor over his head and now he looks like he's ten years old. But I'm really good at tangents today. We're supposed to be talking not about how adorable he is, but his evil plan to take over the world.

 

Ethan loves to be chill, easy-going, delightful, and happy, until he doesn't. He is much more like Madeline as a baby than either of the last two children, and obviously, this scares Jessie and I witless. He still has a fair bit of baby eczema going on despite my going mostly off milk and soy, and the itching bothers him. Also, he has seen fit to follow in his brother's footsteps and be an early teether. He has four so far. And unlike his brother, he is not a fast learner when it comes to nursing gently. Also, even beyond the itchiness and teething, he's a pretty lousy sleeper. At night he's okay, but during the day he doesn't like to sleep more than thirty or forty minutes at a time unless he's exhausted and protected from siblings. And he fights sleep worse than Spencer does, which is saying something. He must be nursed, rocked, or swung to sleep. We've started crying it out, which is proving to be just as traumatic for me as when we did it with Madeline, and I get to spend a lot of time listening to my baby screech like he's dying and suffering from guilt. But I keep reminding myself that it made Madeline so much happier, and therefore will solve all my problems ever, because if four children have taught me anything, it's that the same method works on every child without fail. So the upshot of all this is, Ethan is one of my more difficult babies. But he's so cute. Drat.

 

Since we're talking about evil plans to take over the world:

 

I just realized this is from his birthday, and it's March and I never wrote a birthday post for him. See, my one blogging goal. Poor third child. Maybe I'll get around to that. Which means maybe I won't tell you right this moment every detail of living with a two year old Spencer, and save that for a birthday post. Except this list:

 

Strawberry syrup on the rug.

Bottle of blue snowcone syrup on the carpet and kitchen floor.

Small pools of milk carefully poured onto every kitchen chair. And under every kitchen chair.

Ran over by a shopping cart. Twice.

Ate a whole box of ding dongs.

Ate a whole bag of tootsie rolls.

Dumped several bags of cereal. Multiple times.

Dumped one bag of cereal into his toy wagon and carted it around the house.

Poured out several pitchers of juice. Multiple times.

Opened all his birthday presents before his birthday. Twice.

Bit the baby. On the nose and his fingers. Multiple times.

Stole several rolls while they were rising. Reshaped them.

Stole my can opener. Found two days later in a toy bin.

Poured water all over the bathroom floor. Many times.

Smashed his hand in the door.

Got lost at Chuck E. Cheese.

Got lost at Walmart. Multiple times.

Dropped a full box of cookies behind the couch.

Pulled all the pillows and cushions off the sectional. Every day. Multiple times a day.

Stole and lost my phone. Multiple times.

 

Anyway. Just a small sampling of Spencer's last few weeks. There is more but I have repressed it to protect my sanity. Love that kid. More to come on him.

 

I suppose this post will be strictly masculine, because as much dirt as I could dish on the girls, this has become quite a long post. And it's dinner time. My kids are really demanding about sustenance. It's not my fault if I'm trying to starve them in an effort to keep them from growing. So. Until later, after the feeding frenzy has subsided.