Down to the Wire

Classic Liam. Dinosaur jammies, swim goggles and all.

I don't even know what to say to this. Colin said: "See mom, I made a plus sign and equals sign on top." As if it were perfectly normal to be writing mathematical equations on your naked brother with markers.

Eamon Campbell has finally walked! He will be fourteen months tomorrow and I was beginning to think he was going to crawl to Kindergarten. Then again, when you have two brothers who bring you your every desire, there's not much need to be upwardly mobile. And, the loveable bugger that he is, he JUST squeezed in his first steps hours before Daddy left for the airport on a 10-day business trip to India. We're hoping he still comes home to us, even though his baby will be a baby no more, and will most likely be even more trouble than before (and trust me, his now-infamous temper is nothing to sneeze at, every time anything is taken away from him, he shouts and pounds his fists. But since I'd rather he have a tantrum than choke to death, I will continue to take things away from him... all 23892357823 times a day that he makes it necessary.) By the end of the day, he went from a few halting steps to walking halfway across the kitchen--for a chocolate chip. It's nice to know he did get SOMETHING from me, and why I didn't think to bribe him with chocolate earlier is my own fault. I'm sure he would have been walking at 8 months if I'd have just thought of the RIGHT incentive.

This is "Evil Babyfied" as I call him now. You can see the half-gnawed crayon (and some in his mouth) along with Daddy's ipod headphones. Hey, at least they have a wire on them. For when I have to pull them out of his intestines. This kid is trouble and oh so happy to be so.

This week was full of little pleasantries. We had a yearly party at Uncle Paul's which Colin loves for two reasons: there's a lake, and "Uncle Paul always has the best chips." The boys got in some swimming in what I thought was ridiculously freezing water. Colin was modest enough to keep his underpants on, but since Liam rarely wears any, he resorted to skinny-dipping, much to his bigger cousins chagrin.

"I remember when rock was young. Me and Colin had so much fun. Holding hands and skimming stones..."

On Friday, we tried to while away the hours until Daddy called us safely after his flight by going for a walk. How long does it take to walk exactly one mile with two pre-schoolers on foot? Who am I kidding, I didn't take a watch. But I can tell you, it was an EXCRUCIATINGLY long time. Mostly due to stopping to play in the sand, in the stream, at the cemetery, piling dirt on the dog, investigating a dead snake ("even its TAIL is dead!" says Liam) and the real kicker: carrying a caterpillar on your neck, THE ENTIRE WAY HOME. Yes, we acquired "Fuzzy" about a half mile in and the road became a tightrope of fear as they worried Fuzzy would fall off their hands, backs, heads, etc until Colin decided his neck was the best place to carry him, at a (handicapped) snail's pace until we got home. Then they made him a lovely home in their magnified "bug house" and watched him like a hawk for three hours straight. Colin was just beside himself wondering why Fuzzy wouldn't eat the leaf they gave him. Apparently the caterpillar on Little Einsteins only eats yellow leaves, but we could only find green, go figure. At some point, Liam got tired of waiting for him to metamorphosize into a "butterfly" (MOTH, I kept telling them, to no avail) and took him out and smooshed him while I made dinner. "Fuzzy got dead by accident", he told me after which the big boys and I decided, once and for all, that animals need to stay in their natural habitat and not on the floor of the playroom where they narrowly miss being eaten by their baby brother.

Never, ever, leave a whole package of wipes in your baby's crib when you put him down for the night. You will be sorry, and you will be out a pack of wipes. But, that was nothing compared to when Eamon fell out of his crib head-first last week. But I think poor Colin cried harder than Eamon. He was in his room when it happened and almost threw up he was so scared Eamon was hurt. Which wasn't as bad as when Colin himself woke up in a pool of blood that week... par for the course with him and his bloody noses. Liam BEGS to held mop up the "bleedy" when it happens. Which wasn't nearly as bad as when Colin took the corner of the coffee table in his temple this week, one of those real good ones that immediately turns black and huge. Which wasn't nearly as bad as when Liam spent the night in the ER a couple weeks back when he scratched his cornea. Do you see a pattern here? This is life with three boys. Daily.

What else? We made peanut butter ball ladybugs for a birthday party at ChuckECheese. Colin, who loves to bake more than anything sagely told me as he manned the mixer of peanut butter, "well, I can't turn it on yet, because you can't mix something if it's the only thing in the bowl. Then it wouldn't be MIXING, it would just be SMOOSHING." I fear for this child's future teachers and hope they all have good psychiatric help. I know I need it dealing with him and his noble, yet irritating, insistence on precision. Today, we had a blast at a graduation party for our favorite babysitter, Hannah, who had the nerve to get a swimming scholarship to college in PENNSYLVANIA, not exactly close enough to come home and watch the boy-os. So, while we're happy for her (and shocked how old she is, as I used to be HER nanny until I went to college), we're going to miss her--a lot! Our other favorite babysitter, Holly, is also going away to school in ALASKA. Does no one go to community college anymore? I'm going to be out of a job if people don't stick closer to home--not to mention out of date nights!

I have to say, the boys did a nice job with rolling these out into balls. And their favorite part: digging through a one-pound vat of jellybeans to sort out only the black ones. Who said learning can't be delicious?

Oh, Liam. I just find myself saying that all the time. At his three year checkup a few weeks back, our pediatrician asked: "Can he put a shirt on by himself?" Uh, yeah. And socks, pants, underpants and a tie too. Every morning at 6am, Liam wakes my (by tapping incessantly, yet gently, on my face). "Mama, can you do my button, I all dressed by mine self!" Yes, he picks out his own clothes, can't you tell? Two things I don't understand about boys' clothes though: 1) who puts buttons instead of snaps on 3 year old pants? They are impossibly at odds with potty-training, not to mention my sleep schedule. 2) Why do they put the cool picture on the BACK of boys' briefs and not the front? Now that I'm TRYING to get Liam to actually put on underpants, he does, but always backwards "so I can see Superman" was the reasoning I got today. Oy vey. Today he got another lesson in clothing. He was patting my back and felt my bra strap and asked what it was and what it was for. "Holding my boobs up!" I replied. Then he went up to Colin's room and said: "Colin, Mama has a booby strap!" which was just TOO funny because all week they've been into making "booby traps" which I think they got from watching Scooby Doo. "Those meddling kids" use them a lot to trap the bad guys, I think. So, all over the house, I find piles of random toys, books, etc that the kids tell me are "Booby traps". Mostly they are there to trip me up and keep Eamon from getting to whatever they are playing.