S-m-a-r-t-y-p-a-n-t-s

Ike's a tough kid. I have no idea where he gets it from. But he's not all brawn. He was inspired to write a note to his teacher while on holiday break:

I'm so grateful. I so miss you Sadye

He's a lover too. 

I'd like to brag about his brains for a bit. He's in Preschool. Penmanship aside, that's pretty rad up there. I remember my first day of Kindergarten I forgot how to spell my name. After winter break in 4th Grade I forgot how to spell "of."

He's tough with a big heart and brains. Now that I think of it, he's all Rach.

So is Harry though (all he got from me are the fear, whining and chicken legs). Lately, he's been on a spelling jag. He spells his sentences now. As in, "I-w-a-n-t-c-h-i-c-k-e-n-n-u-g-g-e-t-s-f-o-r-d-i-n-n-e-r." He never spells, "p-l-e-a-s-e" though, which pisses me off to no end. Honestly, it's amazing to literally hear your kid's brain in action, but the truth is, I barely listened to him before. Now he might as well be using morse code to communicate with me.

The topper came the other day when he spelled "supercalifragilisticexpialidocious." I'm serious. But then again, so did I just now, so fuck him.

Actually, I googled it.
Then had to cut and paste it.

Once they learn to cook I'll be obsolete.

Make it Work

A girl at school thinks Harry's cute. Now Harry thinks he's cute. When he gets dressed in the morning, he checks himself out in the mirror and says "I think I look cute." He's so conceited.

Ike is developing an interesting personal style. For one thing, he only wears athletic shorts, often al fresca. He usually wears an unbuttoned plaid flannel or pajama shirt, sometimes with a t shirt underneath, sometimes not. Lastly, he wears non-matching socks and non-matching shoes. As much as I want him to express himself, I think he's actually expressing a colorblind high school coach who thinks he's Hugh Hefner. 

Harry's style is no less odd. Very colorful. His favorite shorts are purple madras. He went to the mall with his Grandmother and selected pants in turquoise and emerald green. He also likes to match, and goes to great lengths to find shirts of the same color, close to the same color, or ones that have a bit of the pant color in them somewhere. With his red shoes, he looks like an Ellsworth Kelly painting. Very special. Yes, I meant it that way. 

You Talk Too Much

Harry is afraid to be alone. He won't get dressed in his room by himself. He forces me to follow him around the house looking for miniscule but indispensable lego pieces. It's an enormous pain but I try to be sympathetic. He also never stops talking. Not ever. If he has nothing on his mind he'll just describe what's going on around him. Like color-commentary on his own life. Herein lies the rub. In order to take a dump (for which he needs privacy, of course) he has to talk to me in the other room (so as not to get scared). However, he can't think of anything besides taking said dump when he's on the can. I think I'm going to start him on Twitter.

One day Harry got a sore throat. He talked a lot about it naturally. Ike and I listened to him talk about when it hurts, how long he thought it would last, what medicine Mommy said he should take, et al.  At one point, he wondered where his sore throat came from, to which Ike responded, "Maybe it's because you talk too much."

Ike's four and a half now. He's never taken karate or anything like it. The other day he executed a brutal takedown on his nine-year old cousin, followed by one of those arm-lock-in-the-leg things. Like he was trying to get his cousin to tap out. He's like the Mozart of MMA.

There Will Be Blood

Been a long time since I wrote about my dudes. Now there's a third. Which reminds me. Before Levi arrived and he was in Mommy's tummy, both boys did much speculating on how, and from where, the baby would come out. Ike was adamant that the baby wasn't coming out of Mommy's penis because Mommy doesn't have a penis. I wanted to say, "not anymore," just to be a dick. But then I thought of all the traumatic images he might conjure and decided against it. Harry clarified: Mommy has a hole in her that's not a penis. It's a bagina. Better this than the real word. The real word makes me uneasy.

Harry also wondered if when the baby comes out, "will there be blood?" Yes, Harry. There Will Be Blood.

The boys are very good with Levi. They don't fully grasp the notion of infant development, though. When Harry asks Levi if he's happy and Levi's head bobs up and down in an effort solely to hold it up, Harry thinks Levi answered yes. And Ike is always telling Levi not to do things, like grab his hair. When Levi then grabs his hair, Ike gets upset that Levi isn't listening to him. In other words, Harry thinks Levi is much smarter than he actually is and Ike thinks he's much dumber. Sort of a glass half full, half empty distinction in my older guys I guess.

Maybe Ike's right, though. Levi isn't exactly a genius.