Big and Little Boys

This post should take care of catching me up on my blogging. This one has a few notes about the boys.

There's Sam, sitting atop the 5 foot pile of dirt we have out back. He loves to slide up and down that thing. Now that it is warmer out, he wakes up announcing his plans to go "out-tide" and he stays out almost all day long. When he gets sleepy or hungry he comes in the house and takes care of that, and then he's right back outside again! I love it because I think that's the way life ought to be for boys - even 2 year old ones!

A few years ago Will and the neighbor boy made a matchbox car "city" underneath the fort in the dirt. Ben and David have never been into toy cars so much, but Sam discovered this abandoned play area with buried cars and he's been having a ball out there!

A week ago he excitedly brought in a toy bulldozer he had uncovered in the dirt and told me he needed to wash it. I saw him pull the plastic stool up to the bathroom sink and didn't think any more about it - until Will informed me a few minutes later that he had caught Sam trying to wash the bulldozer in the toilet! Evidently, the sink wasn't doing a fast enough job for him!

Potty training is still coming along - slowly and with some reluctance on Sam's part. The other day we were at Advanced Therapy while Ben had his class. Sam informed me that he was "wet" so I had Will run outside and across the street to the van to get a pull-up for Sam since I had forgotten to bring them in. I took Sam into the bathroom and did get him to go a little bit. He must have been drinking all afternoon. I got the fresh pull-up on him, and had him standing on the edge of the sink while I pulled it up. The next thing I knew, the kid erupted! I mean - think fountain! He had urine squirting up, over, and out of his new pull-up, it was coming up the back (how that is even possible, I do not know). It was splashing onto the sink and running over onto the floor. So I stood him down on the floor, ripped the pull-up off, and said "Don't move!" I ran out to the waiting room and instructed Will to go across the street, to the van, and get me the last remaining pull-up that I had packed. When I got back to the bathroom, 30 seconds later, Sam pointed to a big puddle on the floor and announced, "Sam pee" And by the way, I did not teach him that word - his brothers did. I think it's kind of crude. It took me about 50 paper towels but I finally got that bathroom all cleaned up. I sure hope they have a nightly cleaning crew that comes in to properly clean and sanitize things! We still had a night of softball games to get through, so I warned Will that if Sam wet again, he was going to be going commando for rest of the night in his pants! Fortunately, that didn't happen.

I remember when it dawned on me that I was going to have to potty train yet another boy. Sam was about 3 months and it just hit me. Prior to then, I hadn't even given it a thought. These days, I think half our laundry pile is comprised of cloth training pants, plastic pants, and wet jeans. I still haven't stumbled onto the secret of early potty training, although my mother -in-law seems to take great delight in telling me how all her children were trained by 15 months. So, I guess it can be done. I just don't know how.

I've been trying to remember how articulate the other boys were at 2 1/2. I just don't remember. I know Ben only had a handful of words. I cannot remember how well Will and David talked then, though. So I don't know how Sam compares. But his language has just exploded. He is so articulate and he says very few things anymore that we can't understand. A lot of it is mimicry, but he comes up with just as much on his own, too. It's fun!

The boys' first softball games were this past Tuesday. Instead of attending, I went to that meeting for sp. needs parents and Paul went home and worked on the basement. I think that qualifies us as terrible parents! We'll be there for the rest of the games, though. My only fear was that one of the kids would get knocked in the head by a softball and they wouldn't have a parent there. But I was only 15 minutes away and Will does have a cell phone. It all went fine and both their teams crushed their opponents, so they were happy when I picked them up.

This year, Ben and David are on the Lavender team. Their coach picked the color and when I saw their shirts, my first thought was, "Lavender? Seriously?" Isn't that a girly color? But half the kids on the team are boys! Then, they were given bright yellow ballcaps, which, for one, don't match their shirts at all. And then, two, Ben and David have a sarcastic older brother and he delighted in pointing out to them how they now look like birthday candles! That has caused David to be quite anxious about his appearance on the field. But Ben doesn't care. I've had to assure David that he actually looks quite manly out on the field. And, as I pointed out to him, when you're winning, nobody cares what you're wearing (rolling my eyeballs here).

I'm caught up now and so, this is it - until one of the boys says something cute or something interesting happens. So, I guess that means I'll be caught up for about the next half hour or so! Off to tackle more "Mom" work!