Boxers AND Briefs, Addendum

So this morning I got Luke out of bed by telling him that while he was asleep I had washed and folded all of his clothes and put them in his bureau. Most mornings we go through at least ten minutes of "I don't want to go to school, I don't want to get out of bed, five more minutes..." but today he hopped out of bed, very excited, and chose his favorite outfit--all Batman, all the time. And his black Power Rangers underwear. Anyway, I was hurrying him out of the house because I had an 8:00 am appointment with a parent at school, but when I opened the door he decided he wanted to put pants on over his Batman shorts. He went upstairs, and when he didn't emerge quickly, I ran up to see if I could help him. After I smoothed the lumps out of his shorts for him, he said, I just need to look in my top drawer. I wasn't sure what he wanted there but thought whatever it was would take less time than a fight. So I helped him line up his stool in front of the bureau and held him steady as he pulled the drawer open. He surveyed the dozens of pairs of underwear and a rainbow of rolled socks and made the kinds of noises people make at fireworks. He just wanted to drink in the sight of all those clean underclothes before he left for school.

Toes and Carrots

For months now Teo has watched us all eating food with puppy dog eyes of reproach. He just can't figure out why we're denying him something we so obviously enjoy. There is certainly a lot of pressure from other people to start shoveling solid food into our children as soon as they get a little neck control. Teo is not yet six months, and that is the bare minimum age at which we will give solid food. Parents have to have some principles to live by. Alright, so he is getting very close to six months. Tonight at dinner he looked at me so earnestly as he watched food travel from my plate to my mouth; Tina reached out and grabbed a stick of raw carrot and gave it to him. His face was priceless. It went right in his mouth, and he gummed it delightedly for a while. Then he pulled Tina's empty plate closer to him so he could put the carrot on the plate instead of the table. It was like he was saying to us, "I know how this works."

Right now he's contentedly eating his toes. He's pretty proud of himself and in a great mood. In fact, this is the best mood he's been in for a long time. It's possible the antibiotics for his ear infection and the prescription ointment for his eczema are just finally making him comfortable, but I think it's the diet of toes and carrots.

Boxers AND Briefs

Luke is obsessed with clothes. If left to his own devices, he will change outfits ten times a day. For months and months he has not let us dress him or have any say in what he wears. It was not easy for me to learn to bite my tongue and let him wear his underpants AND pants backwards to school (for a while he liked them that way) or to let him wear the same shirt to school two days in a row. I have made a promise to myself, though, that I will not fight with him about clothes. I won't tell him he's cold or hot, won't worry about what other parents will think about my parenting, won't turn him into a mannequin on which to display my own fashion sense. This is not an easy promise to keep, but I'm mostly accomplishing it.

Yesterday, I came out of the shower just as he was finishing pulling on a pair of Spiderman briefs. He looked a little more endowed than usual. He gave a sly grin and said, "I have Spiderman on top, and Batman underneath!" He was wearing black boxer briefs underneath the Spiderman briefs. He told me that the Batman ones were his home underwear, and the Spiderman ones were his school underwear. "Carry on," I told him.

Then this morning after my shower I stopped into his room to help him reach the underwear, which are in his top drawer and hard to get at. He picked out a pair, and then told me, "Don't see my Batman underwear." This was his way of telling me that he was going to continue to wear the black boxer briefs he's already worn for an entire day and night, and he wanted me to look the other way. I complied as he pulled on a new pair of underwear over them. At least no one can say my kid wasn't wearing clean underwear. The top pair was VERY clean. He has also taken to asking Tina or I to leave the room for a few minutes while he gets dressed. Usually this is so he can fish something to wear out of his laundry basket without an argument.

Meanwhile, there's no lack of stylish, comfortable clean clothing in the kid's drawer. Today he wasn't happy because all of the pants he'll actually wear were in the laundry (WAY in the laundry, like down in the laundry room). There were still two pairs of pants in his drawer, and I reminded him that a couple of weeks ago I had gone through his bureau with him and given him the power to say "yes" or "no" to every article of clothing in there so that I could clear his drawers of all the things he refuses to wear (this was especially difficult for me, mind you). I told him that the two pairs of pants in the drawer were ones he SAID he liked. He said, "Oh yeah," and ran off into his room with a purpose. I was impressed at how effective my reasoning had been. A little while later I checked in only to find him going through his drawers and making a stack of clothes (including the two offending pairs of pants) on the floor next to his bureau. He told me, "These are for somebody else to wear." Later on I went back in and put the stack of clothes back into his bureau. Wrong of me? Perhaps, but I am still holding out hope that some day he will consent to putting on one, just one pair of jeans, or to wearing the Saint Mary's University t-shirt (my dad's alma mater). Pray for me.

No Hands!

Lately I've been feeling perennially guilty that I'm not writing down all the cute things that Luke keeps saying in our family journal and tracking Teo's every milestone in his baby book because I'm too busy messing around on my laptop all the time. Then, in a surprising flash of common sense, it occurred to me tonight that a new blog is a great way to both document and share cute stories about the boys. For those of you who don't know, blog stands for "web log," and is basically an internet diary in which you can post text entries, photographs, links, video, etc. It is like an extroverted scrap book on cocaine. Sounds right up my alley, no?

So tonight Kate is visiting; tomorrow I'm taking her to "Simply Smith," an admissions day for high school sophomores and juniors. Luke was very excited to see her and they played pirates for a long time. At dinner, Luke had to run and pee. (The child never has to pee until we sit down to a meal. Then, he always has to pee. What's with that? Is it some weird stomach/penis connection that women don't know about?) Anyway, Kate and I were talking and chomping on pepperoni and mushroom pizza when he came back and sat down again in his chair. He immediately chanted "Hey Trina, Trina, Trina," and then, when he got her attention, he flourished both hands and said, "I can pee with no hands." He was clearly quite proud. Kate was uncharacteristically speechless. Now I understand why the kid always gets pee all over the rim.

Meanwhile, Teo, at only five months old, simultaneously reached two different milestones this week. He sat up on his own (no props) for a good long time, long enough to be called sitting up. Then he discovered his penis. He was in the bath doing what Tina calls his crunches. The kid has extraordinary abs for a five-month-old. Then he looked down, cocked his head in curiosity, and reached out and grabbed it. After exploring for a few minutes, he smiled and sighed, "Ahhh!"