Gifts, Genes, and Games

GIFTS

The long awaited gift arrived Monday afternoon. Stephen immediately opened the box to find a wonderful front end loader (really, a skid steer). Now as Andrew had been the one really anxious for the gift to arrive, he could not understand why Stephen was not willing to share. Thus he employed every manipulative trick he could think of:

"Here is a book, Stephen. Would you like to trade."

"It is nice to share, Stephen."

"Momma, Stephen said 'no' when I asked if he wanted to share. He should have said, 'No, thank you.'"

In the end the toy ended up on the top of refrigerator for the rest of the day since I had instituted a friend's rule of "NO TOYS IN THE KITCHEN FLOOR." The boys were not phased. Instead they were busy pretending to be forklifts loading and unloading the Fed-Ex truck.

GENES

Apparently Stephen got up on the wrong side of the bed this morning. I think I aged a few years in the first 30 minutes he was up this morning. Multiple returns to his room did nothing to change his humor, and on top of it all, I knew we had to go to the pediatrician for a check-up.

Once at the doctor's office, asking him to remove his shoes was a big deal. He was very offended that the nurse pricked his finger to get a drop of blood. When she whispered something into his ear for him to tell me, he declared, "I can't talk." The doctor asked him how old he was and he said, "Four." Andrew answered the remainder of the questions. Thankfully the nurse said we could put off the one shot he was due; that would have just been too much.

The poor kid is destined for shortness. He is over an inch shy of 3 feet and at 23 lbs., he still hasn't tripled his birth weight (a measure often reached at 12 months). But he is growing according to his own curve and is healthy and happy (most of the time).

GAMES
I don't understand it but our boys (especially Andrew) prefer to play in the front yard versus the back fenced yard. Maybe they don't like the feeling of confinement, maybe they are trying to push the limits at an early age, or maybe they just don't like the scenery.
In any case they have been requesting and I have been allowing them to play in the front (I can hear the chant now, "Bad Mother! Bad Mother! Bad Mother!"); please don't call Social Services. After Stephen walked away a year ago, we've had no more escapes.
Today they brought out a load of scrap wood, four pieces of old water hose, all their construction vehicles, a large shovel and a hoe. It was some sort of construction site though I could never make out what they were actually doing. They were happily being boys.