Just a string tied around my finger

Don't misunderstand, if you read this post and enjoy it, that is totally cool with me. But be forewarned, I'm writing this post more for me than anything. And I guess for my wife. See, one of the things I thought would be great about the daddy side of this blog would be to keep a written record of all the stuff my kids are doing in there here and now that I want to be able to recall when I'm old, gray, and bitter. But it occurred to me recently that there's tons of that kind of stuff that I've posted not a lick of. It's mostly just little things, little quirks of behavior, funny utterances, interesting childhood habits, and so forth. And as much as I'd like to work each of these into the telling of a larger story, I don't see that happening anytime soon. And so, in an attempt to plug up ye olde memory hole just a wee bit, here's a nice little bullet list of some of the latest and greatest hits from the world of my kids...mostly the older one, that is, since the younger one just got born like, the other day.

"Hold you." - this is what Henry says when he wants to be picked up. I have no power to resist it.

Bossiness - If he doesn't like something we're doing or saying, we hear about it in the form of "Don't do/say that Daddy/Mama!" Ash was the brilliant one that figured out that if we just keep doing it, but in a silly fashion, his mood turns much brighter. At times, his bossiness takes the form of telling us what we want, as in, "Daddy wants to sit on the butt."

Love baby bro - all of our worries about Henry rejecting his baby brother came to nothing. Henry likes to point at Simon and shout "it's baby bro!" and then kiss him on the head. The other day he even sat down next to him and "read" his animal book to him.

Protective - by that same token, Henry's starting to be kind of protective of Simon. When Ash drops me off at work in the morning and I kiss the boys goodbye, Henry tells me "don't take baby bro, Daddy."

"1, 2, 3, 5..." - Henry has started counting. He gets all the way up to 10, but he always always skips 4.

Neighbor dog - our neighbor has two very sweet dogs that like to come to the fence to say hello. If they're not there, Henry walks up to the fence and calls "Neighbor dog, where are you?"

My nuts - one day not long ago, Henry was walking towards me with a tennis ball, his arm cocked back ready to throw it. By instinct, I covered my crotch and said, "my nuts!" Henry walked around for the next hour repeating "my nuts...my nuts....my nuts."

Chalkboard - one of Henry's Christmas presents was a chalkboard. He's taken to asking me to write people's names on it. I guess he just likes the way the letters look. He'll point to where I've written M A M A and say, "that's Mama" as affectionately as if he were looking at a picture of her. He's not actually reading, of course. I guess he's just figured out what the names look like.

Ocupado - the kids likes privacy when he poops. He goes into his room and asks you to leave if you come in. If you ask if he's pooping, he'll say yes. When he comes out and you ask if he's pooped, he tells you "Don't check it." Except there's no need to take a visual because everybody's shit stinks.

Musical tastes - Henry has no problem requesting the music he wants to hear. "Island", "Middle", "Up and Down", "Reee", "Clappa Hands", and plenty of others are all shorthand for his favorite jams.

"I forgot something" - this is Henry's code for "chase me, catch me, and tickle me."

There now. That oughtta be fun to read in another 30 years.