Two boys with wills of their own

My memory must be shot. That's all I can figure. That might be an odd thing to say while in the midst of this little x365 project of mine which relies so very much on my memory, but here's the deal: it seems like every time my youngest does something new, I ask myself, "Did Henry do this when he was this age?" And most of the time, I simply can't remember. For example: now that Simon is crawling, he has demonstrated an intense attraction for all things dangerous. Place him on the floor equidistance from a teddy bear, a stack of hundred dollar bills, and the button to activate the doomsday device, which by the way is covered with lots of jagged metal edges that are in turn covered with germs, and he'll go for the button every time. I seem to maybe recall Henry being this way, but it may very well be one of those false memories that got intermingled amongst the real ones. Blame the government. All I know is that I can't leave Simon alone in my beartrap closet for a second.

Sunday, I let The Ash win that round of The Great Who Gets To Sleep In This Beautiful Weekend Morning? Debate, which isn't really all that noble of me since she lets me win it all the time, but I will accept your praise anyway. I know that doesn't sound like such a fantastic way to start the day, but a few hours of playing with the boys first thing in the AM put me in a pretty splendid mood. Henry has turned into a not yet three year old teenager as of late, and while such a creature may be preferable to a zombie or a werewolf or a recently laid-off badger, it is not necessarily pleasant to have around all the time. Many sentences out of his mouth end with "RIGHT NOW!" I swear he's almost mastered the Sneer Of Disgust With Absolutely Everything, Especially You Old Man. So it was just nice to have some straight-up fun with him and his baby bro.

In the afternoon, our house was host to a gaggle of gardening moms who came over to talk about gardening and momming. One lady brought over her son, who was just a little older than Henry. She promptly entrusted him to my care without so much as a background check or a thank you. But hey, it's cool I watched the both of them play while Simon looked on, eagerly wishing to get in on the action. And may I offer an observation? Other people's kids are just weird. They do weird stuff. They say freakish things. Don't misunderstand, I don't mean to say that my own children represent the baseline for normality. Nothing could be further from the truth. When I say "other people's…", I mean it as the kind of phrase any parent could use. Your kids are weird to me. My kids are aliens to you. It doesn't mean they're not totally awesome.