Of all the things you have to learn from me...

Today is Ethan-centric.  Because he's doing a couple of things lately that scare me very much.  Why am I scared?  Because it's becoming all too clear that I'm raising a small version of myself, and I remember what I put my own parents through.  I am afraid.

First, I'm worried that I've created a tiny little lawyer.  The other day, Ethan and Alyssa were upstairs playing; we were downstairs.  Everything was relatively quiet, right up until we heard Alyssa yell, "Ow!"  Followed by a little bit of yelling.  Alyssa ran downstairs to say that Ethan hit her.  We sat the two kids down, I looked at Ethan, and I asked, "Did you hit Alyssa?"  He looked at me calmly and said, "No."  Alyssa was incensed.  "Yes he did!  He hit me!"  Laura looked at him and asked a little more angrily, "Ethan, did you hit Alyssa?"  Calmly, again, "No."  Laura started to talk to Ethan a bit more sternly; at the same time, Alyssa was tugging on my sleeve, saying, "He did!  He did!  He hit me with my Barbie."  Just then, I heard Laura say, "Ethan, tell the truth - did you hit Alyssa?"  Again, "No."

Uh oh.  Maybe it was the stress on the word "you," but with sudden, perfect clarity, I knew what was happening here.  I said, "Ethan, did the Barbie in your hand hit Alyssa?"  Eyes downcast.  "Yes."  "And did you swing the Barbie at Alyssa?"  "Yes."  "So the Barbie hit Alyssa, but you made it hit her."  "Yes."  Fantastic.  Punishments all around (yes, Alyssa, too; we found out the altercation started because she was trying to physically force Ethan to do whatever it was she wanted him to do while they were playing, something he didn't want to do), explanations that you can't be bossy and you definitely can't hit, apologies and hugs between the children, and I went to cower somewhere in fear, realizing that my 3 year old is already working on telling the "technical truth" in order to cover himself.  Does anyone know what the definition of "is" is?

Second, it's pretty clear that Ethan has some of the same little tendencies I had as a kid.  Obsessed with a movie and collecting all of the action figures from it?  Absolutely, though it's Cars instead of Star Wars for him.  Carefully answering exactly what he's asked, and nothing more?  Obviously.  "Creatively" using found objects as climbing tools and the like?  Oh boy.

We've got this great new swingset.  One of the big wood things, nice and tall deck with ladders for them to climb, big slide, swings, trapeze, it's got it all.  Including, apparently, the strange attraction to "creative" climbing that held sway over me as a young child.  It's not enough for Ethan to climb the ladder and hang out on the deck.  No, I've already discovered him hanging on a cross-beam that sticks a foot out away from the deck, about five feet in the air.  And Laura and I have both found him this week trying to use a small plastic rake as some kind of climbing hook to go up the ladder.  Instead of grabbing the ladder rung, he holds up the rake, hooks it over the highest rung, then tries to use it to pull himself up the ladder.  It's...well, it's kind of ingenious, but also terrifying to watch.  We've now told him three or four times not to do it.  I shudder to think how many times he's done it when we didn't see, if we've caught him at it that many times already.  Because I know how many times I'd have already tried it if my parents had managed to catch me at it three or four times.

Somebody help me, I've been cursed to raise a tiny little version of myself.  Laura, I know you'll read this.  Read carefully, and know I'm being unbelievably serious right now.  Don't let the boy get near any ropes!  I've still got the scar to explain why.

A grab bag ranging from syrupy sweet to rear-end kicking awesomeness.

Four more today.

One super mushy:

The other night, the day before my birthday, I was getting the kids ready for bed. Alyssa came over, gave me a big hug, and said, "I love you sooooo much. Thank you for being my Daddy!" Yeah, I didn't tear up. Nope. Not one bit. Of course.

She then followed up by telling me I could pick what book to read to her that night because the next day was my birthday. Go ahead, gag a little on the sweetness, if you need to.

One of Ethan testing me to keep from being too sweet:

Ethan was sitting at the table. He started talking about tumbleweeds. What???? I said, "What did you say?" He said, "There aren't nine tumbleweeds, Daddy." "Nine what?" "Tumbleweeds." It was the matter-of-fact way he kept saying these things that was throwing me completely. No sign he was hallucinating or anything, just talkin' about tumbleweeds. I said, "What are you talking about?" He grinned a little. "Tumbleweeds. There aren't tumbleweeds, Daddy." "What in the world are you talking about? I don't understand at all." He grinned again. "Tumbleweeds." "Ethan, you're confusing me, why are you talking about tumbleweeds?" He grinned and said nothing. Exasperated, I said, "Ethan, are you just trying to confuse me?" He gave me a huge smile. "Yep." Then he went back to eating.

Seriously? What did I do to deserve that? *Note to anyone who knew me as a kid: That's a rhetorical question. Yes, I do know what I did to deserve this. Please leave it be.

One from Addison yesterday:

I came in from working outside, walked up to her, and she grinned. Man, grinning babies are awesome. I said, "Hi, Baby Girl!" She giggled. A real, out loud, awesome baby giggle. If grinning babies are awesome, giggling babies are God's own way to tell the world that everything is great sometimes. So I said it again, she giggled again. Said it again, another giggle. She must have giggled six times just because I said, "Hi, Baby Girl!" Then Ethan asked me to pick him up to say hi to her, and she leaned on him so he could hug her. Yeah, that's pretty great.

Finally, a second-hand story from Laura today:

First, two things that seem totally unrelated, yet come together beautifully here. The first is that Ethan watches a PBS cartoon called "Dinosaur Train." It's all about (obviously) dinosaurs, and they have a couple of segments on each show where a paleontologist comes out and talks about the dinosaur featured that day, inserting little tidbits of knowledge by saying (for instance), "Point of fact: Pteranodons blah blah blah blah." The second is that Ethan loves his Superman pajamas. And he should, they're pretty sweet. Blue pants, blue shirt that comes past his waist and has the "S" shield and Superman's belt printed on it, and an extra-sweet red cape attached with velcro. And the S has little red lights that flash when you hit it. Pretty awesome, and Ethan loves to wear them.

So Laura's in the car with Ethan today, and he's going on about holding a worm outside yesterday. Talking away, telling her all about it, when he stops in the middle and says, "Point of Fact: I am Superman." And then goes on with his story. That rocks.

The things that they pick up. It boggles the mind.

Alyssa got me pretty good on her birthday. We gave her a fancy new bike (it's bright purple, sparkly, covered in pictures of Tinkerbell and her fairy friends, and it has streamers on the handlebar and a light up musical, um, thingy, on the front of it), and I took her outside to try it out. She had recently been listening to Laura reading one of Ethan's (many, many, many) books featuring the characters from Cars (including, as Ethan often calls him, Chick Hicks and His Mean Tricks; I think I want to use that as a band name). She thought racing me (while I was on foot, mind you) was a good idea, and a great time to pull out a quote from Ethan's book. She pulled up next to me on the bike and said, "Let's race! Get ready to lose, old man!" It's hard to outrun a five year old on a bike while you're trying not to laugh and trying to tell her that's not a nice way to talk to people at the exact same time.

Ethan popped up with some great stuff a couple of days ago, too. While all of the girls were off doing girly things, Ethan and I went to McDonald's for some guy bonding time. He got some junky Happy Meal Hot Wheels toy with a little plastic dude that popped out of it. He declared that little plastic driver guy was a superhero and said, "His name is Batman Superman! His last name is Krypto!" I said, "What?" I think I was rendered momentarily incoherent by the awesomeness of this from a three year old. He responded, patiently and slowly, almost like one might when explaining something to a three year old, "His name...is Batman Superman...and his last name is Krypto! Batman Superman Krypto to the rescue!" Thank you, Ethan, for making me realize I'm such a superhero geek that my tiny three year old has already picked it up and reflected it back at me. Also, that's awesome.