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Several months ago, our pediatrician predicted that Cannon had a pretty good chance of being an early walker. This was somewhat surprising, given that he is a sturdy, plump little guy who apparently is built very much like his uncle. Said uncle has been described as having been "too fat to crawl, he just went straight to walking", but that he didn't do that until kind of late.

Well, Cannon isn't walking yet. He's working on it - he can do many of the things necessary to walk, and seems to be working on them pretty hard. I expect he will be early on this. However, he's a whiz at the stairs. I didn't give it much thought until his 9 month check up yesterday. "Cannon can climb all the way to the top of the stairs already. Is that normal?" I asked innocently. "Um, no!" was the response. "He should be cruising, but not climbing stairs." This was followed by concerns that he always be supervised while on the stairs, as well as eliciting promises from the big brothers that they'll always tell one of us if Cannon is headed up the stairs.

This morning I was reading an email about "your baby this week" and found a chart on what babies do when. Climbing stairs? That isn't supposed to happen until 16 months. Yep, I'd say he's a bit early on this.

Love You Too

Well, I've finally done it. I'm such a bad mommy that Kemper announced this morning, "I'm leaving and I'm never coming back!" as he left for school. You might be wondering what awful thing I did to prompt this. Well, I *gasp* asked him to clean up all of his Playmobil stuff from the living room floor so Cannon wouldn't eat the tiny pieces. I know, I'm a mean, horrible person. What was I thinking?!

(Rowan, by the way, had this to say in response: "Well, I guess we'll just be four again." How's that for brotherly love?)

But Kemper is so funny when he's really mad. He can make the most hurtful comments or the meanest faces. Of course, if we laugh at him, he goes through the roof. What was really funny this morning, though, was that as he was fastening his seat belt in the carpool car, he gave me his meanest scowl and in his deepest, grumpiest voice said, "Have a good day. I love you forever." I know he meant it, but part of it was simply that he is a creature of habit. A couple of months ago he got started on this "I love you forever" business at bedtime and when saying goodbye at school or when he leaves the house. So I know that the primary reason for the comment this morning was that if he hadn't said it, he would have been even more upset for breaking his routine.

Eating Disorder

I made the mistake of mentioning at dinner the other night that hot dogs are among the most dangerous foods for small children because they could be a choking hazard. Kemper now is completely paranoid about choking, refused to eat another bite of his hot dog that night, and now worries about every bite he takes. Last night he took one bite of his hamburger, chewed it for at least 10 minutes, then went and spit it out in the bathroom trash can. When I asked him why, he said he was worried he would choke on it.

Now, this kid loves meat. He particularly likes hamburgers. I'm not sure if it's because I served it on a hot dog bun (the burger ones were moldy), and that made it too similar to a hot dog, or what. And never mind that he has actually choked before and thought nothing of it after the fact.

Of course, there's always the possibility (probability?) that this is all for my benefit. He seems particularly interested in pushing my buttons these days, so this wouldn't surprise me. And he's eating lunch at school, so he's not starving or anything. Then again, all I know for sure is that the lunch box is coming home empty and he says he ate it all...

Fundraiser

Out at school there are nearly daily fundraisers for one group or another, mostly the music corporation. They sell hot dogs and sodas, ice cream, and, once each week, lunch. Occasionally there will be a student selling baked goods, and I'm told by a staff member that at least one of these kids is trying to raise part of her tuition.

Rowan and Kemper asked one day if I would make them cookies to sell at school so they could have more money to buy Gormiti (their current toy of choice). "Sure", I replied. Then I didn't hear anything about it for a handful of weeks. It came up again recently, so I decided to do it.

First, I calculated the cost for all the ingredients. Then I made the boys help measure, mix, and bake the cookies. We talked at length about how the whole operation would work, that they would first have to pay me the $6 for the ingredients before they got to keep anything, and that every cookie they gave away to their friends was one less quarter for their piggy banks. "We understand, mommy. We aren't going to give any of them away." I reviewed the process with them several times, and even gave them 8 quarters in case they needed to make change, then piled them into the carpool car with good luck wishes.

About 6 hours later, I picked them up from school. Normally the kids are all waiting for me up near the parking lot, but on this particular day they were still playing outside so I walked down to help them get their things together.

"So boys, how'd the cookie sale go?"

"Mommy, we only sold 3 cookies."

"So where are the rest?"

"Oh, we ate them."

I sent them to school with 48 chocolate chip cookies. I guess I wasn't terrifically surprised, but must confess I had higher hopes for their success. When I asked them where the money was, they didn't know. We found it the next day in the office, and the container had 9 quarters in it - the 8 I had given them plus one they had been paid. Neither could tell me what happened to the other $.50 they had earned the day before.

Kemper said, "Mommy, I don't ever want to sell cookies again." But he's mostly mad that they still owe me the $6. Which, of course, I have already told them they didn't have to pay. What a sucker.

Melt Down

Kemper and Rowan are now fully ensconced in school; this week was the first week they officially became full time.  They really love it there, look forward to going every day, and are disappointed when weekends come and they don't get to go.  Which I guess is nice, as I certainly never felt that way about school.

The one down side is that they come home really, really tired.  I mean, tired is good in that they go to bed pretty easily, but let me just say that behavior suffers with this level of fatigue.  Yesterday when the carpool dropped the boys off at home, Kemper was screaming, writhing on the car seat, and practically foaming at the mouth.  Anne, the mom who drove, couldn't tell me what triggered the fit, just that it had been going on for about 5 minutes.

Well, he managed to get himself inside, where he continued with the writhing, screaming and foaming.  After a full 20 minutes, I finally managed to get him calm enough to tell me what had upset him.  This is a direct quote:

"I had my window at a perfect ajar and then someone closed it and it was ruined!!!"

Poor kid.  If this was my worst problem, my life would be a piece of cake.

Panic

This morning we joined a friend and her kids for an outing to the Boston Children's Museum. I haven't been there with the boys in a year or so, mostly because it's expensive and my membership expired 2 years ago. Plus it's hard to chase after two of them, particularly when one likes to linger at exhibits and the other darts around from place to place like a pinball.

Well, all was going well enough. We were all in the bubble room, a large space with a variety of bubble-making objects, when Rowan asked if we could go to the construction area. (A favorite of my boys - two skid steers, hard hats, reflective vests, and a variety of construction vehicles they can play with.) I consulted with Julia, an dwe began the process of rounding everyone up. Kemper was desperate to try the bubble thing where you stand inside and pull a rope that raises a soapy hula hoop around you to make a giant bubble, so Rowan was standing with us while he waited. Julia had her two kids doing an activity in the next room while they waited for us.

As soon as Kemper's turn was over, he wiped his hands on his pants and he and Rowan ran out of the room and literally disappeared. I mean, it took me maybe 5 seconds to follow them around the corner of the doorway, and they were nowhere to be seen.

Now, I am not prone to panic, and I wasn't all that worried as I knew they didn't run toward the exit and that eventually they would find someone if they were worried. But in my pregnant and very slow condition, I was having a hard time figuring out the best way to search for them.

Luckily Julia found them fairly quickly - she had a head start on me, as I went to inform the Information desk that they were missing.

But this is why I'm so reluctant to take them places alone now - they're just too darned fast! This is also why, when visiting a busy place where I can foresee being separated from them, I write my cell phone number on their hands. I also often take a picture of them with my phone camera, in case I need a description of what they're wearing. At least it ended well.

What's in a Name

Last night we had a babysitter so that we could get out on our own for a few hours. We're very lucky in that the young woman who lives across the street from us adores our kids and they feel the same about her (they actually ask me if I can have Joslin come babysit).

When we got home, we had the usual summary of events. It was so funny, though. Apparently they all sat on the front porch, and Joslin's mom came over to visit. They started talking about names for the baby (which, by the way, we have made no progress on). It seems Kemper sat in deep thought for a while, then decided he would name his baby brother Pocket. When Joslin asked him why, he said, "Because I always have such interesting things in my pockets".

In its favor, I'm pretty sure he'd never in his life meet another person who shares his name....