Differences

There are certain things that Cannon does that Rowan and Kemper never did.  The older boys never took off their diapers.  I heard horror stories of kids ripping off a dirty diaper and smearing the contents all over their cribs, walls, and bodies.  There was not a single incident of this with them.  Not that there has technically been one with Cannon either, but if he's not wearing something with a snap crotch, he will definitely try to get the diaper off or loose.  Which is why he almost always has restricted access.

Rowan and Kemper had baths maybe once each week.  Not only was bath time a nightmare, it irritated their eczema.  Cannon would live in the bath if that were an option.  I can't even say the word in conversation without him chirping, "bath! bath! bath!" and running full speed into the bathroom.  For that matter, I can't get into the shower without him either having a full on fit or getting in with me.

With the twins, I never had problems with them using writing implements in a problematic way.  Not so lucky with Cannon.  His latest activity involves pens, sometimes Sharpies, and our flat screen computer monitor.  This is not a good combination, I can assure you.  So far we've managed to prevent him from ruining our new kitchen cabinets, but I expect this won't remain the case for long.  Kitchen table?  It has pen marks.

"Put them away", you might suggest.  I've done that.  The problem is that his older brothers don't seem to be able to ever put anything away when they're finished with it.  Which brings me to another difference.

Cannon is a cleaner-upper.  He continues to amaze me with this.  After I change his diaper (which I do on the floor, on a changing pad), he folds the changing pad as best he can and puts it back on the shelf where I keep it. He will then pick up the bundled dirty diaper and trot into the kitchen to throw it away.  He'll dump out a plastic container of crayon pieces, draw for a while, then put them all back in the box.  Then he'll put the box back in the cabinet where he got it.  When we're done reading books before bed, he puts them back on the shelf.  Honestly, it makes me wonder where he came from, since no one in our house puts anything back where it belongs.

The big boys, on the other hand, are complete slobs.  I don't force them to clean their room; I figure, if they can't find anything, then they'll have to live with that.  My rule is, if there isn't a clear and safe path to the beds, then I don't come in to kiss them goodnight.  They have to settle either for a kiss blown from the doorway, or going upstairs on their own.  Currently there is so much crap on their floor that I can barely get in to put away clean clothes.  But I've sworn I won't clean it again.  Maybe I'll strike a deal - I'll clean it up, but I can get rid of anything I deem no longer useful.  I wonder if they'd go for that?

Well, here's hoping Cannon sticks with this particular attribute.  It would sure keep my life marginally easier as he gets more independent.

Spiritual Child

Kemper has been asking a variety of questions about God and Jesus lately.  Or simply announcing that he "believes in God and Jesus".  Now, those who know me well know that I am not much of a believer, or particularly spiritual in the traditional way.  I'm hoping he will eventually feel like he can talk to our minister about much of this, but so far he hasn't seemed inclined to do so.

Yesterday we drove down to D.C. to visit the cousins.  At one point while Rowan and Cannon were napping, Kemper randomly announced, "I think that God is reading a book and we're all in it."  I thought this was a very interesting perspective.  Even for an unbeliever like me.

Favorites

All of my kids have certain things they say/said as they were starting to talk.  Rowan (and then Kemper), at somewhere around age 2, would point each morning to my "gagn", or "coffee".  This is how they said the word for a really, really long time.  They also would say "buzzuhderr" instead of "bulldozer".

My favorite Kemperism was "tomorning", which meant "tomorrow morning".  I still love that one, though he's outgrown it.

Cannon's current one is "huckaluppuh".  It just makes me want to find him helicopters everywhere we go just so I can hear him say it.  He has no trouble pronouncing "coffee", but does say "tomomow".

New Words, Loud Words

Yesterday Kemper was having trouble with his electronic microscope.  The light you put the slides over was flickering, so I suggested we try new batteries and see if that solved the problem.  I dug out the appropriate size, did the switch, and had the old ones sitting on the table.  Cannon wandered into the room, climbed up on a chair, picked one up, and said "battery" as clear as day.  I have no clue where he learned that word; it's not like we work it in to our daily conversations or anything.  It's truly a mystery.

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I was working on dinner the other day and Rowan came in asking for a snack.  "No, because dinner will be ready in about 10 minutes."  I turned around and found him standing right next to me with his hand in a big bag of dried cranberries.  Again I said, "I don't want you to snack right now because dinner is almost ready."  At which point he shoved a fistful of cranberries into his mouth, looking at me the entire time.  Frustrated at this point, I shouted, "Put the cranberries away!!!"  He immediately tossed them into the cabinet and said, "I heard you that time!", then hightailed it out of the kitchen.  Sheesh.  Selective hearing is going to drive me mad.

Flowers

This past weekend was both my birthday and mother's day.  To be honest, I've kind of stopped having very high expectations for either event, based on previous years.  But this year turned out to be very nice.  Morgan and I had a great dinner at Tupelo, a relatively new southern restaurant in Cambridge.  I got the stand mixer I've been coveting, and the kids were remarkably well-behaved.

On Saturday afternoon, Kemper and Morgan went out on an errand.  Turns out Kemper had asked if they could buy me some flowers for mother's day.  I didn't know this until after he presented them to me, but apparently he insisted on choosing red flowers because "red is the color of a heart".  How sweet is that?

Water

This past weekend we went to Cape Cod.  Morgan had a conference there starting Sunday afternoon, so we went a day early for a change of scenery.  I was intending to drive back on Sunday with the kids.  While looking at the news on his iPhone, Morgan learned that a water main had broken and there was a boil water order in about 30 communities in the metro Boston area, including ours.  So the kids and I ended up staying put in the hotel for an extra couple of days.

I don't know if it was the enclosed space, the rainy weather, or if the planets were simply aligned in a very bad way, but I can honestly say that I was feeling like we'd have been better off having to boil all of our water at home than being trapped where we were.  Cannon was actually perfectly agreeable.  Rowan and Kemper, however, were pretty much horrific.  Even allowing for the change of location, the lack of toys, etc., they were awful.  By extension, I too was pretty awful.  It was one of those times when I was convinced I am just about the worst mother on earth.  It is so hard when I know my kids can be such sweet, polite, caring people yet they act so badly.  You would think their parents had never taught them any manners.

This must be one of the down sides to being a stay at home parent.  Breaks from the kids are few and far between, and "vacations" are anything but.  Morgan at least gets a vacation from his job; I continue with my job, just in an unfamiliar place and without any of my usual tools of the trade.  Yes, there's another adult to help out, but still.  (And in this particular case, that extra adult was missing, as Morgan was in meetings all day.)

Hopefully I'll feel somewhat recovered before our next outing.  On the up side, the boil water order was lifted the morning we drove back.  So I didn't have to deal with that mess.

The Curse of the Not First Born

Poor Cannon.  He's suffering the fate of the second (or later) born.  Today I took him for his first real haircut.  I had trimmed his bangs a while back, but this time he got the full cut at a salon.  He did great, even if he had to sit in my lap instead of on the mini carousel pony they have just for kids.  And while I did remember to save some curls for posterity, I of course didn't even think to bring the camera.  Mind you, I don't know how I would have managed a photo with him in my lap, but I realized after we left that I really should have captured the event.  I definitely have pictures of Rowan and Kemper at their first haircuts.

I remember a running joke in our family was that there were no pictures of me as a baby or toddler.  This isn't entirely true, but compared to the number of photos of my older brother, it certainly seemed like there weren't any of me.  I swore that if I had kids, I would make sure the youngest would be equally documented.

There's one goal I can say I utterly failed to reach.