There's something about little boys that makes my heart go pitter-patter. (I just went to go check on Baby Wyatt in his bed and came back.... upon reading that first line over, I feel the urgent need to clarify that I'm not a pedophile. K? Carry on.) But little boys and their rambunctiousness, growling, ability to make car sounds, and contentedness to just run full speed into nothingness is what makes then so special.
Cameron, unlike his sister, can amuse himself with a tennis ball, a few toothpicks, and a paper towel roll.... for hours. I'm not kidding. The boy goes into his room and comes back with some sort of creation made from garbage, Lego pieces, and disassembled toy cars. EVERY TIME! I love this about him. Just yesterday he showed me a couch that he designed from a paper plate. A paper plate. And no, it wasn't a clean paper plate (naturally), and yes, he did spill cookie crumbs across two rooms as he brought his creation to my spot in the living room. But he was just so dang proud of this couch that I couldn't say anything to discourage such creativity. I mean, isn't that why we have three big dogs, anyway? They'll eventually stumble upon that trail of cookie crumbs and think they've died and gone to Doggy Heaven.
Yes, creativity in sons is amazing. As is their ability to see my pre-coffee need for quietness in the morning and behave accordingly. In fact, I used to cringe when my bladder would wake me in wee hours of the morning...that time when you know that, if you hurry, you can be back in bed and still get another half hour of sleep. Not having an on-suite master bath, that meant leaving the safety of my own room to venture out and meet the Little People before I was ready to start conversing. You mamas know what I mean.... no coffee, still groggy, not ready to talk. I'm basically good for grunts and grunts only during those first few minutes. But that was when my daughter's room was upstairs with us. She would listen my sheets crinkle as I prepared to get up from my bed and run across the hall to the bathroom, undetected. But there she was, every time, always quicker than I. No sooner would I have turned the door handle and Taylor would be right there, begging for someone to talk to (probably because she sleeps a total of 4 hours a night and has been awake for hours just waiting for attention).
"Hi, Mom, how'd you sleep!?!? Did you have any dreams? I dreamed of strawberries and ponies and I made up a song to tell you about the dream, but then I forgot it and had to make up a new one, but then I forgot that one, too, so I sang Jesus Loves Me until I remembered that I love to color.... can I have my markers now? Oh, wait! Let me sing Jesus Loves Me to you, first, and then I'll color you a picture of strawberries and ponies and, HEY! I remembered my dream, wanna hear it?!?!"
Oh. My. Gosh.
I just wanted to pee..... and now I see that I will be forced to purchase adult diapers if this living situation continues. Thankfully, God granted me with a baby and we had to move Taylor's room to the first floor in order to free up her old room for the nursery. Now, it's me, the babies, and Cameron upstairs. And when I feel that urge to pee, I can now open my door freely, because my son is just as groggy by morning as he is creative by day. He sees me, nonchalantly waves me a "hello" and says, "Hey, Mom", to which I respond, "Hey, Cam", and we go our separate ways. It's practically magical. This is why I love little boys!
When Isaac comes on the weekends, we get to see an entirely different side of boys. The I'm-loud-crazy-and-wild-but-can't-be-bothered-to-care side of boys. This weekend, we had set our sights set on going to the Science Center in Pittsburgh. However, due to a Pirate's game, we were unable to find parking and decided to go to the Ballocity Zone at Fun Fore All. The Ballocity Zone is a massive indoor climbing structure where kids can go through small passages that scale higher and higher, slam into netting, scream loudly while going down the tube slides, and bash themselves off of hanging mats.... oh, and there are lots of balls. Everywhere. These foam balls come flying at you from air guns as well as from a huge volcanic structure in the center of the Ballocity Zone that fills with balls and erupts when a button is pushed, sending balls raining down with a loud "WHOOSH!". Needless to say, this is the perfect place for a rabid little man like Isaac.
Once he moved past the initial terror of large kids shoving their way past him as "WHOOSH"ing occurred every few minutes, he began to fully submerge himself into his surroundings. I took him into the Zone and he walked straight up to the ball volcano, clenched his fists, and he growled/shouted/yelled with all his might for about 10 seconds straight. This was before he ran head first, as fast as his chubby legs allowed, into a netted wall. This was then followed by about 10 more seconds of growling/shouting/yelling (naturally). At one point, he bit a chunk out of a ball with a crazed look in his eye that sent a small girl running in the other direction. This.Is.My.Son. And he sometimes resembles Animal from The Muppets, which is ironic, because he used to have a t-shirt with that very character on it. I LOVE little boys! They're rugged, dirty, primal beings are just like little cavemen and it's AWESOME.
This same little caveman proceeded to pee all over me and his bedroom floor later that evening. And when I say pee, I mean pee. It was as if he'd saved all the water from his body for just the moment that I tried to wrangle him after his bath, before I'd had the chance to diaper and PJ him. Sure, I shouldn't have left him for those two minutes, diaperless.... but he looked stinking so cute blowing his toy trumpet, huge grin on his face, naked as a jay bird. He walked over to me and, just as I lifted him up to set him on the bed, he let go of all that was within him. I promptly set him down and ordered him to stand still while I grabbed the towel... but what you have to know about 22-month-olds is that they can't follow you with their eyes. Oh, no. They follow you with their entire bodies. So, Isaac proceeded to pee in an arch as he watched me move swiftly across the room. I sighed in exasperation because, honestly, what was there to do but stand there and let him finish? Once there was enough urine on the floor to legally call his room a parking garage, he threw his hands in the air and said, "Uh oh!" (Ya think, kid?) After I had sufficiently sopped up the mess with his bath towel, I ran to the bathroom to deposit the towel in the tub.
And that's when Isaac shut the door and locked me out of the nursery. I mean, seriously.... you can't get this kind of action with a girl! We spent the next few minutes with me pleading the almost-toddler to "open the door for Mama", in which he alternated telling me "OK!" and "No!", (words I'm still unconvinced he can distinguish between). This is why all mamas should keep a tool kit on every floor...if you have boys in the house, you're going to need a screw driver and to pop open locked doors! And when the door opened, there he was, still standing in his naked glory, smiling widely. "Mama!" he exclaimed as he gave me a big ole birthday suit hug. This is why I love little boys.
When I was pregnant, I was positive that Wyatt was a girl. I'm saying that I was downright sure of it! Lo and behold, God saw fit to bless us with a third boy (much to my 6-year-old daughter's chagrin.). And this little fellow has been nothing short of a Mama's Boy, which I secretly love and hope he never outgrows! But today, true to form, he showed his boy-ness during diaper time. It was a particularly messy deed he'd done, and I thought that I had put the diaper far enough out of his reach. I thought. But it seems little Wyatt has anything but little arms. In his excitement to have his diaper off, he began flailing those Gumby limbs with all his might and, with a wet "splat", his left fist landed right into the gooey diaper. There was a fine mist of baby poo that reached a foot in every direction. Startled by this mist, Wyatt then smacked himself in the face with that same brownish-orange fist. He ginned, gurgled, and then belly laughed. And as I sat there, cleaning crap from my baby's eye lashes, I thought about how it only took a poop splash to make this kiddo crack up. He can literally find humor in anything, including bodily functions. And this is why I love little boys.
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