the bee

+ His smile lights up a room and his laughter comes from down deep, goes on forever and is infectiously funny. He loves to laugh.

+ The best way to get him going is tickling. He loves it. Roars with full body laughter and comes back for more and more.

+ Just recently I did my Swedish Chef impression for the kids (I really am quite brilliant at garbled Swedish) and my kids thought I'd lost what few marbles I have left. How'd I manage to get them this far without seeing the Swedish Chef? A quick trip to youtube caught us up and now I do it on request several times a day. Ian calls it The Muffin Song.

+ He lives almost entirely on a diet of cheese sticks, apple slices, clementines, carrot cake yogurt, fruit snacks, peanut butter sandwiches, granola bars, little smokies and milk. If that's how he keeps that adorable little tushie, perhaps I should consider eating the exact same.

+ The word "indecisive" doesn't cut it for this guy. Give him two options and it's a pretty safe bet that he will NOT end up with the one he chooses first. "Do you want an apple or a clementine?" "An apple . . . . NO a clementine! . . . . AN APPLE! . . . . I WANT A CLEMENTINE! Mom, you're not getting me a clementine." We've stopped listening and started just handing him things, knowing whatever we hand him will be rejected for the other.

+ Oddly, the word "opinionated" works, too. When he does decide what he wants, he wants exactly that or nothing else ever, ever, forever until he's dead. The term "drama queen" has been used on more than one occasion.

+ His personal style is heavily influenced by his big brother. If Jack is wearing long sleeves under short sleeves, then by all means he needs the two shirts as well. If Jack is wearing "football pants" (athletic pants with a side stripe) then I should be fully aware that jeans just will not do. And true football pants have numbers on them. And all the best t-shirts have the batman logo on the front. Color matching is for suckers.

+ And boy can this kid flirt. He's at his best with a room full of girls. Any age will do. The more, the better. He. Is. Rico Suave.

+ It helps that he is a stone cold fox.

+ That head of hair started at birth and hasn't stopped yet. It must be extremely chopped monthly or it turns into Don King, minus the white tips. Pomade is not optional.

+ He was born 5 1/2 weeks early, which means had he finished baking before his grand entrance his birthday would be this weekend.

+ Such a serious imagination, this one. With serious imaginary friends. All day, he whips around the house, talking to himself in the voices of his friends. Like BFF Mickey Mouse who goes everywhere and has an opinion on everything which, oddly enough, rarely matches Ian's own. Mickey's voice, however, sounds just like Ian. On helium. Recently, Ian told me that he was Mario (from the video game) and Mickey was Luigi, but Mickey must have heard our conversation from the other room and piped up with a voice thrown, "no I want to be Mario," but Ian countered, "no, I'm Mario," and Mickey was all, "no, I'm Mario," and then Ian shut him down with, "no, I'm Mario and you're Luigi," to which Mickey acquiesced and said, "okay."

+ Just today he caught me in the car and asked, "Mom, why are you talking to yourself?" I dunno, Bee. So, yeah, he might have gotten it from me.

+ I'm not ruling out multiple personalities. For either of us.

+ His other best friends . . . Bear, Momma, Jack, Chase (a real-life kid from next door,) Batman, Lightning McQueen, various Lego guys, and his new Storm Trooper action figure.

+ He routinely bursts out in song. Usually it's stuff that we know--preschool stuff, primary stuff, Little Einstien's classics--but his favorite is to sing the (made-up) words "Dass aw! Dass aw! Dah dah dah dah dah dah dah!" to the tune of Offenbach's Orpheus in the Underworld (or The Can-Can song.) For the longest time we thought he was saying, "That's all! That's all!" but he assures us, with a clever smile, that's not it. And he's not frustrated that we can't figure it out--on the contrary, I think he enjoys his secret. And the fact that if he sings it enough, we'll all join in.

On the same branch, occasionally, when we're talking about people, he will ask "What about Jousy?" and then do his level best to hold off a giggle. We don't know who that is either and he won't tell us. He knows it's funny, but I want to know how a newly minted four-year-old knows that. His humor runs deep.

+ He's learning his letter sounds at pre-school, so he walks around the house talking with an intentional sound-practicing stutter. "B - B - Bear" and "M - M - Mickey." But he's only halfway through the alphabet, so we also have "B - B - Balentines Day" and "B - B - Bacuum." He's a real stickler and already a little worried about his own name, as it doesn't follow the rules; as tenacious as he is, I imagine he'll have to head down to the county seat and change it to Ean before the school year is out. Though he has been heard sounding out his own name as "B - B - B - Ian!" It works.

+ For the last year or so, putting Ian to bed has been a serious endeavor. First, he would need all 7-9 animals to sleep with--including Mickey, Bear, Other Bear, Elephant, Monkey, Lion and Skipper with  Goofy allowed from time to time, depending on whether he (Goofy) had to sit time out or not. And if one was missing, the house had to be searched. (I tried laying down the law--you haul Mickey around the house and he's not in bed, then tough beans--but he would scream for hours as though we'd severed an arm.) Then, he would need all six blankets, in the right order and facing the right direction--which, in case you are wondering, is generally top-side-down. All that as a simple ritual, because the second you shut the door, he would kick the blankets off and toss everyone except Mickey and Bear who got snuggled under the prized Crayon Blanket.

Late last year, it started to get worse. To go to sleep, he needed the door open and the light on, which would be fine, except the nursery is in my bedroom and the light he wants on all night will shine in my eyes as well. Not an option for caveman-sleeper Craig, for whom the dark simply can't be dark enough. And with the light on and the door open, Ian felt an open invitation to talk. Or hop out of his crib--another fun new development--and come on down the hall for a visit. In the middle of the night.

Granted, we'd always planned for our boys to share a room as soon as they could, and build the bunk room with that specific purpose. When we first moved in last spring, we unpacked Ian in the bunk room with his brother, but he would get up and wander in the middle of the night. Couple that with the fact that he'd learned how to unlock the new exterior doors, and we moved him back to the crib after just two nights.

Just before Christmas, we decided to give the bunk room another go and we braced ourselves for what new brand of shenanigans this would unleash.

We told him big boys sleep in big bunk beds with their big brothers. We offered the animals, but only Mickey and Bear made the cut. We offered the blankets, but Ian insisted that those were crib blankets and he wanted only the big boy blankets on the big boy bunk. We tucked him in and he curled up and went to sleep in minutes.

And that's how it's been ever since. Wierdo.

+ That big family holiday in December? He called it Schristmas. As in "I'm getting Lightning McQueen for Schristmas." And I didn't realize how much I loved it until he called it Christmas just the other day.

Okay, that's it. Too much getting bigger over here. Back to the crib, baby boy.

Comments

[Angie]

I'd like to see that Swedish Chef impression myself.
Oh, and cute kid you've got there.

[nichole]

oh how this made me miss the weston clan! love you all!

[Chelle]

I just spent quite a while watching Youtube videos of the Swedish chef (my boys had never seen him either)... so funny.
Cute kid, cute momma.