Rascal

Our baby is a rascal.  Sometimes we call him the Wild Baby of M-town.  I'm sure I loved all of my babies this much when they were this age, but there's something about a third baby that already seems so abundant (a boy and a girl and, wait, another boy!) and the fact that he's the third means that we realize how quickly he'll be out of this sweet, funny, rascally age.

Just enjoying a bit of meat at Steve's client's Eid celebration earlier in the month.

This baby pudges around the backyard doing all kinds of important work.  He begs to go 'ide and I just slide the screen door open for him and he lets himself down off the deck and patters around in the grass, lining up rocks and filling up buckets.  I peek out the door and he's in the sandbox working on a project or busy at the water table.  Earlier this week, I looked out and shouted because he'd climbed all the way to the top of the kids' play structure.  He'd figured out the rock climbing wall and let himself into the little fort.  When I tried to coax him over to me to get him down, he was too pleased with himself, peeking between the wooden slats and calling out, "Hiyo!  Hiyo!" to the kids on the swings down below him.

Driving his car at the neighbor's house.

He loves books with animal pictures.  He flops himself down on my lap several times a day with a book in hand so that we can look at 'puppies' (all animals) or 'now' (the sound a cat makes).  If his brother and sister are with me on the couch, he shoves right by them and pushes and fusses until he can settle himself right down in the middle, on my lap.

He does tricks - Patty Cake and So Big and Where are Your Teeth?  He sits for long periods of time ringing the doorbell on the dollhouse or snuggling a stuffed animal or rifling through my drawers.  When he wants something he knows he shouldn't have, he runs with it and when we get close enough to take it, he throws it.  He and his sister and I made cookies this week and he stood at the table hurling the cookie cutters across the table as his contribution.  While I was picking green beans recently, he helped.  As I picked, I would hand him a few of the beans and he'd walk them to the end of the row and deposit them in the bowl.  Adorable.

He spends a lot of time with "E-ah" now that The Bairn is in school.

His favorite activity is brushing his teeth.  We had a stool right next to the vanity in the bathroom and every day someone would forget to close the bathroom door (to keep Nate out).  I'd walk in and find him standing on the stool brushing his teeth (usually with someone else's toothbrush).  "What are you doing, " I'd ask and he'd answer "Deet." (Teeth.)  Today I found him sitting on the stairs with The Bairn.  He was very happily letting his brother brush his teeth.