I can't think of a good title. I'm tired.

I confused my mother last week by posting my column and a seperate post. . . she didn't see the second one.  Now I will just type a little here and paste my column into the end.  It's occurred to me as I write for hte newspaper that I bring up things I've already written here, so if it's repetitive to the loyal readers of my mediocrity I apologize. . .

 

I don't have the camera handy, but got a couple of good pictures of the little guys today, so I'll try to load them on here in the next day or so.  They're really growing up!  Their hair is getting thicker, and that fascinates me because it's all so different.  Rex has peach fuzz but it's long and thick, so it's extra fuzzy.  Eero has smooth short hair, and I'm guessing it could be curly.  Magnus has long fine hair in a bit of a mohawk.  His aunty Elsa put some product in it one day and it was hilarious - I'll do that again and take a picture this time, because it's almost unbelievable how hawk-ish it is.

 

Mags has two teeth and the rest have none.  When friends had babies very near Axel's birthdays we checked on each other's progress and development, and they all had similar schedules.  It's so interesting to carefully monitor three babies who were born at once of the same mother and father, and how different they can be.  Someone wondered to me if we had them one at a time, would they be like this?  As in Eero being blonde and chatty, Rex being a flirty chunk, and Magnus being a wiggly little guy?  I wonder, too. . .

 

I'm going to bed.  Eero had another ear infection this week (a bad one) so we are way behind on sleep in our family.  Column follows. . .

 

Hide the Sharpies

 

As you may have guessed, our house is a disaster much of the time.  I wish I could say we like it that way but it’s just another thing that’s out of our control.  Even if I do get the house picked up, the Hurricane blows through again while I’m tending to the Tropical Storms.  I may start referring to Eero, Rex, and Magnus as tropical storms . . . they have not yet been upgraded to full blown hurricane status.

 

One of Axel’s favorite indoor activities is to remove all the cushions from our sectional (thirteen in all, plus throw pillows) and pile them on the floor in what he calls a “cushion patch.”  We think this is derived from Linus waiting for the Great Pumpkin to rise out of the pumpkin patch.  There was a time when he would only sit in the cushion patch in his underwear so I don’t quite understand the rules of this particular patch.  If you’re at our house and he asks you to play in the cushion patch, the pants-optional is your call.

 

On Sunday we thought we’d stop at a pumpkin patch and pick up a couple pumpkins for our porch steps.  Lately Ax has developed a fascination with bats, and seeing bats and pumpkins together in Halloween ads he wondered if there would be any bats in this pumpkin patch.  I told him I didn’t think so, to which he answered, “Well then maybe after this we should go to the bat patch.”

 

I would love to know how the three-year old mind works to arrive at the notion that there exists a place called a bat patch.  It’s clearly a place that has bats and a person who wants to find bats (whoever that is, aside from Axel) just goes there.  If only it were that easy!  For quite a while now our oldest boy has been developing a wild imagination and is quite the story teller, mostly harmless tales.  When I asked him how he got that big bruise on his leg, he thought his great-grandpa Winston probably threw a rock at him.  Even if Grandpa Winston was a rock-slinger, Axel hadn’t seen him for several weeks so that was not the case.  I have no idea how he came up with that.

 

It’s not just story-telling, though.  He runs up and down the hallway with a flyswatter between his legs, telling us he’s a witch flying on his broom.  When I got up to use the bathroom he told me to get on his airplane and he would fly me there.  He walked next to me the whole way making airplane noises and landed me safely at the bathroom, telling me the door was open and I had to get out because his plane had to take off again.  He figured out that if he plugs his ears in the shower it sounds like a carwash – try it, it actually does!  Now he walks back and forth under the shower spray pretending he’s a car and the shower is a carwash.  As long as his fingernails get clean, I don’t care!

 

Except when getting clean in the shower he’s usually making a mess with his creativity and wonderment.  He once asked if he could dry his hair with the hairdryer, which usually means he wants to blow stuff around with it.  This time he pointed it in a potted plant and blew the dirt everywhere.  Who would ever think of that?  I did not see that coming.

 

A couple weeks ago he wanted to paint me a picture, and when I went upstairs to get something he did paint that picture – on the window.  Last year he picked up a blue Sharpie that someone (not Jesse or I – we know better) left lying around and walked up and down with it on the keys of our 85-year old piano.  Except for Sharpies, we only buy washable paints and markers.

 

And here we are with three more potential hurricanes, born of the same blood and surely hiding the same mischief behind their now precious faces.  What could possibly be in store for us over the next several years?  Our only hope is that they use their powers for good and not evil.  When we decided not to find out if our second child was a boy or a girl, we figured whatever it was could not be worse than Axel.  That’s not true.  Three Axels would be worse.  Hide the Sharpies.

 

Visit www.threebuns.blogspot.com for photos and more of our crazy life.