Milestones

Ok, so there have been a few important milestones our family has reached recently.

1. Mosey has reached the "potty talk" stage. Yes, I remember this well from when the twins were about his age. His favorite phrases are: "Yuckyhead" and "Poopy on the potty," both of which must be yelled very loudly with an extremely silly look on his face. Brigham and Joseph unfortunately are not entirely anxious to discourage Mosey from indulging in said potty talk.

2. Brigham and Joseph have learned the perennial school-yard version of jingle bells, which goes, "Jingle bells, Batman smells, Robin laid an egg," etc., etc. They are both thoroughly delighted with this song and sing it... frequently. This must be some sort of rite-of-passage for elementarly school students. I wonder when this particular song was first invented? I remember learning it at school at probably the same age Brigham and Joseph are now.

3. Brigham has learned to ride a two-wheeler without training wheels! Wow! He was determined today that he was going to learn, and by golly, he did! He started out with both training wheels for a while, then Ben took off one of the training wheels, and after an hour or so, took off the other one, and away he went! Ben was on his roller blades and for the first few lengths of the church parking lot, he kept his hand on Brigham's bike, only letting go when he could feel Brigham was balanced. But after a few minutes, Brigham really was doing it entirely on his own. He did have a few spills (thank goodness for helmets and knee and elbow pads), and his technique needs a little refining (his current braking technique is to go full-speed until he hits a curb, a patch of grass, the side of a car...), but all-in-all, I was very impressed. Joseph got the one-training wheel thing all right but hasn't quite plucked up the courage to go without them entirely yet. But peer pressure is a powerful thing, and I'm sure it won't be long.

4. My boys are *starting* to exercise some measure of impulse control. Thursday after school I was in my bedroom and listening to the boys come up with a hare-brained idea of getting a can of pop, and then "exploding" it with a hammer. They went in the garage and got the pop and the hammer, and I was on my way out to ask them what in the world they were doing, when Brigham came in and said, "Mom, we want to go outside and explode a can of pop with a hammer, because we really like it when pop explodes." Well, with such a nice way of asking permission, I granted it. It was diet 7-up, about as messy as water, and if it was in the back yard, well, ok. I told him thank you for asking me, and just be very careful with the hammer.

So, that's cool, huh?