Copy Cat

Ethan has been somewhat frustrated lately by Alex's sudden interest in doing every last thing that Ethan does. Like a little shadow, Alex follows him everywhere. He imitates Ethan, right down to the groan of frustration that Ethan gives because Alex is copying him.

As a mother, it's very entertaining. Ethan disagrees.

But he's actually pretty good about tolerating it. Last week, they'd been playing together chasing each other up and down the hallway, shrieking, until they woke Benny up. Then they decided to do something quiet.

Does that seem backward to anyone else? Shouldn't they be doing the quiet things while Benny is sleeping?

Anyway, Ethan sat down to read. Alex climbed up beside him, pulled a book out of the basket near the chair, and pretended he was reading too.


I love it when Ethan is patient with his little brothers. He's a pretty good kid.


And look at this look of concentration on Alex's face. You'd never know that he picked up a teacher's manual for school next year. There aren't even interesting pictures in it!


**Has anyone noticed that Alex is wearing the same clothes in the last three posts? I've been scheduling my posts to space them out because I only get around to sitting down and going through the pictures on my camera once in a while. And apparently I tend to take pictures more some days than others; either that, or all the cute stuff happened on the same day! Regardless, I just want to be clear that I don't put the same clothes on them day after day.

Cold Snap

We had a couple of days last week when the temperature only got into the 60s. Even for Wisconsin, that's cooler than we expect at the end of June. Alex was prepared, though.


He'll probably make a good boy scout someday.

One of the many uses for an umbrella

My children are fascinated with umbrellas. Ethan used to take one out with him while he played in the sprinkler. (He also wore his fireman costume at the same time, but that's another story.) We had a couple of umbrellas that I got as a promotional gift from something, and so I've always let them play with them and not worried about the umbrellas getting wrecked.

I worried about someone's eye getting poked out with one of the ribs that end up being torn loose from the fabric, but thankfully that hasn't happened. Yet.

Alex has discovered a new way to use the play umbrella.


Yes, this is the umbrella library. Or maybe it's raining books? I'm not sure. But he piled a bunch of books on the umbrella, sat down with them, and screeched when Benny tried to touch them. Fortunately, Benny is easily distracted.



Unfortunately, by the time Alex was done playing, the umbrella was completely wrecked. But did you see that rib sticking out? Their eyes thanked me for throwing it away.

Sitting Pretty

Benny is starting to sit up on his own, although he tends to lean forward and brace himself with his hands on the floor. He doesn't practice sitting very well, though, because as soon as he sees something he wants, he tips over and belly-crawls over to it. He actually looks kind of like an inchworm.


But what a cute inchworm!