Wednesday, December 17, 2008

No Paternity Test Needed

You may all recall a post I made a few weeks ago titled "Wild Thing- I think I love you" where I discussed how wild Richard was as a child and how Joseph had his father's personality. I specifically mentioned the fact that he loved to turn himself around in circles over and over and over again, to the point of being sick. Well, apparently this is an inheritable trait. See video below for proof.

So forget that Joseph has Richard's ears and chin, this is the best evidence I have that Richard is in fact Joseph's father. This whole spinning in the exersaucer thing started yesterday. We were in the kitchen and I was busy washing bottles, putting dishes away and baby talking to Joseph with my back turned when suddenly I realized there was this annoying "whir whir" sound really loudly behind me. I turned around and Joseph was spinning himself as fast as he could over and over again in the exersaucer. His head was thrown back and he was giggling away. I could not stop laughing. He did it again today and I got a good minute of it on video. You can tell he is quite pleased with his new trick. He continued to do for about 3 more minutes after I stopped the video. At which time, he looked rather dizzy and got a nasty case of the hiccups. Oy vey!

The other wild thing Joseph did today was catapult himself out of the Bumbo chair. He was playing with his toys and I was sitting next to him and suddenly he arched his back and flexed his legs so hard in frustration to be set free, that he fell right out of the chair. Luckily, I caught him before his little face could smash into the carpeting. Another reminder that Bubmo chairs really should never be used unsupervised or on raised surfaces.

Every day I realize this child is just like his father. Today, while thinking about this fact, I remembered that Christmas commercial where the little boy is putting out cookies for Santa and writes on a note "I have been a very, very, very, very, very good boy this year". He then remembers incidences such as coloring on the walls, leading a muddy dog through the house, destroying his sister's dolls, etc and starts crossing off the very's. Eventually he recalls so many naughty things he did, that he just writes "I really tried to be a good boy this year". That will be Joseph's letter to Santa every year, I am sure of it. Richard says he can relate well to that commercial.

I have often asked Richard why he was so bad (I hate to say bad, no kid is bad...we'll say challenging) and he claims its not because he wanted to do bad things or planned to do them, there was just always something there tempting him...and temptation ALWAYS got the best of him. Once it was in his head, it had to be done. I have heard a number of times about Richard's incident with an exacto knife. He was about 5 or 6 years old and he happened across an exacto knife in a drawer. Of course, it tempted him and he ended up taking it and jabbing it over and over again into a cardboard box. Well being that he was 5, the eye-hand coordination wasn't fully developed, so one nice strong jab missed the cardboard and went straight into his thigh. He knew he was in big trouble so instead of telling his mother, he found a bandaid and put it over the huge gash in his leg. He kept this painful secret for about 2 days until his mother saw it.

Note to self: Check Joseph for various injuries twice a day after age 2.

So the adventure of raising mini-Richard begins. Who wants in on the pool of how many times we go to the ER by age 5?

DISCLAIMER: At no time has Joseph's paternity been in question. At no time has Richard requested a paternity test be performed. We will not be on Jerry Springer any time soon with my crying that I don't know who my baby's daddy is.

2 comments:

Erin said...

ok that video is the funniest thing.

my joseph likes to play "turn around," where he spins around and around and rolls his eyes up into the back of his head and gets so dizzy he runs into things. but he never did anything like that in his exersaucer.

you will have to look into some strategies on "temptation management."

mandie lane said...

Hilarious! I'm exhausted just watching it. That boy will keep life interesting (in a FUN way) for many years to come! If/when we finally get together, he'll have plenty of fun tricks to teach A & A! :)