µg

For those of you who aren't science geeks, I'll explain the title in a bit. I thought I'd share a couple of random nicknames we've given Graeme before I recap what's been going on the past few days.

Graematollah - Not sure where this one originated, especially since Graeme is no scholar of Islam.

Graembo - When he's in one of his more destructive moods, this one fits.

G-man - Maybe Graeme is the next Mulder.

G - for texting purposes, when Sean and I are discussing Graeme.

Flashdance - this is a nickname given to both Graeme and Liam. The T-shirts they wear to bed have wide neck openings, so the shirts easily fall off one of their shoulders. Whenever I see this, I picture Jennifer Beals wearing that sweatshirt, while "Maniac" plays in my head.

And finally, µg. This is the symbol for microgram. Sometimes we shorten this to Micro, as in micro-manager. Sean christened Graeme with this moniker when Graeme began telling all of us what to do and how to do it. Little µg has been waking up early again (around 6 or 6:15 - ugh!), and when he does this, we try to keep him relatively quiet (ha!) so his non-morning-person brother can sleep until around 7 am. On these mornings, Micro lives up to this name.

My favorite method of preoccupation is for Micro to go into the bathroom with Sean while he gets ready for work. Micro directs Daddy's morning routine, beginning by insisting that he, µg, flush the toilet after Sean is finished. He watches Sean closely to make sure Daddy brushes his teeth properly. Next he tells Sean to get in the shower, opening and closing the shower door for him. Micro gets a towel from the cabinet and places it just so outside the shower door. During Sean's shower, he messes around with anything he can reach on the countertop. Once he's bored with that, he comes back out into the bedroom to get the stool so he can watch the rest of the routine more closely.

He hands Sean the towel and observes the drying-off process. Sean goes to the sink to begin shaving, and Micro gets up on the stool. He tells Sean to put the razor, aka the "shaver", on the far side of the sink so Micro himself can't grab it. He watches intently while Sean applies shaving cream and starts to shave. Micro always tells Daddy if he misses a spot, of course.

After observing shaving, µg selects a shirt for Sean to wear to work. Sean selects pants, a belt, and socks that match so he won't look like a clown, while prompting Micro to select the same socks to give the appearance that µg picked them out himself. Micro then selects a pair of boxers. Sean must hide Micro's favorite orange plaid pair because µg began to pick them every day, we assume since orange is his favorite color. Micro then watches Daddy get dressed and makes sure that he looks presentable. After that, he's back to harassing me to go downstairs or to allow him to jump on his brother to wake him up ("Where's Liam?" he says, with a devilish grin).

It's not just Daddy's morning routine that µg manages. He tells me how to do everything, including, but certainly not limited to, driving, turning on the faucet, and making his toga at bath time. I think (hope) this is just a phase since he's learning more words everyday and he likes to describe everything. It's his somewhat bossy tone that really makes him µg. His constant use of the word "need" when he means "want" reinforces the image - "I need to play with the pirate ship." "I need more banana." "I need to go outside", and so on, all day long. We're now actively working on using "want".

So, other than micro-managing, what's been happening? Since I'm a fan of gymnastics, I've been needlessly preoccupied with the Chinese gymnasts age controversy. Check out the American hacker's blog - I'm not remotely a computer expert, but it looks to me like there's been cheating. I'm doubting anything will come of it, though. Oh well, life's not fair, but then we all know that.

Off the soapbox, and back to the boys - it's been rainy here for almost two weeks, so we've been stuck inside more often than I'd like. You see, the boys get worn out much easier when they play outside, since it's hot here even when it's cloudy. Therefore, I try to take them outside quite often. One day it was just overcast so I set up their water play table and gave them some watering cans and other toys. Splashmaster Liam (he has nicknames too) went crazy splashing water everywhere and eventually calmed down enough to water the plants and my feet. Graeme was more subdued but still enjoyed himself.

Liam waters the bushes

G-man stalks me with a squirting killer whale

One particularly rainy day, I got out the trampoline which we hadn't used in a couple of months. I used to jump on it with them because they couldn't really coordinate lifting both feet at once. Now they jump around on their own all the time thanks to My Gym and Kindermusik, so I was told by both of them that they would jump alone. When I tried to jump by myself on the trampoline, both Micro and Liam told me to get off and "go over there, Mommy".

And stay off!

Well that's it for now. I've got a few funny situations to write about next, plus I need to download video so I can post the Many Walks of Liam. As they say over here, Cheers!