The Minister of Silly Walks

When it comes to living with Harrison, I feel like I'm trapped in a Monty Python sketch a good bit of the time. His "personality" is equally exhausting and entertaining. It is never a dull moment with my middle child. He has had many nicknames over these 3 short years. First the Nano-napper, because I swear that child never slept and if he did it was never for more than a 15 minute power nap. Lately, I've taken to refering to him as "Captain Fearless" because he charges head first without fear into things such as swim lessons and conversely is frightened of long sleeve shirts because "the sun will be up and it will make me hot. It's scary." Most recently I've dubbed him my Minister of Silly Walks. Below are some of my recent favorite pictures of my funny man.

A sweet picture of Harrison keeping vigil with a recovering Millie. Note: she is on the couch when she is not allowed on the couch. He told me, "she's sick Mommy. She needed the couch." (Millie had just returned from the vet post spay surgery, hence why she is recovering.)

Harrison has taken to playing a new game with me recently. He poses and asks me how he looks. Then poses again and asks how he looks now. This will go on and on and on until he falls over laughing because Mommy is making up words to describe how he looks. Here are some of his "poses." Note: almost all of them require his tongue to be ouside of his mouth.
Harrison has always been an independent dresser. If I let him get away with it he would only wear two outfits. He's a very smart little guy and has figured my system out though. I refuse to argue with him about what he is going to wear, simply because I don't have the energy. I do, however, insist that he put on clean clothes every day. Now every morning he just pulls his favorite shirt out of his hamper and brings it to me to wash. Then he pesters me all day that "we" have laundry to do. Of course, he does thanks me profusely when I comply and tells me "you're the best mommy in the whole wide world." Hmmm. I'm starting to wonder if this positive reinforcement tactic of shaping his behavior is working on the wrong person here.

He really loves these goggles.

This is a typical Harrison ensemble.


Harrison has always been my climber. And after recently finding him scaling the entertainment center, almost all our furniture is now bolted to walls, thank you very much. Finally, we have a yard with a good climbing tree. Here he is in his favorite spot.
The day I took this picture, Garth had ripped up a weed masquerading as a shrub in our backyard. I had roped Griffin and even Maclin into helping haul the limbs away. My attempts to get Harrison to help were futile, obviously. "I'm busy Mommy."

Since Harrison's Nite Nite Friends are such an integral part of his play I suggested recently that we take all their pictures. After we carefully posed each one individually and then took their portrait, naturally he had to check and oversee each photograph I took, he decided he needed a group shot with him in it. Now we are working on writing a story about each of his friends. (Front Left to Right is: Elmo, Sweaty the Bunny (yes sweaty as in I just ran a marathon and am now all sweaty-thx Rob), Puppy, Baby Igor the Unicorn, Sunny Bear, Navajo, Googy White Face, Mr. Sharky, Honey and Harrison)

Most of you know what a trial is has been introducing Maclin into the household. Griffin has been amazing and almost too helpful when it comes to taking care of "the baby." I guess it's that take charge first born attitude kicking in. With Harrison, it has been more challenging. For the first year, Harrison just denied he existed. When questioned, he would merely change the subject. Several months ago, he started refering to Maclin as "Griffin's baby brother." Now I am proud to say my big little boy has turned a corner and is sometimes even sweet to "my cutest little baby Maclin." Here I finally caught him doing something nice.


Harrison is the most precious blessing. I am truly humbled to have the awesome responsibility of being his mother. All three of my boys teach me more every day than I think I can ever teach them in my lifetime. But enough of that mushy stuff. I have to go now. It's my turn to wear the cape and save Baby Igot the Unicorn from the angry pirates that have invaded the playroom.

Next post I'll delve into swim lessons and gymnastics.